Been struck by lightning?

camperpaul wrote:

Dweikert wrote:

Interesting that the burn marks are on the power terminals while the ground looks unscathed.

The "burn marks" are what I expect to see after plugging in to a corroded outlet.

Farmerjon wrote:

X2
maybe because the neutral was grounded?

The round pin is "protective ground" not neutral.

(fixed the quote names:))

Properly wired, neutral and ground should be commoned at the distribution panel. The difference being current should not flow through the ground thus maintaining it's ground potential at all outlets. In a circuit drawing power, neutral will have current flow so there will be some voltage potential to ground measured at the outlet due to the drop across the neutral wire between the outlet and distribution panel.

I agree the burn marks look like usage in a corroded outlet, not to mention the terminals themselves look corroded. But I got the impression the photo was showing damage from the lightning strike and, if that is the case, it looks like poor grounding either in the camper or the outlet it was plugged into at the time.

While typing, it dawned that another option is the lightning induced a high voltage onto the power line so the burns could have come from voltage induced onto the panel side of the plug, not from the camper side. Though that would have affected other campers plugged in nearby.