Forum Discussion
- briansueExplorer
What I have learned in life is that there is always someone else who knows better. That is to say that if I get a new crown in New York, my dentist in San Antonio will criticize it. If I have a new central A/C installed in my house in San Antonio, the guy who comes to do the service will say it's all wrong.
I don't know better than anyone but I do know AC electricity works one way. It is not better or worse - it is just the way it is. Neutral is always neutral and hot is always hot and anything else can kill you. You could bend the rules and get away with it sometimes but not all the time. Best to stick with the facts and not reinvent the wheel. - qtla9111Nomad
Talleyho69 wrote:
We've read about it in National Geographic a long time ago, and will visit!
Yes, common sense isn't.
Thanks for sharing your location and the picture!
Interesting you mentioned NG. They say that there is a place called Las Playitas (you can find it in Google) here in the area that was first published by NG and it sent people in droves who literally destroyed the place. It is now off limits and NG says they will never share the info again in their publications. All of the places here are highly protected. They have guards, operating hours, no camping, no picnics, nothing. Cameras, video, and frequent daily visits by state/local police and military keep things in order. A great series of YouTube videos (en espanol) can be found that explain the story and history.
I will say though, it is a jewel and we are enjoying it here. The town is also a pueblo magico. Very nice place. Just three hours from Saltillo. - Talleyho69ModeratorWe've read about it in National Geographic a long time ago, and will visit!
Yes, common sense isn't.
Thanks for sharing your location and the picture! - qtla9111NomadBrian, it wasn't advice. I like you or anyone else who would read this forum and take verbatim the advice would be foolish. My point was that the regulations exist but most people just don't follow them.
What I have learned in life is that there is always someone else who knows better. That is to say that if I get a new crown in New York, my dentist in San Antonio will criticize it. If I have a new central A/C installed in my house in San Antonio, the guy who comes to do the service will say it's all wrong.
This is what I found today on our walk in the plaza in Cuatro Cienegas. Kids everywhere and parents smart enough to watch their children and teach them basic common sense. No one is born with it.
BTW, Cuatro Cienegas is a protected area and has pozas which contain micro-bacterias from 3.5 billion years. The white gypsum dunes are incredible and the town is a pueblo magico. We are staying at the Hotel Mission in the main plaza for 250 pesos a night including electric and wifi. There are only a few parking spaces but it is fantastic here. It was 30C today.
Here is the Poza Azul. - briansueExplorerHere are a couple more basic tools every RV tool box should have.....
Here is the basic POLARITY TESTER that can usually be found for under $10US
Click For Full-Size Image.
Here is a basic Multi Meter with voltage meters etc. which can usually be found for under $20 - briansueExplorer
Great post and right on the point. How many people can I find on Craigslist who say they are licensed and for a few bucks will do anything I ask and that's in the U.S.
Here in Mexico we've done just about everything that it says you're not supposed to. I use an extension cord with out a male end, two open wires and hang them on the fuses in the box for the well in the front yard. Works great.
When we built our house in Monterrey we had to wait (way back then) for the electric to be connected. We made an extension cord with two male ends and sent power from my neighbor's house to ours. It got us through our first week. Granted, we used it for minor draws.
People get to worked up over the rules. The best rule is common sense.
Sorry Chris but COMMON SENSE sure flew out the window on this post. Sure hope no one pays any attention to stuff like this - very bad advice.
Here's a quote from Chris a few weeks ago with some better COMMON SENSE advice......
https://forums.goodsamclub.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/29100370/srt/pa/pging/1/page/2.cfm
I guess I'm not sure why so many are so eager to avoid the rules. If you're not sure what the rule is, go by what the book says, you can never go wrong. Someone may have had a different experience, but as time has shown us here on the forum, it will someday bite someone in the behind. - briansueExplorerHere is some stuff from a website called No Shock Zone by an electrician named Mike Sokol. If you really want to know more you can go to the website to learn a lot of basic stuff every RVer should know about electricity.
We are seeing some bad advice on this forum. Hopefully some of you readers are smart enough to weed out the nonsense and recognize that there most certainly are rules regarding electricity that cannot and should not be broken. Sometimes breaking rules will get you killed. No – you cannot jump out of an airplane without a parachute because you cannot fly. Would you jump off a cliff because some fool did it?
To try to be clear. I am trying to explain how you should properly wire your own equipment and how to test outlets in RV parks to make sure they are wired properly. I have clearly said on this forum many times that wiring in Mexico can leave a great deal to be desired. But there are rules whether they are followed or not. Test any outlet you plug into no matter where you are. If the outlet is not wired properly do not plug into it. Go get the manager and tell them to fix the outlet - or find another outlet that is properly wired. Do not rewire your equipment or your RV to suit the RV parks negligence. They will get you killed!
You are probably not going to able to see what colors the person who wired the RV park used. But basic tests can easily and quickly tell you if they are wired properly.
http://noshockzone.org/category/rv-safety/
The No~Shock~Zone: Part IV – Hot Skin
Understanding and Preventing RV Electrical Damage
Copyright Mike Sokol 2010 – All Rights Reserved
If you’ve read the survey we did July 2010 in www.RVtravel.com, you know that 21% of RV owners who responded have been shocked by their vehicle. Review the 21% report at http://new.noshockzone.org/15/.
An RV Hot-Skin condition occurs when the frame of the vehicle is no longer at the same voltage potential as the earth around it. This is usually due to an improper power plug connection at a campsite or garage AC outlet. Now to be honest, I think the majority of campgrounds have properly wired and maintained power pedestals, but certainly there are instances where a campsite has outlets with reversed polarity or without proper grounding at all. But I’ve seen enough “rewiring” jobs to know that RV owners are also to blame for improper wiring of their own extension cords and 30-amp adapters.
The scenario could go something like this: You plug your RV plug into a loose or worn campsite power outlet. Everything seems fine until you crank up your air conditioner and turn on your coffee maker. That’s when you notice the smell of burning plastic and find that the male plug on your RV extension cord has melted down due to all that current going through a loose connection. Rather than throw that expensive extension cord away, you go to your local big box store and buy a new power plug. However, when you take the wires off of the old plug there’s no diagram to show you how to connect the new plug properly. If you guess right while putting on a new plug, then all is well. If you guess wrong, then you’ve reversed the polarity of your incoming AC power. After that it just takes the right combination of circumstances such as a rainstorm to wet the ground in front of your RV, and you touching the screen door with a damp hand while standing outside. That’s when you can get shocked or even electrocuted. The severity of the shock can vary from a mild tingle to stopping your heart, depending on how wet you and the ground are and the voltage of your RV skin. But make no mistake, rather than the 30 or 40 volts of a high-resistance tingle, it’s possible to have the skin of your RV go to 120 volts with full current of the campsite pedestal with 20, 30 or even 50 amps available.
This picture shows 15, 20, 30 amp outlets and what you should see if you test with a standard voltmeter. This picture also shows wiring colors.
Click For Full-Size Image.
This shows the back of a 30 amp outlet with proper wiring
Here is a 50 amp outlet showing voltages and colors
KLEIN tools quick voltage tester – Home Depot or Amazon about $20
FLUKE quick voltage tester
Proper quick voltage test. This will not tell you how much voltage – only that there is voltage. Purpose – to ensure there is no voltage on either NEUTRAL or GROUND and that the only voltage is seen on the HOT leg. NOTE – the NEUTRAL slot is longer than the HOT slot. Today’s two prong plugs will often have one blade larger than the other. You cannot plug the larger blade into the smaller slot. This ensures proper polarity. - briansueExplorerHopefully readers of this forum know better than to believe what the read on the internet. Following I will Copy & Paste from Wikipedia some very basic electrical info about basic electrical wiring and why wires are colored. This does not mean you should believe everything you read on Wikipedia either. But this comes from the National Electrical Code (NEC). Some readers may not understand this. If you do not understand this please do not ever attempt any wiring on your own. If someone tries to tell you anything other than what is written here they simply do not know what they are talking about. To clarify – if you read and understand this you will realize that connecting a HOT wire to NEUTRAL can put power to your GROUND and you will have serious problems. These are not my words. If you are going to attempt wiring and you do not understand this completely then you need to hire someone to do your wiring for you. You will find some very bad advice on this forum - and some very bad wiring in Mexico - but if you want to stay alive you will read and understand this - do not break rules when it comes to electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_and_neutral
As the neutral point of an electrical supply system is often connected to earth ground, ground and neutral are closely related. Under certain conditions, a conductor used to connect to a system neutral is also used for grounding (earthing) of equipment and structures. Current carried on a grounding conductor can result in objectionable or dangerous voltages appearing on equipment enclosures, so the installation of grounding conductors and neutral conductors is carefully defined in electrical regulations. Where a neutral conductor is used also to connect equipment enclosures to earth, care must be taken that the neutral conductor never rises to a high voltage with respect to local ground.
Ground or earth in a mains (AC power) electrical wiring system is a conductor that provides a low-impedance path to the earth to prevent hazardous voltages from appearing on equipment. (The terms "ground" and "earth" are used synonymously here. "Ground" is more common in North American English, and "earth" is more common in British English.) Under normal conditions, a grounding conductor does not carry current.
Neutral is a circuit conductor that normally carries current back to the source, and is connected to ground (earth) at the main electrical panel.
In the electrical trade, the conductor of a 2-wire circuit connected to the supply neutral point and earth ground is referred to as the "neutral".
All neutral wires of the same earthed (grounded) electrical system should have the same electrical potential, because they are all connected through the system ground. Neutral conductors are usually insulated for the same voltage as the line conductors, with interesting exceptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_wiring_in_North_America
Although much of the electrician's field terminology matches that of the electrical codes, usages can vary.
Neutral wire is the return conductor of a circuit; in building wiring systems, the neutral wire is connected to earth ground at least at one point. North American standards state that the neutral is neither switched nor fused except in very narrowly defined circumstances.
The United States electrical codes require that the neutral be connected to earth at the “service panel” only and at no other point within the building wiring system. Formally, the neutral is called the “grounded conductor”; as of the 2008 NEC, the terms “neutral conductor” and “neutral point” have been defined in the Code to record what had been common usage.
Hot is any conductor (wire or otherwise) connected with an electrical system that has electric potential relative to electrical ground or neutral. Electrical codes use the term "ungrounded."
Grounding is a normally non-current carrying conductor with a low impedance path to earth. It is often called the "ground wire," or safety ground. It is either bare or has green insulation.
Leg as in “hot leg” refers to one of multiple hot conductors in an electrical system. The most common residential and small commercial service in Canada and the U.S., single split-phase, 240 V, features a neutral and two hot legs, 240 V to each other, and 120 V each to the neutral.
Phase wire in a circuit may be black, red, orange (high leg delta) insulated wire, sometimes other colors, but never green, gray, or white (whether these are solid colors or stripes). Specific exceptions apply, such as a cable running to a switch and back (known as a traveler) where the white wire will be the hot wire feeding that switch. Another is for a cable used to feed an outlet for 250 VAC 15 or 20 amp appliances that do not need a neutral, there the white is hot (but should be identified as being hot, usually with black tape inside junction boxes).
The neutral wire is identified by gray or white insulated wire, perhaps using stripes or markings.
Grounding wire of circuit may be bare or identified insulated wire of green or having green stripes. All metallic systems in a building are to be bonded to the building grounding system, such as water, natural gas, HVAC piping, and others.
Larger wires are furnished only in black; these may be properly identified with suitable paint or tape.
In type NM cable, conductor insulation is color-coded for identification, typically one black, one white, and a bare grounding conductor. The National Electrical Code (NEC) specifies that the black conductor represent the hot conductor, with significant voltage to earth ground; the white conductor represent the identified or neutral conductor, near ground potential; and the bare/green conductor, the safety grounding conductor not normally used to carry circuit current. - qtla9111Nomad
Canadian Rainbirds wrote:
I must note here that for those in Mexico, DO NOT TRUST the colour codes used in Canada on the USA. Here there are so many so called electricians that use what ever wire comes to hand. I have seen green hots and black neutrals.
Earth Ground? often not connected. I have seen the neutral terminal bonded to the ground terminal on the outlets to fool the three terminal testers into showing that the plug was wired correctly.
Great post and right on the point. How many people can I find on Craigslist who say they are licensed and for a few bucks will do anything I ask and that's in the U.S.
Here in Mexico we've done just about everything that it says you're not supposed to. I use an extension cord with out a male end, two open wires and hang them on the fuses in the box for the well in the front yard. Works great.
When we built our house in Monterrey we had to wait (way back then) for the electric to be connected. We made an extension cord with two male ends and sent power from my neighbor's house to ours. It got us through our first week. Granted, we used it for minor draws.
People get to worked up over the rules. The best rule is common sense. - Canadian_RainbiExplorerI must note here that for those in Mexico, DO NOT TRUST the colour codes used in Canada on the USA. Here there are so many so called electricians that use what ever wire comes to hand. I have seen green hots and black neutrals.
Earth Ground? often not connected. I have seen the neutral terminal bonded to the ground terminal on the outlets to fool the three terminal testers into showing that the plug was wired correctly.
About Bucket List Trips
13,487 PostsLatest Activity: Jan 18, 2025