Grounding fixed in place 5th wheel

[Hackerlyone]

Hey there everyone! New to the forums and I need a bit of electrical help. I've got 2 RVs, well a 5th wheel and an RV, one I live in and its fixed in place pretty much, it's a 35 foot old as dirt 5th wheel from I wanna say the late 80s or early 90s.... No idea TBH lol. Anyways it just sits there on the first, flat tires, been leveled and we ran two 120v 30amp wires from a warehouse nearby on the same property via a pole then dropped that down into a set of 2x2 plugs. The 5th wheel plugs into one of those plugs and some other stuff into the other 3. Anyways I think I need to ground this beezy and should ground this thing because I've got a lot of expensive electronics and radios in here and lately I've noticed a drop in my swr consistent with a bad ground so I've got an 8 foot copper grounding rod. I've got the clamps and 6awg wire. Now do I drive it in next to the pole, then run the ground from inside the outlet to the rid and then strip the paint from a section of the hull and clamp a wire from there to the same rod or what? Keep in mind I'm pretty poor even though I have some nice electronics (I saved forever or bought junk and broken stuff and fixed it) and I just straight out can't afford a lot of stuff. Asking the people who own the property and ran the wires and pole for he isn't a good idea, they won't do it or don't care and the less contact we have right now the better. So what to do? Ground rid bybpoke, poke to ground then clamp on frame to same ground? I've seen mobile homes call for 2 rods but they're wired totally different. Oh yeah it 120 not 240. Any help here would be great and anyone travelling to Sequoia National Park up the 198 hwy drop me a msg to BBQ

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Your grounding rod to your neutral connection (within the service drop transformer) will strongly hint whether or not you have a potential ground loop problem looming on the horizon. Measure the differential then retest for a few days running under different AC hotel loads.

Line to Neutral versus Line to Earth Ground voltage differential is another algebraic test.

Why is this important?

When it rains a problem can cause a lot of excitement within your electrical system.

Nearby large ground based industrial transformers can be hair raising experiences with poor soil conductivity. I have measured 247 volts line to line, and 320 volts line to earth ground.

[Hackerlyone]

The trailer is maybe ... I dunno... A foot would be generous, from the pole. Poke is right smack dab on the back corner. Am I okay for now just using the one 8 ft rod, hook pole and frame to it and upgrade to 2 later like a mobile home? That should be good I'm thinking. Do I need to have a common ground like in a regular house? Or what do they call it? Where you hook the phone, satellite, etc all to a common ground so there's no interference with each other? I just re grounded the telephone to a metal water spigot where it is on the warehouse, it then runs underground in a tube to me. Its only 2 wires on my side so that's gonna be complicated. Damnit! I srsly need an electrician! Lol! AbywTs thanks guys. I'm gonna go see who I can sucker to drive this ground rod in.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

A metal pipe water faucet also makes an excellent earth ground. Dripping from the faucet is well, too good to be true.

[time2roll]

That is a big list of equipment but no mention of an outlet tester.....

[joshuajim]

Hackerlyone wrote:
This is the Central Valley California guys. We're dry as a bone around here and have 120F Summers with daily temps over 100f basically every summer day. The ground is dry and there is no spots that get moisture lol. I'm thinking not putting the one pole I have into the ground a foot or 3 from the pole for now, grounding the frame and box to it like you said, then I'll add another ground rod when I can afford it. Is this acceptable you think? And cpukd the shocking me be from a switched hot/nue? Or could I have put a screw into a line? I've put more holes in the side of this thing... Anyways thanks for the help guys and see the post I'm gonna make, I wanba borrow those brains! We're upgrading security!

One problem you may be having is that standard ground rods sometimes do not work well in very dry areas. In the Mojave where I live, we have to use chemical grounds to be effective. Here's a typical installation.

Chemical ground

[Hackerlyone]

First off super appreciate the help here and wanna thank you all. Anyone ever heading to the Sequoia national park and needs a place to park for a night I'm extremely close to the park off the freeway and have dumping facility, power. S water for free. Just email me for the address and a meet up time. I wish I could offer more and it's very appreciated and sorry for ttaking so long to reply. And thanks Roy for the diagram! We want to make our other RV, which is our bugout vehicle in case shtf to get to our militia meet point, with mobile radios and antennas bit somehow hide a lot of it. We're even being heavily funded by them for it so that info helped a lot royb. Really appreciate that bro... And let's forget I said anything about a militia cough cough cough... Great opsec from the freaking radio guy there lol.

Anyways I've got a new problem: I got the ah** shocked out of me putting up some spit flood lights for security while touching the frame. I unplugged the lights As they were tied temp into a plug which went to an extension cord plugged into the trailer power on an outside plug. I unplugged it and think it stopped the problem. I don't see whats going on there, the lights are mounted to boxes on 2x4s then just placed on top of the trailer or in one case mounted to the side with screws to hold it upright but it's sitting on the lift up back window covering. I need to go check and make sure it's not shocking me still....that's gonna be fun lol. I've ubugfed all my radios but my laptop's and computers as well as my security cams n DVR are still going. To my knowledge they ran 2 120v 30amp lines in the air from the warehouse to a pole on the corner we installed, then dropped it down straight to the 2 receptacle plufs, 2 sets of 2 plugs each, each one tied into a 120v line. We if the 5th wheel big black cord to one, then fill the other 3 with a Window air-conditioning unit, a smaller, new one on the opposite plug from the house, then on the 2ns plug for the one with the 5th wheel plugged in I run a thick, yellow, heavy duty extension cord inside, it has a receptacle and box with 2 plugs on it, inside. On that plug I run a wifi box and a power strip with breaker with I think 3 or 4 of the 12vdc convertors for some of the cameras n I think it may have an LED houselight on there too. The other plug has the AC and a new outside full size fridge on it I think. It's actually doesn't draw as much power as it sounds. The house has a laptop inside, the rest of the cams convertors and a DVR inside, then outside it has 4 lights, 2 big ones of the type like you would use to light up a large area from American lights but they say they don't take up as much power, then it has 2 flood lights plugged into it. Oh wait correction, the fridge goes to a power strip which we then use to power another motion sensing spot light on the power pole. The strip is housed in a homemade water tight box. It's on the sane 120v line as AC.

This is the Central valley California guys. We're dry as a bone around here and have 120F Summers with daily temps over 100f basically every summer day. The ground is dry and there is no spots that get moisture lol. I'm thinking not putting the one pole I have into the ground a foot or 3 from the pole for now, grounding the frame and box to it like you said, then I'll add another ground rod when I can afford it. Is this acceptable you think? And cpukd the shocking me be from a switched hot/nue? Or could I have put a screw into a line? I've put more holes in the side of this thing... Anyways thanks for the help guys and see the post I'm gonna make, I wanba borrow those brains! We're upgrading security!

[MrWizard]

To the op
Go ahead put in two ground rods
One at the pole outlets
One at the 5th wheel and ground your frame

[MrWizard]

Wow!
Can't complain about extra safety, except for the chore of installing it all

[ScottG]

MrWizard wrote:
NEC is for the service drop panel to be grounded
Back when I did new home construction
We drove the ground rod next to the house right where the service drop was located
And run the ground wire from the service drop to the driven ground

The wire run from the warehouse to the pole should be (3) wires for 120v

If there are 3 wires get somebody to check the connections

If you have SWR problems, I would start checking equipment an antenna grounds

Now they want dual ground rods even at the sub panels. Just went through inspection after installing an entire service. We put in a standard 100A RV panel and even that got two rods!
We put in two at the meter box, 2 at he main panel (actually a sub) and two at the RV port.
6 rods!!!

[MrWizard]

NEC is for the service drop panel to be grounded
Back when I did new home construction
We drove the ground rod next to the house right where the service drop was located
And run the ground wire from the service drop to the driven ground

The wire run from the warehouse to the pole should be (3) wires for 120v

If there are 3 wires get somebody to check the connections

If you have SWR problems, I would start checking equipment an antenna grounds

[Tiger02]

I would drive that ground rod in some place close that sees consistent moisture and ground it straight to your frame. Also double check your power inlet to ensure a good ground connection to the pedestal.

I remember in areas with a low water table we would S roll a ground wire from the radio beneath our dipoles to help out with an artificial ground plane.

I remember living in remote locations such as Kenya back in the day and how great an asset it was to us to have the MARS folks to do relays through.

[ScottG]

The only thing missing from Roy's diagram above is a new NEMA requirement for a second ground rod placed 8' form the first. They are to be connected by a single, continuous 6 awg wire buried 3~4" in the ground.

[time2roll]

Primary electric grounding should be through a wire back to the main supply panel.

[RoyB]

Keep in mind your normal TRAILER SKIN GROUNDING is accomplished through the SHORE POWER three wire connection to 120VAc SOURCE connections...

Pretty much like this campground PEDESTAL drawing is done...

google image

Make sure your SHORE POWER connections are to code using one of these 120VAc CIRCUIT TESTERS...


Also be sure your 30AMP SERVICE is measured with a MULTIMETER and conform to these readings between the three shore power connections...

30A SERVICE


NOTE: you want to see a very low AC reading between the NEUTRAL and GROUND wire connections coming from the 120AC SOURCE...

If extension cords are involved here coming from the 120VAc Source connections all three conductors must be used. Some folks like to cut the ground terminals off their extension cords for whatever reasons...

I use heavy duty contractor grade 10-GAUGE YELLOW COLOR Extension Cords here...

My OFF-ROAD POPUP TRAILER setup has this layout with external Ham Radio antennas installed on the roof edge around my popup roof. The only time I have ever drove a copper rod into the ground for these antennas was when I was using RG COAX feeding my OFF-CENETER all band 75M through 10M Wire Antenna. This is up in the air approximately 25-feet at the feed point point and may be as high as 40-50 feet up into some tree limbs connections... The overall length of the antenna wires are at 135 Feet long but fed off center. Separately Grounding the RG Coax outer braid helps big time with this antenna. The other roof mounted antennas are only grounded to the metal flange of the roof. My TARHEEL SCREWDRIVER Antenna is grounded to the lower frame of the POPUP trailer with a separate wire and works just fine for the 75M through 40M bands it is most used for... I have two 5-foot sections of 3-inch tripod tower sections that fold down to the rear bumper of the trailer. When folded up I use a metal center conductor section up the middle of the tower sections to get up to around 25-feet off the ground to hold my wire antenna center section for my OFF-CENTER 135-foot wire antenna. Then I get the wire leads up into the trees that gives me a INVERTERD VEE so to speak with the center feed at 25-feet above my trailer and the outer wires up around 40-50 supported by high tree limbs keeping my VEE angle as shallow as possible... This out-performs my TARHEEL Screwdriver antenna big time haha... My HF RADIO is a ICOM 706MKII using remote head... My VHF/UHF radio is a Kenwood TM-V708A... My second VHF/UHF antenna on my POPUP trailer roof feeds a scanner radio...


Roy's image

All of my Ham Radio RG cables outer coax are separately grounded here at my permanent setup locations at my house using a large copper rod going into the ground where my HAM Radio antenna Coax leaves the structure area...

Been doing this OFF-ROAD Ham Radio operations using this setup since 2009... I also have about the same capability installed in my truck as well including the TARHEEL Screwdriver antenna and two VHF/UHF side mount antennas.

My original love was getting up into the wooded high country between VA and WVA behind Harrisonburg VA along the winding state line and running ECOM nets with our MARS RADIO nets... That part has all closed down now so about all I get to do now is just do alot of yaking on the radios anymore...

All of this is definitely a dying breed anymore...

Roy Ken