Bigfoot ground wires?

[TxGearhead]

So are the 3 wires on the Bigfoot front drivers side tiedown ground wires? Since the camper doesn't have a frame to ground to I'm assuming that's what they are. But under what circumstances are they grounding? The camper would ground through the power cord while on the truck and the 30 amp cord while using campground hookups.
It's gotta be some simple reason I'm not seeing.

[burningman]

Bigfeet and Northern Lites have ground wires tied one of the forward tie down brackets, what you have is factory and normal.

[TxGearhead]

Thanks Jim. You're on it. I hadn't thought through the "hot rv" issue.

[bigfootford]

TxGearhead wrote:
Ok. Earth ground through the jack makes good sense.

Yep. If you have the camper 7pin plugged into your truck then the truck will have a ground via that jack being down...

If the jack is not down and you were plugged into shore power and something happened that the shore power ground in the camper had a "leak" then the truck would become "Hot with the leak". Touch the truck and get a "BITE", shock.

I have encountered this situation on some folks metal trailers and other RV's. Touch the door handle and get a "BITE".... Fixed a few for folks.

Jim

[TxGearhead]

Ok. Earth ground through the jack makes good sense.

[bigfootford]

stevenal wrote:
RVs in general use a 12 V negative ground system. With no metallic frame to ground, there is still lots of metal to ground in the camper and much more in the truck. Connection to the tie down ensures truck is part of this system even when the cord is detached. When the truck is running, the systems are no longer isolated, and you want protection to operate in case of ground faults.

The other wire is to extend the ground of the AC system. Safest to always bond.

Don't know about the third wire, mine has two.

Correct!

[bigfootford]

My 2000 9.6 2500 has 2 of them. Provides earth ground when that jack is down.

On mine there is a pipe ground clamp attached to the propane line where it passes through the step of the bed At this point there is several ground wires together at the clamp.
Both the Negative from the 12vdc system and the 120vdc ground are attached. Think this is common practice for many Rv mfg...

Jim

[TxGearhead]

^^^I guess I'm on the same page but grounding through the tiedown doesn't seem the best. The path would be through the Fastguns and through the truck tiedowns. I suppose there is enough bare metal in that path to allow electrons to flow to the truck frame. I'm not wanting to run a separate ground wire from camper to truck but.....

[stevenal]

RVs in general use a 12 V negative ground system. With no metallic frame to ground, there is still lots of metal to ground in the camper and much more in the truck. Connection to the tie down ensures truck is part of this system even when the cord is detached. When the truck is running, the systems are no longer isolated, and you want protection to operate in case of ground faults.

The other wire is to extend the ground of the AC system. Safest to always bond.

Don't know about the third wire, mine has two.

[GULFMAN]

Mine is also grounded to the front right tie down point.

[Sango]

Ours has them also. Think it’s on all the Bigfoot campers.

[donn0128]

Im assuming someone added them. Normal grounding would be through the battery. Either vehicle or house. Or the 120VAC circuits are grounded via the shore power cord. There is no need to ground between vehicle and camper.