Surge protector?

plasticmaster wrote:
Okay, another really dumb question, but i have to ask. If the pedestal were wired wrong or had a bad ground, wouldn't the person who was on that site just hours before you have reported it to campground manager? I'm just trying to understand all of this.

In some cases yes, in places that flood a bunch someone has to hook up first.
Never know what happens while the site is under water.

I had bad rain one night, woke up with water past my wheels ( I was in the lake, scary )
I had my cord off the ground, but water can cause crazy shorts under ground and at the box.

I unhooked and drove off as fast as I could, only about 3 inches of water.

Bumpyroad wrote:

plasticmaster wrote:
So let's say you have a good surge protector that also protects from too low and too high voltage. Now, let's say you have a waterfront reservation at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys and when you get there and plug in, there's a low voltage issue and the protector won't connect. Very likely, the campground is full and most certainly another waterfront site is not available. What do you do in this situation when every other camper is plugged in and running the AC full blast?

bypass the SP and limit use to non "sensitive" appliances, and alternate use of generator to keep cool.
bumpy

What Bumpy mentioned is exactly what we did last summer. Temps were in the low 90's, a lot of AC in use and our EMS tripped from low voltage. We were in a shaded area, so changed the fridge to gas only, no AC and ran both Fantastic Fans and opened windows. During the day we used the fans to pull in air and push it out the roof. When the temps went down, we reversed the fans to pull in the cool air.

plasticmaster wrote:
If the pedestal were wired wrong or had a bad ground, wouldn't the person who was on that site just hours before you have reported it to campground manager?

How do you know the safety ground on your wall receptacle is working or connected? You do not until someone is shocked or harmed.

plasticmaster wrote:
Okay, another really dumb question, but i have to ask. If the pedestal were wired wrong or had a bad ground, wouldn't the person who was on that site just hours before you have reported it to campground manager? I'm just trying to understand all of this.

I thought that a lot of these issues accumulate the damage, like low voltage on a compressor, problems develop over time
BUMPY

plasticmaster wrote:
Okay, another really dumb question, but i have to ask. If the pedestal were wired wrong or had a bad ground, wouldn't the person who was on that site just hours before you have reported it to campground manager?

I think you will find that most people don't even have so much as a voltage meter. I was in a nice campground where the voltage dropped to 99, but nobody "had a problem."

Okay, another really dumb question, but i have to ask. If the pedestal were wired wrong or had a bad ground, wouldn't the person who was on that site just hours before you have reported it to campground manager? I'm just trying to understand all of this.

plasticmaster wrote:
So let's say you have a good surge protector that also protects from too low and too high voltage. Now, let's say you have a waterfront reservation at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys and when you get there and plug in, there's a low voltage issue and the protector won't connect. Very likely, the campground is full and most certainly another waterfront site is not available. What do you do in this situation when every other camper is plugged in and running the AC full blast?

Another option besides a generator would be a Hughes or Franks autoformer to boost the voltage. Am thinking about getting one but they're not cheap.

Low voltage is one of those things kinda like say, a critical illness that you hear about a lot and think it will never happen to you, and then whammy, it happens to you out of the blue one day. Have run into low voltage a number of times, but never as bad as at one Thousand Trails last year. Pulled into a site after a tiring trip late in the day only to find that the voltage was 106 before we even turned anything on. Not good. Got the "maintenance" dude (unlicensed electrician) to check it out and he adamantly insisted it was perfectly fine because he had just replaced the recepts. in the pedestal. Grrr. No choice but to dry camp overnight (and we're not dry campers). Pffft. Got up early next morning (no power, no coffee, no breakfast) to find another site that the "maintenance" dude suggested only to find it was equally bad. Ended up at a 3rd site in an area of 50 amps and that was good. If that wasn't bad enough, the day we got up to leave, the entire CG had no water because some RV-er broke a faucet at a pedestal (again, no morning coffee).

plasticmaster wrote:
So let's say you have a good surge protector that also protects from too low and too high voltage. Now, let's say you have a waterfront reservation at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys and when you get there and plug in, there's a low voltage issue and the protector won't connect. Very likely, the campground is full and most certainly another waterfront site is not available. What do you do in this situation when every other camper is plugged in and running the AC full blast?

In that case I would probably hook up without the surge gard, and just not run my air conditioner. In my case, the air con is the most likely thing to be potentially damaged by low voltage.

plasticmaster wrote:
So let's say you have a good surge protector that also protects from too low and too high voltage. Now, let's say you have a waterfront reservation at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys and when you get there and plug in, there's a low voltage issue and the protector won't connect. Very likely, the campground is full and most certainly another waterfront site is not available. What do you do in this situation when every other camper is plugged in and running the AC full blast?

bypass the SP and limit use to non "sensitive" appliances, and alternate use of generator to keep cool.
bumpy

plasticmaster wrote:
So let's say you have a good surge protector that also protects from too low and too high voltage. Now, let's say you have a waterfront reservation at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys and when you get there and plug in, there's a low voltage issue and the protector won't connect. Very likely, the campground is full and most certainly another waterfront site is not available. What do you do in this situation when every other camper is plugged in and running the AC full blast?

Camp without electricity or if that's not acceptable to you go get a generator. ;)