Surge protector...yes or no and.....

[Bob K4TAX]

We, too, have a Progressive Industries EMS HW50C and I strongly suggest that the OP consider one of the EMS devices made by Progressive and not just the smart surge suppressor. IMO the chances of damage are far greater from things such as miswired pedestals than they are from true surges. From what I read on Progressive's website, its surge suppressors have "miswired pedestal indicators" rather than having the ability of preventing the power from a miswired pedestal from ever entering your RV. Yes, you pay a bit more for the EMS but IMHO it is worth it

I view traveling without a surge protector as the same as traveling without a spare tire. It just isn't too smart.

And the surge protector should always be the first thing plugged into the power post and the last thing unplugged. Always start with the breaker OFF and leave it that way when departing. Hot plugging and unplugging are both ill-advised! It is largely the reason for loose or burnt female contacts.

 

[docj]

Several years ago, at the RV site in Rockport TX that we own, we started having strange electrical problems. At the time we had the Surgeguard equivalent of the Progressive HW50C. Every once in a while our power would cut off for ~a minute and then come back on. To make a long story short this continued for a week or two and I finally decided to replace the Surgeguard with a Progressive, simply making the assumption that the Surgeguard had become defective. To my horror the problem continued only now the power would come back on after ~30 seconds.

Fortunately, the Progressive has the ability to display the "previous fault" and, sure enough each time the power came back on the previous fault registered as "Line 2 high voltage" which means that the measured voltage on Line 2 was above the prescribed limit (which I think is set at 127V). With this piece of information I then called our power company and their technician tightened every junction between my pedestal and the distribution transformer. Sure enough, that resolved the problem; it had been an "intermittent floating neutral" which was causing one of the legs of the split phase 240V circuit to show a "transitory" high voltage condition.

What was happening was that this high voltage was causing both the Surgeguard and the Progressive to shut down the power. The key difference was that the Surgeguard didn't have a "previous fault" indicator so it simply came back on after its reset time delay and we had no way of knowing what was wrong. The difference in the length of the reset times was why the power came back on after a different time interval with the two devices.

As the power company technician was packing up his gear he remarked that "only you RVers own equipment sensitive to notice this sort of thing."

That one experience was enough to make me a believe in the importance of an EMS. If the "intermittent" floating neutral had persisted for to the point where it was "on" more than it was off, serious damage could have occurred.

 

[Bob K4TAX]

We, too, have a Progressive Industries EMS HW50C and I strongly suggest that the OP consider one of the EMS devices made by Progressive and not just the smart surge suppressor. IMO the chances of damage are far greater from things such as miswired pedestals than they are from true surges. From what I read on Progressive's website, its surge suppressors have "miswired pedestal indicators" rather than having the ability of preventing the power from a miswired pedestal from ever entering your RV. Yes, you pay a bit more for the EMS but IMHO it is worth it.

A bit of caution when first setting up camp, specifically getting power to the RV.

Assure and start with the power post breaker OFF. Plug in the surge arrestor or EMS. Flip on the breaker and observe the LED's. If anything is abnormal, turn off the breaker and contact camp management.

If the LED's indicate all is good, then flip OFF the breaker and plug in the cord to the camper. Turn on the breaker. All should be good to go. It is a BAD practice to hotplug or unplug anything.

When finished camping, first flip the breaker to OFF, unplug the cord, unplug the surge protector and close the power post lid, leaving the breaker in the OFF position for the next folks.

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

To the OP - YES, Always use electrical protection.

We use the 50A Hughes Power Watchdog EPO