Surge protector

[bgsc]

Best insurance you can get to protect your electrical system and all your toys, I would not be without one

[vraines]

We camped for a number of years without a surge protector. Two months back in our RV garage, one side of the 50 amp circuit outlet came disconnected and flashed over before becoming completely disconnected. That blew up the outlet box, melted the shore power plug, blew the inverter, refrigerator circuit board and microwave oven. All total, it was a four figure repair bill, not to mention that out of caution, I rewired that circuit in the garage with 6/4 wire. I bought a surge protector from Camping World (it was on sale), should have done that years ago, as it would likely have prevented this disaster, which caused a trip cancellation. That trip was to the iRV Rally in Iowa. As I was pondering my naval about this event I recalled that we lost an inverter five years back on another motor home. I suspect that we encountered a dropped common connection at a campsite and the problem did not appear until we were on the road the following day.

[NeilV]

While they protect from catastrophic failures they also help prevent many failures that most will just chalk up to normal maintenance. We pay for too many repairs that are just due to bad power at campgrounds. When I first got my RV my first thought was that they used really poor quality components when I had a transfer switch failure, AC blower burned out, motor hard start unit burn't and the list went on. When the warranty expired and I had to pay for these repairs out of my own pocket it became even more critical to me.

I saw others having the same problems and then I put in a Surge Guard. Now the problem became the Surge Guard shutting power down because of extended low voltage events at campgrounds. If you hit the bypasse then your are just back to having components fail prematurely due to running on low volatage however how do you tell the wife and kids that they can't have power when it's 100 degress out. You also have to deal with any pets that are not bread for or accustomed to high temperatures getting stressed from the heat.

Now I have both a Surge Guard to take the hit from a power surge and an voltage boosting AutoFormer to bring the voltage back up to spec during brown outs. It goes into boost mode much earlier than the Surge Guard goes into a low voltage shut down. We I first installed it it became quite an eye opener to realize that a good part of the day just about every campground that I stayed at was running at voltages low enough to cause premature equipment failures in my coach.

I have not replaced another failed motor, control board or transfer switch component since installing the AutoFormer about 7 years ago. It has more than payed for itself over the years.

[dsbike]

Clyde1890, you don't state what year, model of Winnebago you own. You may have one built in from the factory, I do. Now with that said, I do have and use a Progressive Ind protector that plugs into the campground post at the end of my power cable.

I had my Progressive Ind device fail and I had to send it back, I believe this failure was a bad unit not a surge to cause a fault. While my protector was in transit for repair I plugged in & the built in protector would not let my motor home receive shore power. Which was due to a bad ground at the pedestal. So I know the protector in the motor home is working. I use the progresive protector to safe gaurd my cable & as the first line of defense to poor camp ground power or a surge in power.

I am stating this because as I said you may already have a surge protector built in & there is really no need to spend the money on another hardwired unit to place it in your motor home, one to install at the pedestal is just a matter of how safe you think you should be protected. I would not have bought one if I had this motor home then wanted one. But since I have the sugre protector I use it.

[NeilV]

Personally I like multiple levels of protection. If my SurgeGuard takes a hit from a surge or fails due to long term brownouts my AutoFormer will also provide backup surge protection while the SurgeGuard is being repaired. SurgeGuard is local to me so I can just hop on the bike and drop the unit off and pick it up again. However if the AutoFormer takes the hit and it was my only means of protection I now lose the one unit that not only protects from surges but also corrects low voltage events so now my coach is totally exposed to damages.

We have mutiple fire walls along with surge protection and batter backups on our computers starting with the ones in the routers and cable modems and then internal to each computer to prevent damages so what stint on our RV where the damages can get much more costly.