Electrical issue - Mine or Theirs?

[GlasNav]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

OK y'all, thanks again for all of your responses and suggestion, sorry I didn't follow up quicker. It comes down to either the breaker or receptacle on the pedestal.
I'm going to stay with the hookup I have now thru the 30A power supply. The campground personnel are super busy and they asked if I could live with it until Monday.

Did they leave a dry chem fire extinguisher at the pedestal?

[rhagfo]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

OK y'all, thanks again for all of your responses and suggestion, sorry I didn't follow up quicker. It comes down to either the breaker or receptacle on the pedestal.
I'm going to stay with the hookup I have now thru the 30A power supply. The campground personnel are super busy and they asked if I could live with it until Monday.

Well I don’t understand your conclusion, if I understand correctly you have two plug in EMSs. The 50 amp shows power on both sides, but no amp draw on one leg. Now you broke a major rule in troubleshooting, you changed two things at once. You moved to the 30 amp outlet AND used your 30 amp EMS. So you have two possible issues, the outlet, OR the EMS.
I suggest you place your 30 to 50 amp dog bone in the 30 amp outlet then plug the 50 amp EMS into the dog one and see if you have power on both sides of the power panel. My guess based on information provided is the output outlet on the 50 amp EMS bad.
Yes, the 50 amp will work in this setup, we have a hard wired. 50 amp EMS and it works when connected to a 30 amp outlet with dog bone.

[GlasNav]

Originally Posted by rhagfo

Well I don’t understand your conclusion, if I understand correctly you have two plug in EMSs. The 50 amp shows power on both sides, but no amp draw on one leg. Now you broke a major rule in troubleshooting, you changed two things at once. You moved to the 30 amp outlet AND used your 30 amp EMS. So you have two possible issues, the outlet, OR the EMS.
I suggest you place your 30 to 50 amp dog bone in the 30 amp outlet then plug the 50 amp EMS into the dog one and see if you have power on both sides of the power panel. My guess based on information provided is the output outlet on the 50 amp EMS bad.
Yes, the 50 amp will work in this setup, we have a hard wired. 50 amp EMS and it works when connected to a 30 amp outlet with dog bone.

The problem has been isolated, and I really wouldn't question a retired electrical engineer in regards to his findings and conclusion!

[rhagfo]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

OK y'all, thanks again for all of your responses and suggestion, sorry I didn't follow up quicker. It comes down to either the breaker or receptacle on the pedestal.
I'm going to stay with the hookup I have now thru the 30A power supply. The campground personnel are super busy and they asked if I could live with it until Monday.

I am going to ask how you cane to that conclusion when the 50 amp EMS shows voltage on both legs when plugged into the 50 amp outlet.

I do have a question about how you connect to the pedestal, do you turn off the breaker before plugging in the EMS, do you then plug your power cord to the EMS before or after you turn on the breaker?

[Old Mustanger]

yes I make sure all breakers are off before connecting anything.

[rhagfo]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

OK y'all, thanks again for all of your responses and suggestion, sorry I didn't follow up quicker. It comes down to either the breaker or receptacle on the pedestal.
I'm going to stay with the hookup I have now thru the 30A power supply. The campground personnel are super busy and they asked if I could live with it until Monday.

Well did the campground personnel make to your site today??

[Old Mustanger]

Originally Posted by rhagfo

Well did the campground personnel make to your site today??

no, but we are leaving early tomorrow morning. I hope they fix it before the next person gets this site.

[NH_Bulldog]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

no, but we are leaving early tomorrow morning. I hope they fix it before the next person gets this site.

Do you another stop or are you headed home? VERY curious to see what happens when you connect to a different 50a power source.

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by NH_Bulldog

Do you another stop or are you headed home? VERY curious to see what happens when you connect to a different 50a power source.

Me too. The results of the EMS "checks" and application of power at the next plug-in should provide the information needed to determine if it was the campground connector or a problem with the trailer, EMS or one of the connections (plugs) in the equipment being connected to get power from the campground to the trailer power center.

[GlasNav]

I've only seen couple of parks that had dummy load boxes for testing their pedestals. A VOM is good, but won't indicate lack of amperage, etc. A dummy load when built fit for purpose removes all of the guesswork!

[Old Mustanger]

Originally Posted by NH_Bulldog

Do you another stop or are you headed home? VERY curious to see what happens when you connect to a different 50a power source.

Yes, got to out 1st stop on the trip home (1st day of 3 day drive that should really be a 4 dayer). Plugged in the 50A EMS, my 50A power cord to trailer and EMS, turned the breaker on, waited the 2 minute delay (the EMS is getting old, understand the new ones only take 20 seconds to power up) and everything is normal.

[rhagfo]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

Yes, got to out 1st stop on the trip home (1st day of 3 day drive that should really be a 4 dayer). Plugged in the 50A EMS, my 50A power cord to trailer and EMS, turned the breaker on, waited the 2 minute delay (the EMS is getting old, understand the new ones only take 20 seconds to power up) and everything is normal.

I will say I am suprised by that result, as your EMS showed 124 volts and 0 amp at the other park. I would have thought any draw on a weak connection would have dropped the voltage and triggered an error. I had an issue like that before and the EMS reported the error.

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

Yes, got to out 1st stop on the trip home (1st day of 3 day drive that should really be a 4 dayer). Plugged in the 50A EMS, my 50A power cord to trailer and EMS, turned the breaker on, waited the 2 minute delay (the EMS is getting old, understand the new ones only take 20 seconds to power up) and everything is normal.

Well, that sort of narrows it down to that campground pedestal/campground grid...

As for your EMS, On many of the older EMS devices, there's an internal switch setting. If you turn that DIP switch ON, you get the 2 minute delay to protect your air conditioner in the trailer. If you turn the DIP switch OFF, you get about 15 seconds to "boot up" but have to rely on the internal delay in the air conditioner to protect your compressor from the excess head pressure and compressor burnout. The older air conditioners didn't have the built in delay, so the EMS companies "devised a way to not only protect the voltage into the trailer, but added the delay to protect the compressor driven equipment in the trailer.

Your EMS owner's manual probably has a procedure to set that DIP switch if your model has that feature. My 2014 Progressive "built in EMS" has the switch and we've got it turned OFF because the air conditioner has a built in delay. Makes for "almost instant power to the trailer" without the delay.

ADDED: I just checked the Owner's Manual on my EMS. The hardwired units (like mine) have the DIP switch/jumper to switch between the 15 second and the 136 second delay time. It doesn't look like the exterior/portable EMS units have that feature. Even the new Progressive portable EMS units advertise the 136 second (2 minutes, 16 seconds) delay as a feature without any owner's manual setting procedure. So apparently that's for hardwire units only.

[Old Mustanger]

I was just looking at the Surge Guard 34951 and they state a 10 second start up sequence, but really can't justify spending $400 just for a quicker startup and Bluetooth communications.

[rhagfo]

You might look at this 50 amp Progressive Industry true EMS hardwired, for $267 and change.
https://m.delcity.net/store/Progress...hoCdOgQAvD_BwE

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

I was just looking at the Surge Guard 34951 and they state a 10 second start up sequence, but really can't justify spending $400 just for a quicker startup and Bluetooth communications.

I sure don't blame you for not wanting to pay that kind of price for a "few seconds".
I wouldn't either !!! My hardwired Progressive has the DIP switch/jumper to bypass the 2min/16sec delay. After I posted that yours might also have the setting capability, I read what I think is a comment that the portable units don't have that feature, but I can't verify that because I don't have access to a 50 amp portable unit to check...

[flybouy]

I also have a hardwired EMS. When I setup camp, the first thing I do is plug in a tester to the pedestal using a 30 to 15 Amp plug with a simple LED outlet tester.. Then I plug in shore power cord and turn the breaker on. This is done ofcourse with trailer chocked and disconnected from the truck. It takes longer than 2 min to run the stabilizers down.

The few times I've wanted to test something or lost power and it's restored I don't find a small wait to be an inconvenience considering the protection it provides. It's similar in my mind to running at highway speed and braking hard to pull into a rest sto with a turbo diesel immediately shutting down the engine can cause turbo failure. Waiting for it idle down a cool down first are a couple of min well spent.

[JRTJH]

And, the "useful purpose" of that delay is to protect the compressor in the air conditioner (some don't have a built in delay if power is interrupted). If you lose power and it comes back on quickly, the compressor head pressure will cause a "compressor lock-up" and the high amp draw to get the compressor turning can either trip the trailer circuit breaker or even the pedestal circuit breaker (if you're lucky) or burn up the compressor if you're not so lucky.

Spending that 2 minutes 16 seconds waiting is a small price to pay to protect your air conditioner and/or a residential compressor driven refrigerator from the excessive startup amperage.

When you think about it, "avoiding the delay" may well send you to the pedestal pole to reset the breaker in the middle of the night. The "delay" of an open circuit breaker, getting dressed, putting on shoes, walking to the pedestal to turn it back on is going to be quite a bit more "delay" than the 2:16 that the EMS requires....

[Richeyb]

I had a similar issue camping at music festival. They installed a lot of extra camping spots that were 30amp, finally got a dog bone and got some power, but it would not keep on anything I was trying to run on my Rv (50amp). Once home and connected to my 50 amp plug in, I still no AC or anything 110. My investigation took me to the Coach receiver plug in, it looked a little scorched. When I took it apart I found burned wires. I ended up buying a hole new connection both male and female replacing both solving the problem. Not sure what would have happened if I had not taken it apart and inspected both ends of the wiring. Keep investigating until you’re sure you have the correct answer. My brothers fifth wheel burned to ground due to an electrical issue.

[adeakins]

Originally Posted by Old Mustanger

Got to our final destination yesterday afternoon (after 3 days/2 nights on the road with no problems), setting up DW announced that she couldn't set the clock on the microwave! Checking I found that we had no power to any receptacles except those on the GFCI circuit. Was getting prepared to track down a loose connection, but went to check the EMS first, it was indicating that L1 had 124V, 0A, L2 125V 5A. Checked the upper AC by trying to turn on fan only and no power to it.
I switched to 30A hookup (with adapter) and everything has power, it's too cold for using the heat pump so no problem running on 30A.
If this is my problem would hooking thru the adapter tie both lines together so that it bypasses the problem, or do they have a bad breaker at the power pole?

I recently had a similar experience. Check the other end of your shore power cord. I found one leg had gone extra crispy. Once I cleaned that connection up, all was good again.