Circuit Testers

[cmillsap]

I’ve been reading about surge protectors regarding the best way to protect your coach from possibly bad power supplied at a RV park hook-up. I’ve always used a portable surge protector connected right at the RV parks source. The one I use also monitors and reacts to low or high voltage shutting the power supply off if detected.

The downside is if there is bad power at the connection box and you plug your surge protector into it you run the risk of sacrificing and destroying your surge protector. That’s certainly better than damaging all the electronics in your coach.

A better way to protect your surge protector and your coach is build yourself a circuit tester. There are receptacle plug-in circuit testers available that will tell you if there is an open ground, open neutral, open hot, hot/ ground reverse, hot/ground neutral, and good to connect. Here’s one as an example.
http://www.filmtools.com/idcirtes61.html

Have an electrician properly wire a 120V duplex receptacle (2 separate circuits) to the proper RV male connector such as shown below and plug 2 circuit testers into the 120V receptacle. Test the RV park’s shore power with the circuit tester first to confirm good power on each leg before connecting you surge protector and coach.