So far this year while camp hosting in Okotoks, AB, we have had a
number of very active thunderstorms rolling through the area. I have
been unplugging us as a means of protecting our trailer and it's
electrical systems. We have personal experience as to what a nearby
lightning strike can do as we had a strike about a year before selling
our house in Kamloops. Even though that strike only hit a tree in our
back yard, the surge took out over $3,000 worth of electronics in our
house and caused damage to others up and down our block.
One of
the things I have wanted to add for a while now is some form of
protection against electrical transients such as surges from lightning
and also from miswired campground electrical pedestals. The latter is
more common than one might think.
The one I have had my eye on for a while now is the HW50C from Progressive Industries. I
chose the hard wired version as I didn't feel comfortable leaving a
$450 piece of gear hanging on a power post outside. This version
provides the same protection but is safely installed in the belly of our
beast.
We found the one we purchased on Amazon.
Installation
was pretty straight forward. I had room for it right beside our
existing Transfer Switch which made connections a breeze. I only needed
to add a single short 6/3 connection between the EMS and the shore power
connection of the transfer switch.
I should add, I added the EMS
on the input side of the transfer switch rather than the output as I
figured the generators would be stable enough to not require any
protection.
Here is the EMS installed in the electronics bay beside the Transfer Switch.
I
installed the remote display for the EMS on the door of the front
passthrough right beside the Electronic Leveling control panel. It is
easy to access here when plugging in.
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