Trailer frame electrified?

[jmsokol]

Originally Posted by wbarnes

The campground had the electrician come in Friday. Although I didn't speak with them directly, I am told that it is acknowledged that something is not right; they just don't know what exactly is causing it.

Bill

The thing to realize is that very few electricians really understand electricity down at an atomic level. Certainly most of them will know the electrical code as well as how to properly size and hookup conductors, switches, lights, etc... And they should be able to wire up a new installation quickly and safely. But few of them have any actual electrical engineering and physics classes that helps explain all the strange voltage readings you'll find in miswired systems. I actually build incorrectly wired demonstrations on purpose so I can measure a known failure which allows me to better understand troubleshooting these complicated failure systems.

Please tell your electrician to measure everything he can and write down all the results. That's the only way I'll be able to venture an educated guess as to what's happening.

Mike Sokol
www.noshockzone.org

[Jack in Alaska]

I had that situation one time. It turned out to be a shorted out transformer in a small AC/DC TV set. TV set wemnt where things like that should go.
It took a bunch of searching to locate that problem.
Good luck..........

[wbarnes]

I haven't heard anything from campground yet as to what their conclusions are. But in fairness, its been a busy week and I have not made much attempt to request their latest update. I am hoping my concern is not falling on deaf ears; but I am not seeing much traction.

I have been frequently testing the RV frame to ground and it continues to range from 7volts to 12volts.

I may hire an electrician myself to test and speak with the campground owners. I have provided them with documentation from this thread as well as my test results; but not sure if they have reviewed it or not. I am concerned that their electrician may have deemed it safe based on testing the receptacle alone; and not noticing that testing from the receptacle's metal box case to ground yeilds a voltage reading; which is near exact same as on my RV frame. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there when their electrician came in.

I installed an EMS HW30 from progressive industries this weekend. Not sure if related or not; but for some reason the EMS is making an electrical hum. I will call Progressive Industries tomorrow to see what they say.

Bill

[Jmooney]

Is the EMS showing any error codes?

[Jmooney]

Never mind I see your other post

[Curious by Nature]

I had a similar problem at our new site. We had a permanent service installed with a temporary outlet panel, (we're building our retirement home here), and when I tested the outlets, the tester showed a weird flickering, between hot ground and normal. I put a 12" steel peg in the ground, and showed 25.6 VAC between ground and the peg. Service tested OK. Opened the outlet panel, discovered that whoever built it took a shortcut, none of the outlets had a ground wire that went to the panel ground cable. Instead, they had just grounded to the outlet box and counted on the metal conduit to be a ground connection. I installed ground wires to each outlet to the panel ground, all readings dropped to zero volts from peg to ground.

You have to be careful with rural power systems, our power company has neutral attached to a deep ground rod, which I verified is carrying our return amperage. My service ground is also attached to a deep ground rod 50' away from the power companies neutral connection. Both penetrate to local groundwater level, and with the salts in our soil, make just about a perfect electrical connection, .3 ohms. I did confirm that my ground connection is carrying no amperage.