Hardwired Surge Protection - Jayco Melbourne 24K

[Out4Fun]

We just purchased our Jayco Melbourne 24K and have studied several videos online about surge protection and its benefits. We are interested in having a protector hardwired into our MH. I have looked throughout the MH and cannot figure out where it could be easily installed. The Camping World service folks were little help over the phone. I don't want it installed if it cannot be done fairly simply and without destroying the look of things. Any experience with this process for this particular MH? I'm interested in hardwiring for the security of the unit itself as well as much less hassle when hooking up.

[Old crow / Cute chick]

I installed a Progressive unit (model EMS-lchw30) inside my rear compartment last year. It has not affected my particular storage in any way. I can see it well when plugging in the 30 amp power to see if there are any faults. I then lock the compartment door.
I went under the bed compartment and drilled two holes for the wire feeds. I unhooked the orange 30 amp wire (coming from outside plug) in the junction box and fed this down into the compartment and wired into the input side of the progressive unit. I then took a piece of 10-2 wire from my shop and went from output of progressive unit back up into junction box under the bed, made connections and put bed back down.
System has worked well and I have checked several times in summer months and have felt no signs of overheating from the progressive unit.
Hope this gives you some ideas. Happy traveling!

[Out4Fun]

Thanks extremely helpful and should work. The unit you installed is the same unit I have been considering. I'll open up the bed platform and it should be apparent what you did. Thanks so much.

[Out4Fun]

I have now purchased the EMS ichw 30 unit. Now, I am wondering how easy it is to lift up or off the bed platform. I assume you power out the rear slider. After removing the mattress, will it be obvious how to gain access under the bed. Will I have to remove the edging to find a way to lift off the base? Is the junction box right behind the GFI panel or closer to the wall of the unit where the outside shore power plug is. Thanks in advance.

[Pfflyer]

Welcome to the forum. I had the platform apart and it is pretty straight forward how to do with the slide out and the mattress folded up. A real rats nest under there. I thought about hardwiring one in but went the portable route because it was what I had already from when I camped in the van. Instead of locking my portable on the pole I lock mine to the rear bumper.

[Old crow / Cute chick]

I had to refresh myself on how I wired mine in. I ended up doing it by removing the receptacle where shore power connects! I looked under the bed and could see no where to work under there. Sorry I led you astray in my earlier post.

1. Remove 4 screws attaching receptacle to the outside wall. You should have enough wire to pull receptacle out from the wall. (see if you have enough cable from the factory like I did before proceeding any further).
I had enough to be able to remove the wiring from receptacle (write down which color wires go where on the receptacle) and fed it down the hole I drilled with enough length to hook it into the OUTPUT side of the surge protector.

2. I then took some 10-2 cable from home (white in pictures) and made up a length to go from INPUT side of surge protector box, back up through another hole I drilled and connected back to the receptacle.

3. Screw the receptacle back onto the outside wall.

4. Plug in shore power and check surge protector voltage readings.

It was really not that hard of a project once I found out I had enough factory cable to make this box work here. In my case the factory wiring is orange.
Hope it works well for you.

[wags999]

Im not following how you wired your EMS. You want to break the incoming line, wire it into the EMS then back out to the breaker panel. You should have three wires in and three wires out to the breaker box. Not sure where you ran the 10/2 ?

Good Luck.

[Old crow / Cute chick]

Used 10/2 house wire with 3 wires. Two conductors and one ground.
It runs from the back of the 30 amp plug that is mounted on the outside wall of the coach. It goes into the input side of the EMS box.
I then took the existing cable (orange wire) that came from the 30 amp plug originally, and fed it down the floor into the storage area and hooked into the output side of the EMS box.

[Out4Fun]

I've taken my bed platform off and your discussion of how you did the disconnect to the power source and the insertion of the surge protector along the main power line without having to mess with the box seems really easy. I'm going to try it. Thanks so much for your pictures and descriptions.