On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:17:50 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

Here in the
Bahamas the quality and reliability of shorepower varies a great deal
from island to island, some being little better than third world
countries in that respect.

The working definition of third world is lacking in reliable water,
electricity and phones.

Casady

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:39:05 -0500, Richard Casady
wrote:

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:09:44 -0400, Jim24242
wrote:

Richard Casady wrote:
On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:23:37 -0400, Jim24242
wrote:

Ant testing you do should be at
the power pedestal BEFORE you hook your camper to it. That means you
need to use an adapter to convert from a 30A receptacle to a 15A
receptacle.

You can stick any meter probe in any recepticle, so what is the
problem. You should have a digital multimeter in any case.

Casady

There are those among us that are not handy with tools.
Think convenience. You can plug in any of number of testers designed to
do the needed testing. Or hold the meter in one hand, the first probe in
one hand, the 2nd probe in another hand and, hey wait a minute, you need
3 hands.

Two probes in one hand. Ever hear of chopsticks? A billion people can
handle those ****ers. It takes two dice, but only one hand,
to shoot craps. When I started sailboat races I had to manipulate,
simultaniously, a stopwatch, a shotgun, and two flags.

Ever dump an egg with one hand? Two eggs, one hand.
Then we'll talk.

--Vic

Vic Smith wrote:


Ever dump an egg with one hand? Two eggs, one hand.
Then we'll talk.

--Vic



Ayyyyup.

On Jun 22, 12:55*pm, HK wrote:
Vic Smith wrote:

Ever dump an egg with one hand? *Two eggs, one hand.
Then we'll talk.

--Vic

Ayyyyup.

Yeah, sure. Now comes the part where either you or your father are
classically trained chefs............

wrote in message
...

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:31:38 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:


#6 wasn't big enough wire. At 30a that drops almost 6v
The goal is to drop less than 5% from the service point to the load.
You lost that much in one feeder.


I agree, and that was my problem. When I chose #6, I thought I was
allowing for the voltage drop, thinking I'd still have close to 115 volts at
the RV site. Going to #4 or bigger didn't make sense.
I didn't expect the Florida power to droop to 115 volts at the house
however when the weather started getting warmer and people started using
their air conditioners.

Here in MA, we apparently have decent power lines. Our house measures 123
vac.

Eisboch

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:42:59 -0500, Richard Casady
wrote:

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:17:50 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

Here in the
Bahamas the quality and reliability of shorepower varies a great deal
from island to island, some being little better than third world
countries in that respect.

The working definition of third world is lacking in reliable water,
electricity and phones.


Water and phones are OK. Electricity varies a lot from island to
island, also depending on how hot it is.

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:26:57 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:31:38 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:

I went through this in Florida with a camper we had. I knew the AC was
straining to start due to voltage droop just by listening to it. The
section of Florida we were in was not noted for decent electrical service to
begin with. During peak hours the voltage at the distribution box in our
house would occasionally drop to 114 volts or so. I put in a 30 amp, 120v
service for the camper, located about 200 feet away. Even though I used 6
awg wires for the hot and neutral, I'd still get as low as 105 volts at
times at the camper location when the AC unit tried to kick on. The extra
current draw is not healthy for the compressor motor windings. I ended up
buying an automatic boost transformer that kicked the voltage up by 10%
whenever it sensed that the supply voltage dropped below 117 vac.


#6 wasn't big enough wire. At 30a that drops almost 6v
The goal is to drop less than 5% from the service point to the load.
You lost that much in one feeder.

There is a huge lack of appreciation of voltage drop in most camp
grounds and RV parks. When I was working for the state we redesigned
some of these parks and actually looked at the drop. It took some
doing to convince old timers that was really necessary but a quick
check with a volt meter on a few occupied sites confirmed the problem.
The best design is to let the utility do most of the distribution with
medium voltage and feed the sites from a 50kva pig, radially from
the center of the cluster of sites.

You want the well in the same place to minimize the ammount of pipe
required, and, of course, that gives maximum voltage to that downhole
pump, the one motor that better not burn out.

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:54:14 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:


"John H" wrote in message
.. .
Had our little rig out this past weekend, down to Williamsburg, VA,
where the temp climbed into the 90s on Saturday. Last time we were in
that kind of heat the air conditioner kept popping the circuit
breaker.

This time the AC worked well. Don't know if the problem was the
circuit breaker or not, but at least we kept cool this time.

We stayed at the American Heritage RV park, which is a nice place to
stay if you're ever in that neck of the woods.

Tom or Dick, if either of you happen to read this, last year one of
you suggested an instrument for testing the current at camp sites. I
didn't get it then, but want it now. Could you remind me again what it
was, please?
--

John H

Other than a multimeter, I don't recall a specific "tester" for RV service
outlets.
A multimeter will allow you to check for proper voltage and polarity.

BTW, you should have included Harry in your request for info.
Then you would have addressed every "Tom, Dick and Harry" ...

Oh well. Early in the morning, I guess.

Eisboch


OK. I thought there was some cute little thing just made for RV folks.

I don't talk to Harry. There are some things in life I'd rather not
do. That's right up at the top of the list.
--

John H

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:25:27 -0400, Jim24242
wrote:

Yogi of Woodstock wrote:
On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:09:51 -0400, John H
wrote:

Had our little rig out this past weekend, down to Williamsburg, VA,
where the temp climbed into the 90s on Saturday. Last time we were in
that kind of heat the air conditioner kept popping the circuit
breaker.

This time the AC worked well. Don't know if the problem was the
circuit breaker or not, but at least we kept cool this time.

We stayed at the American Heritage RV park, which is a nice place to
stay if you're ever in that neck of the woods.

Tom or Dick, if either of you happen to read this, last year one of
you suggested an instrument for testing the current at camp sites. I
didn't get it then, but want it now. Could you remind me again what it
was, please?

The only way I know how to do it is to use a multi-meter to check for
120 volts (on a 240 system) against neutral and ground.

Ommmmmmmmm....

Correction O-h-mmmmmmm.

LOL!
--

John H

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:23:37 -0400, Jim24242
wrote:

Eisboch wrote:
"John H" wrote in message
...
Had our little rig out this past weekend, down to Williamsburg, VA,
where the temp climbed into the 90s on Saturday. Last time we were in
that kind of heat the air conditioner kept popping the circuit
breaker.

This time the AC worked well. Don't know if the problem was the
circuit breaker or not, but at least we kept cool this time.

We stayed at the American Heritage RV park, which is a nice place to
stay if you're ever in that neck of the woods.

Tom or Dick, if either of you happen to read this, last year one of
you suggested an instrument for testing the current at camp sites. I
didn't get it then, but want it now. Could you remind me again what it
was, please?
--

John H

Other than a multimeter, I don't recall a specific "tester" for RV service
outlets.
A multimeter will allow you to check for proper voltage and polarity.

BTW, you should have included Harry in your request for info.
Then you would have addressed every "Tom, Dick and Harry" ...

Oh well. Early in the morning, I guess.

Eisboch


Pretty witty. How many coffees so far this morning, 3 or 4?

There is a plug in tester at camping world that seems to offer all the
informatiom you need. Voltage Frequency Amps and polarity. It didn't say
how many amps though. One thing though. Ant testing you do should be at
the power pedestal BEFORE you hook your camper to it. That means you
need to use an adapter to convert from a 30A receptacle to a 15A
receptacle.

Do you mean like the little pigtail that connects the 30A wire to
household current? I've got one of those. I need to look at the
Camping World tester. Thanks, Jim.
--

John H