2023-01-16 Update! Hughes DID cover the defective device under the warranty and shipped a free replacement to me. It's GREAT to work with a manufacturer that stands behind their products. Thank you, Hughes! I'm a happy Hughes customer and have no reservations recommending their products or using them in my rig in the future.
Thanks for the videos. You are the reason I got my watch dog hardwire. I have it in my Jayco Eagle. I got a 50a plug tester just like you used on your 110 plug. Just for 50a so that I can test at every camp site before I plug in. No need for another surge protector.
Sorry to hear it happened to you. I later learned that there was a batch of them produced that had a faulty component causing it to give the false positive on that red LED over time...all of them in the batch will do this eventually. So my understanding is in reality there are no issues on your rig or power source, as if there were it would show an error code. However, that one LED lights up regardless. They are fully aware of the issue now and they will take care of you. I've been super impressed with their willingness to stand behind their product. I would 100% buy it all over again.
Great information in this video. Thank you. Do you not worry about arcing when you are plugging in your power cord to the wall. I always turn off breaker at CG pedestal to make sure nothing is drawing current from the coach. i.e AC left on. I melted the end of our 30 amp cord from an arc last year. Learned to always turn breaker off first.
Great point. It's a good idea to kill power when plugging in, but arcing is more of an issue when you have a heavy load/amp draw while plugging in...that heavy amp draw while plugging in is what causes the arc. So another way to avoid is to make sure AC is always off before/after disconnecting or reconnecting.
I have had 2 different progressive industries surge protector fail. If you have a progressive unit they ask you to pull the cover and take a picture inside to send to them before calling. In both cases the problem was a connector had come loose. The first time this occurred I went and bought a new progressive protector before I read how to submit a warranty claim. So then I had two. After pulling the cover and finding the connector issue I just kept it as a spare. Then the second/new one did the same thing??? And yes it was an internal connection again! Again east to fix, but frustrating! So now I have a Hughes watch dog and two progressive spares. I suspect what caused the connection issue is just getting knocked around while running down the road. I now have mounted my Hughes inside the RV, but I installed 50 plugs in my RV and plugged in the Watch Dog to allow for either easy swap or by pass. I hope you find out what was going on inside your bad unit. I am a little surprised you didn’t crack it open? That is what you would have had to do if you changed out the EPO circuit. I would bet a dollar it was a connector in this one also! Thanks for the video!!
Hey, The hughes surge protector I heard they have problems I do have autotransformer I use different one for my main unit and have a pedestal one that is the sacrificial lamb as they say. Lighting will blow them out and I want the one on the post to blow and catch fire rather than the one in my bay.
I think it's actually one of the more reliable surge protectors on the market. It does become the sacrificial component in cases of extreme surges or other power issues, but that is its purpose after all. Don't think you'll have to worry about it catching fire and such. One thing I really appreciate about the company is that they stand behind their product. You'll hear countless stories of fellow owners on social media with the same exact product sharing how it protected their coach or RV in a failure and the company replaced it free of charge. I'd definitely buy it all over again and it's my go-to moving forward.
It's my understanding there was a batch of units made back around 2022 that develop the fault shown over time, but the unit itself still is working and protecting properly, it just erroneously displays the red open neutral light. Hughes will replace it for you under warranty as they are aware of the bad batch.
Having a 50 amp plug with two legs gives you 110 volt 50 amp on each of the two hot legs, correct? Assuming you do not have any device in the RV that would require 220 volt, does it make a difference whether you have the outlet wired as 220 volt split phase or 110 volt? I guess you really are getting in both cases 100 amp at 110 volt? Could there be a difference in the sense what the load is on the Neutral? Would Neutral get 50 amps through it at 220 volt in the split phase scenario but would get 100 amps in the 110 volt (2 x 50 amps)? Might make a difference what wire size you need for Neutral?
Correct, so in total it is 100A between the two legs, but just 120V. The legs are not combined, unlike a household dryer plug that looks similar and is indeed 220V. So the outlet you plug into must be wired with two 120V legs...again not combined. If they are combined to make 220V it would likely cause damage to the RV...I've never experienced this firsthand, but I have read about others accidentally plugging into mis-wired or thinking it's same as dryer plug and then frying stuff in the RV. Usually I see 6 to 8 gauge wiring on 50A RV applications depending on length. I've always seen the neutral as same gauge compared to the two hot legs. I hear your point though about why it isn't double size and I can't explain that from a technical standpoint, but my guess is it has something to do with fact it is just a neutral and not hot...but that neutral is indeed shared between the two legs along with the ground. I'm not an electrician though, so just my observations based on what I've seen so far...still learning :)
@@AdventureRocks I guess there is no way for me to know? If I test L1 and L2 with Neutral, I should get 120ish Volt each. If I test L1 against L2 I should get 240ish. If there is two lines from the panel coming at 120 and both have a 50 amp breaker, the shore side would work fine. However, L1 to L2 would show 0ish Volt instead of 240ish. Problem comes in when both lines are combined then going through the RV incoming power cable and transfer switch. The Neutral line inside the camper would get the load from both lines possibly with a total of 100 amps. While that does not necessarily cause a fault immediately, when running all ACs on a hot day all day and in addition running all else in the camper, it may get close to pulling 100 amp total. That is when Neutral is likely to get fried as it is not made for 100 amps (at 120 volt) but just for 50 amps (at 240 volts). I am not an electrician but trying to understand this stuff because I have had my shore power cable reel fried and am trying to understand why that happened.
@@liveslowsailfastonlanier1374 The hot legs (or load) should never go to neutral, so if that is happening likely the pedestal or something is mis-wired. I might have missed this, but do you have a Hughes surge/EPO device or similar that checks for correct wiring? It should be able to detect all that regardless. My understanding is the frying happens when there is too much current for the gauge wire, which can be due to poor contact at the plug (dirty/corrosion leading to not enough surface area) or loose connection somewhere in the signal path (not enough surface area again) or if the breaker itself is faulty not tripping when it exceeds the rated load. The Hughes should cut power before in either scenario though...that's been my experience at least. Assuming everything is OEM on your rig, I'd double check that connections are tight from the shore inlet to transfer switch to converter/distribution panel. Sometimes I've heard about the contacts in transfer switch or breaker panel getting loose overtime with all the vibrations and then those loose connections cause loss of surface area leading to frying. I think most have a torque spec to make sure they aren't over or under torqued, but can be tricky as they are often hex head bolts/screws so need a specialty torque wrench to check to avoid damage to breakers. Anyway sorry I'm not more help on this one, but hope you can get to bottom of it.
@@AdventureRocks I have a Hughes Autofirmer (watchdog) with Bluetooth as you do. The Little LED is on as in your scenario. Both legs L1 and L2 show 120ish volt when measured to Neutral. Both legs will have power pass through the Hughes plug-in surge protector, despite the red LED being on. That seems like in your scenario. If the outlet is wired as 220 split phase, then L1 to Neutral will read 120 and L2 to Neutral will read 120. Measuring L1 to L2 will show you 240. The amps through Neutral will be the amps going through L1 minus the amps going through L2 as both loads cancel each other out (two half’s of one sinus wave split into L1 and L2 60 times per second). If the outlet is wired with two lines coming in at 120 volt but are not coming from a 240 split wiring, you still measure 120 volt between L1 and Neutral and you also get 120 from L2 to Neutral. When measuring L1 to L2 in this case you will read 0 volt instead of 240. In this scenario both lines will carry 120 volt and power flows through the surge protector. With an outlet wired like this the return wire Neutral now will carry the sum of amps from both L1 and L2 instead of the difference between L1 and L2. The amps do not cancel each other out but add to each other. Have you measured your outlet voltage L1 to L2? Does it show 240 volt or 0 volt?
@@liveslowsailfastonlanier1374 My apologies. So the red LED in this video is actually a false positive. In talking with Hughes months after this video was published, they discovered there was a batch of devices manufacturered that all had a faulty component related to the red LED such that the majority of that specific batch exhibited the same symptom shown in this video after operating for an extended period of time. Anyway, they corrected the issue in manufacturing and it's my understanding they are still replacing the faulty devices free of charge for customers. They can determine based on serial number if your device is one of the faulty units. However, they also assured me that even with the faulty red LED light, as long as the device doesn't simultaneously report an error code, that the unit is still fully operational and protecting all conditions...just that it is throwing a false red LED for open neutral. Hope that makes sense.
Yes, reach out to them and likely they'll replace it. Apparently there was a batch of devices manufactured where a specific part fails over the long-term causing the false positive. So they are definitely aware of the issue and which units are affected. But if it helps to know, it's my understanding that the device itself is still functional, it's just giving a false reading.
Did Hughes send you the swap? They have a lifetime warranty. There is a module that is replaceable in that unit for $30 instead of replacing the whole unit. I carry a module with me all the time just incase.
Yes, they replaced under warranty :) Guess it was some kind of fluke in the electronics outside of surge itself. Great tip on carrying spare surge just in case.
Hi, did you ever have an E8 code with the 50amp Power Watchdog when you are plug at your house and you dont have many things drawing power in the coach ? I have a little issue when I draw not much power, let say 0.1 or 0.2 amps I'm getthing an E8 code for missing neutral at the coach, that is not true because the neutral is ok when I got stuff working at the same time. Thanks for your help.
My unit developed the same problem about a month or two ago. I had moved the RV (and thus the unit) and noticed that now…no red LED. 🤷🏼♂️ That’s a puzzler, but things are working.
Good stuff Jay. Did you check the app to see if it was reading any errors or verify what your voltage was at? Ironic, we have both the exact same placement for the watchdog...I do like what you did with the transfer switch! My next project 🤣 Thanks for the great video! ....Oh I remember when my basement looked like that... There's so much I've done to that "inner" bay, which opened up so much more room. Now my entire solar setup and 6 lithium batteries are in that inner bay...I sure love working on making things better 😁..
Thank you. Yes, forgot to mention the app showed nothing, just regular status. App matched the multimeter readings on voltage. Basically if I hadn't physically seen the red LED on device itself, I would have never known anything was out of ordinary. But, I'd rather a surge/EPO give me a false positive than a false negative, so thankful to have it onboard still.
@@AdventureRocks I totally agree with you about having it onboard. One less thing we need to worry about disappearing. When we arrived in Louisiana for the winter, I watched the watchdog app for a week and noticed the power was fluctuating from 118v down to 109v. No one in the park knew it was so low, do I notified the mgr, and now their working on finding the cause. Thanks again Jay. Merry Christmas to you and the family.
I'm not sure about that, but it seems like the LED indicator light for the open neutral condition was malfunctioning. Basically it was giving a false positive in my case where in reality nothing was wrong with my power source. Hughes was great about replacing it though for me so definitely reach out to them.
Yes, I believe it was Ian. Email seemed to work best via sales@autoformers.com. I just got the replacement under warranty today. It is great to work with a company that stands behind their products.
Great video. I have the same unit from power watchdog. Since these have replaceable surge modules I wonder if replacing that would have done anything? Be an interesting test as the modules are a lot cheaper than replacing the unit. Hope you hear good news on warranty from Hughes. Let us know.
Thank you. I wondered the same thing on the surge module. I am awaiting final verdict from Hughes, but sounds like it'll be covered under warranty either way.
Sometimes mechanical stuff fails. It’s never fool proof in just about anything. Liked how you trouble shoot everything. Might be a good idea to carry a volt meter with me. Not something you normally think about. I have the portable watch dog, same as you just the pedestal version. It’s already saved us a couple times.
I learned a lot in process, and thankful in the end it was just a false positive. Would rather have it throwing a false positive than a false negative for sure!
I think I would have changed the Watchdog to a South Wire surge guard I am not a fan of the Watchdog because of the trouble I am having and their customer service it terrible or not at all. Oh and the company is 5 miles from my house so I drove over to them and talked to Brett and he did not offer any help and now has me on ignore because I have emailed and called and left messages at least 5 times. Mu Watchdog turns off the power completely for a few min. and then comes back on E6 code plus the trailer is plugged into my house where it has been for a few years and I tested the plug with another surge guard and it reads good. I wish I would have stayed with the portable surge guard. I may find a junction box and removed the hardwired Watchdog and use my South Wire SG plugin type.
Sorry to hear. I'm supposed to get a replacement under their warranty, but we'll see if they follow through. The service I got wasn't the worst, but certainly could have been better.
We used a Surge Guard brand in our Class A mounted in the electrical bay which is just forward of the genset compartment. For our trailer I think we will buy another along with the digital display and mount it in the pass through.
2023-01-16 Update! Hughes DID cover the defective device under the warranty and shipped a free replacement to me. It's GREAT to work with a manufacturer that stands behind their products. Thank you, Hughes! I'm a happy Hughes customer and have no reservations recommending their products or using them in my rig in the future.
Thanks for the videos. You are the reason I got my watch dog hardwire. I have it in my Jayco Eagle. I got a 50a plug tester just like you used on your 110 plug. Just for 50a so that I can test at every camp site before I plug in. No need for another surge protector.
Great idea on the 50a tester!
Thank You for video. I found this after researching the red light on ours. Guess I’ll be contacting Hughes as well and see how it goes.
Sorry to hear it happened to you. I later learned that there was a batch of them produced that had a faulty component causing it to give the false positive on that red LED over time...all of them in the batch will do this eventually. So my understanding is in reality there are no issues on your rig or power source, as if there were it would show an error code. However, that one LED lights up regardless. They are fully aware of the issue now and they will take care of you. I've been super impressed with their willingness to stand behind their product. I would 100% buy it all over again.
Very helpful. Thank you so much! Still would be curious whether you measured L1 to L2 and what voltage you read.
Thank you. At pedestal it should be 240 L1 to L2 (both sides at W and E positions).
Great information in this video. Thank you. Do you not worry about arcing when you are plugging in your power cord to the wall. I always turn off breaker at CG pedestal to make sure nothing is drawing current from the coach. i.e AC left on. I melted the end of our 30 amp cord from an arc last year. Learned to always turn breaker off first.
Great point. It's a good idea to kill power when plugging in, but arcing is more of an issue when you have a heavy load/amp draw while plugging in...that heavy amp draw while plugging in is what causes the arc. So another way to avoid is to make sure AC is always off before/after disconnecting or reconnecting.
I have had 2 different progressive industries surge protector fail. If you have a progressive unit they ask you to pull the cover and take a picture inside to send to them before calling. In both cases the problem was a connector had come loose. The first time this occurred I went and bought a new progressive protector before I read how to submit a warranty claim. So then I had two. After pulling the cover and finding the connector issue I just kept it as a spare. Then the second/new one did the same thing??? And yes it was an internal connection again! Again east to fix, but frustrating!
So now I have a Hughes watch dog and two progressive spares. I suspect what caused the connection issue is just getting knocked around while running down the road.
I now have mounted my Hughes inside the RV, but I installed 50 plugs in my RV and plugged in the Watch Dog to allow for either easy swap or by pass.
I hope you find out what was going on inside your bad unit. I am a little surprised you didn’t crack it open? That is what you would have had to do if you changed out the EPO circuit. I would bet a dollar it was a connector in this one also!
Thanks for the video!!
Hughes asked for the defective one back so not sure what it ended up being. It's great to have a manufacturer honor their warranty. I'm very grateful.
Hey, The hughes surge protector I heard they have problems I do have autotransformer I use different one for my main unit and have a pedestal one that is the sacrificial lamb as they say. Lighting will blow them out and I want the one on the post to blow and catch fire rather than the one in my bay.
I think it's actually one of the more reliable surge protectors on the market. It does become the sacrificial component in cases of extreme surges or other power issues, but that is its purpose after all. Don't think you'll have to worry about it catching fire and such. One thing I really appreciate about the company is that they stand behind their product. You'll hear countless stories of fellow owners on social media with the same exact product sharing how it protected their coach or RV in a failure and the company replaced it free of charge. I'd definitely buy it all over again and it's my go-to moving forward.
Any chance it is the user replaceable board. I just noticed the red light. I carry extra replaceable cards and will change it out.
It's my understanding there was a batch of units made back around 2022 that develop the fault shown over time, but the unit itself still is working and protecting properly, it just erroneously displays the red open neutral light. Hughes will replace it for you under warranty as they are aware of the bad batch.
Having a 50 amp plug with two legs gives you 110 volt 50 amp on each of the two hot legs, correct? Assuming you do not have any device in the RV that would require 220 volt, does it make a difference whether you have the outlet wired as 220 volt split phase or 110 volt? I guess you really are getting in both cases 100 amp at 110 volt? Could there be a difference in the sense what the load is on the Neutral? Would Neutral get 50 amps through it at 220 volt in the split phase scenario but would get 100 amps in the 110 volt (2 x 50 amps)? Might make a difference what wire size you need for Neutral?
Correct, so in total it is 100A between the two legs, but just 120V. The legs are not combined, unlike a household dryer plug that looks similar and is indeed 220V. So the outlet you plug into must be wired with two 120V legs...again not combined. If they are combined to make 220V it would likely cause damage to the RV...I've never experienced this firsthand, but I have read about others accidentally plugging into mis-wired or thinking it's same as dryer plug and then frying stuff in the RV. Usually I see 6 to 8 gauge wiring on 50A RV applications depending on length. I've always seen the neutral as same gauge compared to the two hot legs. I hear your point though about why it isn't double size and I can't explain that from a technical standpoint, but my guess is it has something to do with fact it is just a neutral and not hot...but that neutral is indeed shared between the two legs along with the ground. I'm not an electrician though, so just my observations based on what I've seen so far...still learning :)
@@AdventureRocks I guess there is no way for me to know? If I test L1 and L2 with Neutral, I should get 120ish Volt each. If I test L1 against L2 I should get 240ish. If there is two lines from the panel coming at 120 and both have a 50 amp breaker, the shore side would work fine. However, L1 to L2 would show 0ish Volt instead of 240ish. Problem comes in when both lines are combined then going through the RV incoming power cable and transfer switch. The Neutral line inside the camper would get the load from both lines possibly with a total of 100 amps. While that does not necessarily cause a fault immediately, when running all ACs on a hot day all day and in addition running all else in the camper, it may get close to pulling 100 amp total. That is when Neutral is likely to get fried as it is not made for 100 amps (at 120 volt) but just for 50 amps (at 240 volts). I am not an electrician but trying to understand this stuff because I have had my shore power cable reel fried and am trying to understand why that happened.
@@liveslowsailfastonlanier1374 The hot legs (or load) should never go to neutral, so if that is happening likely the pedestal or something is mis-wired. I might have missed this, but do you have a Hughes surge/EPO device or similar that checks for correct wiring? It should be able to detect all that regardless. My understanding is the frying happens when there is too much current for the gauge wire, which can be due to poor contact at the plug (dirty/corrosion leading to not enough surface area) or loose connection somewhere in the signal path (not enough surface area again) or if the breaker itself is faulty not tripping when it exceeds the rated load. The Hughes should cut power before in either scenario though...that's been my experience at least. Assuming everything is OEM on your rig, I'd double check that connections are tight from the shore inlet to transfer switch to converter/distribution panel. Sometimes I've heard about the contacts in transfer switch or breaker panel getting loose overtime with all the vibrations and then those loose connections cause loss of surface area leading to frying. I think most have a torque spec to make sure they aren't over or under torqued, but can be tricky as they are often hex head bolts/screws so need a specialty torque wrench to check to avoid damage to breakers. Anyway sorry I'm not more help on this one, but hope you can get to bottom of it.
@@AdventureRocks I have a Hughes Autofirmer (watchdog) with Bluetooth as you do. The Little LED is on as in your scenario. Both legs L1 and L2 show 120ish volt when measured to Neutral. Both legs will have power pass through the Hughes plug-in surge protector, despite the red LED being on. That seems like in your scenario.
If the outlet is wired as 220 split phase, then L1 to Neutral will read 120 and L2 to Neutral will read 120. Measuring L1 to L2 will show you 240. The amps through Neutral will be the amps going through L1 minus the amps going through L2 as both loads cancel each other out (two half’s of one sinus wave split into L1 and L2 60 times per second).
If the outlet is wired with two lines coming in at 120 volt but are not coming from a 240 split wiring, you still measure 120 volt between L1 and Neutral and you also get 120 from L2 to Neutral. When measuring L1 to L2 in this case you will read 0 volt instead of 240.
In this scenario both lines will carry 120 volt and power flows through the surge protector. With an outlet wired like this the return wire Neutral now will carry the sum of amps from both L1 and L2 instead of the difference between L1 and L2. The amps do not cancel each other out but add to each other.
Have you measured your outlet voltage L1 to L2? Does it show 240 volt or 0 volt?
@@liveslowsailfastonlanier1374 My apologies. So the red LED in this video is actually a false positive. In talking with Hughes months after this video was published, they discovered there was a batch of devices manufacturered that all had a faulty component related to the red LED such that the majority of that specific batch exhibited the same symptom shown in this video after operating for an extended period of time. Anyway, they corrected the issue in manufacturing and it's my understanding they are still replacing the faulty devices free of charge for customers. They can determine based on serial number if your device is one of the faulty units. However, they also assured me that even with the faulty red LED light, as long as the device doesn't simultaneously report an error code, that the unit is still fully operational and protecting all conditions...just that it is throwing a false red LED for open neutral. Hope that makes sense.
Mine is doing same thing .. did they warranty box ??
Yes, reach out to them and likely they'll replace it. Apparently there was a batch of devices manufactured where a specific part fails over the long-term causing the false positive. So they are definitely aware of the issue and which units are affected. But if it helps to know, it's my understanding that the device itself is still functional, it's just giving a false reading.
I am very glad Hughes replace the Surge Protector? Great Warranty? I'm looking to get the Hughes Autoformer and Watchdog.
Indeed. They stand behind their product 100%.
Did Hughes send you the swap? They have a lifetime warranty. There is a module that is replaceable in that unit for $30 instead of replacing the whole unit. I carry a module with me all the time just incase.
Yes, they replaced under warranty :) Guess it was some kind of fluke in the electronics outside of surge itself. Great tip on carrying spare surge just in case.
Hi, did you ever have an E8 code with the 50amp Power Watchdog when you are plug at your house and you dont have many things drawing power in the coach ? I have a little issue when I draw not much power, let say 0.1 or 0.2 amps I'm getthing an E8 code for missing neutral at the coach, that is not true because the neutral is ok when I got stuff working at the same time. Thanks for your help.
I have not gotten an E8 before. Do you have a full 50a connection, or are you having to use dog bone adapters to step down?
My unit developed the same problem about a month or two ago. I had moved the RV (and thus the unit) and noticed that now…no red LED. 🤷🏼♂️ That’s a puzzler, but things are working.
Interesting. You'll have to report back in the future if otherwise.
@@AdventureRocksHowever, what did I notice last night? A RED LED. I will have to contact the company.
I had the same problem. Watched your video. Sent it back to the company and they exchanged it for free. Problem gone.
They stand behind their product...that is why I'm sold on them.
Great video! Was it still under warranty?
Still waiting to hear back from Hughes on verdict for warranty. Seems like it should be, but I didn't want to take any chances in the meantime.
I have the same issue but Hughes doesn't seem to want to return phone calls or emails.
Sorry to hear that. Maybe try Instagram if the email doesn't work?
Need to update, they finally responded and are sending me a replacement unit.
@@CWS173 Oh good! It's great when a company stands behind their products. I've really enjoyed my watchdog.
Good stuff Jay. Did you check the app to see if it was reading any errors or verify what your voltage was at?
Ironic, we have both the exact same placement for the watchdog...I do like what you did with the transfer switch! My next project 🤣
Thanks for the great video!
....Oh I remember when my basement looked like that... There's so much I've done to that "inner" bay, which opened up so much more room. Now my entire solar setup and 6 lithium batteries are in that inner bay...I sure love working on making things better 😁..
Thank you. Yes, forgot to mention the app showed nothing, just regular status. App matched the multimeter readings on voltage. Basically if I hadn't physically seen the red LED on device itself, I would have never known anything was out of ordinary. But, I'd rather a surge/EPO give me a false positive than a false negative, so thankful to have it onboard still.
@@AdventureRocks I totally agree with you about having it onboard. One less thing we need to worry about disappearing.
When we arrived in Louisiana for the winter, I watched the watchdog app for a week and noticed the power was fluctuating from 118v down to 109v. No one in the park knew it was so low, do I notified the mgr, and now their working on finding the cause.
Thanks again Jay. Merry Christmas to you and the family.
@@kreutztimothy Thank you! Merry Christmas!
Mine is doing the same thing does that mean my surge protector isn't doing its job?
I'm not sure about that, but it seems like the LED indicator light for the open neutral condition was malfunctioning. Basically it was giving a false positive in my case where in reality nothing was wrong with my power source. Hughes was great about replacing it though for me so definitely reach out to them.
Mine is doing the same thing. I thought it was the parks problem and they testes their power and find my Hughes is defective too.
Interesting. Hughes was great about replacing it, so hopefully you'll be up and running again soon
@@AdventureRocks I emailed them today. They are sending me the parts to fix mine, I have the Hughes Autoformer with booster.
Great video - Who did you talk to at Watchdog? Mine is doing the exact same thing. Thank you!
Yes, I believe it was Ian. Email seemed to work best via sales@autoformers.com. I just got the replacement under warranty today. It is great to work with a company that stands behind their products.
@@AdventureRocks Thank you for the reply. I will send them a message. I hope I have the same experience.
Great video. I have the same unit from power watchdog. Since these have replaceable surge modules I wonder if replacing that would have done anything? Be an interesting test as the modules are a lot cheaper than replacing the unit. Hope you hear good news on warranty from Hughes. Let us know.
Thank you. I wondered the same thing on the surge module. I am awaiting final verdict from Hughes, but sounds like it'll be covered under warranty either way.
Sometimes mechanical stuff fails. It’s never fool proof in just about anything. Liked how you trouble shoot everything. Might be a good idea to carry a volt meter with me. Not something you normally think about. I have the portable watch dog, same as you just the pedestal version. It’s already saved us a couple times.
I learned a lot in process, and thankful in the end it was just a false positive. Would rather have it throwing a false positive than a false negative for sure!
I think I would have changed the Watchdog to a South Wire surge guard I am not a fan of the Watchdog because of the trouble I am having and their customer service it terrible or not at all. Oh and the company is 5 miles from my house so I drove over to them and talked to Brett and he did not offer any help and now has me on ignore because I have emailed and called and left messages at least 5 times. Mu Watchdog turns off the power completely for a few min. and then comes back on E6 code plus the trailer is plugged into my house where it has been for a few years and I tested the plug with another surge guard and it reads good. I wish I would have stayed with the portable surge guard. I may find a junction box and removed the hardwired Watchdog and use my South Wire SG plugin type.
Sorry to hear. I'm supposed to get a replacement under their warranty, but we'll see if they follow through. The service I got wasn't the worst, but certainly could have been better.
We used a Surge Guard brand in our Class A mounted in the electrical bay which is just forward of the genset compartment. For our trailer I think we will buy another along with the digital display and mount it in the pass through.