I have this same unit 50 amp power watch dog… has saved my rv once from getting fried when the lineman shorted the pole out front ..it has warned me several times by telling me to go check on stuff.. The blue tooth screen and alarm is a good thing.. Also if you see the voltage starting to sag in heavy demand times , it allows you to go turn something off you don’t need on ,to let run back closer to 120 .. low voltage ruins stuff……your right…makes it run hotter.. I have had it for about 6 years and about 3 years ago it did some funny stuff after a big lightning storm. I called the manufacturer about it and without asking any questions or requiring any hoop jumping he said I will send a new one today “no charge” , when you get it put the old one in the box and return it to me with no cost for shipping to you… he did , got it in 2 days and all was fine ….. wonderful customer service. Also if you will notice ,these units have 4800 joules protection to resist surges .. that’s more than any of the others I have seen out there .. most are about 2400 to 3000 joules .Plus you can buy the module for about 40 bucks that you can pop in yourself easily to bring it back to like new. The other ones I know of must be shipped back for module replacement… DIY is a great feature on this unit. , I keep a spare module around but have never had to replace it. I would buy another if they tripled the price…. Seriously.
Set the alarm to be the RED ALERT alarm from Star Trek. That way you know sheeeeet has truly hit the fan, and things are a real emergency power wise. That would be cool if you could do that with the Watch Dogs. Copyright you say? Screw copyright, my life is more important then Paramounts intelectual properties. RED ALERT, your RV park electrical grid sucks balls, unplug now, or you have T-30 seconds to reach minimum safe distance.
As we stated in the video This is for entertainment purposes only and I am not an expert. However, I'm not sure who is the one that is making it illegal. What I mean is there is no specific code requirement for an RV. Rvia has their requirements for the manufacturers during production and released to the public for use but enforcing modifications or changes that is definitely a jurisdictional thing and I can't believe that anybody traveling in an RV can be judged by any one specific jurisdiction and the rules that they impose on building codes as the RV is mobile.
@@Rvdaydream not being the code police by any means and legal/ illegal is probably a bad descriptor. Just treating this like you would standard 120/240 wiring in a house. Not sure how much the NEC applies to RVs, but I would certainly feel more comfortable with it made up in a plastic or metal junction box. Connections should always be made inside of a junction box.
Mike, Fantastic video and amazing work. As usual I have a question. I know you said redundancy, but if you had to choose only one to put in there would you use the autoformer or the the surge protector? I am assuming that you are using the bluetooth surge protector so that you can have the added feature of knowing just how much electricity you are using. Is that a correct assumption? I have been thinking about adding the watchdog surge protector for a while but thinking now about adding the autoformer instead. Can you shed some light on that? Thanks, Pat
Yeah if I only bought one of course the surge protector because it also protects from low voltage. And I do pay close attention to how many watts and amps we are drawing using the Bluetooth function that's available. But, traveling to so many different RV parks over the last year and not knowing exactly what we're getting when were plugging in really made the autoformer almost necessary for peace of mind. Some of the parks that we would roll into we're fine for a couple days and then the park got packed with Weekend Warriors and all the sudden they're having a problem supplying the correct amount of voltage. There is a rash of poor Campground infrastructures throughout the country and they don't care if you have a problem or not with low voltage. They're hoping you don't know to even look. But, again if I had to choose one only it would be the power watchdog.
@@Rvdaydream That's interesting, I would have thought the autoformer would have been the first choice. What does the Watchdog do that the autoformer doesn't?
This is a great video thank you for making it because I was so lost on how to go about doing this. My only question is have you had any problems with melting connections? It seems to be a common problem with all RVs
I guess I used the wrong terminology. Like the 50A connections the male and female ends. Sometimes they will fuse together from getting so hot. We had a 30A plug melt on our old trailer.
Hughes Autogtransformers and many other companies makes a bonding plug for your inverter generator. Have you tried to do this as well? This will keep from having to unplug your surge protection, and possible forgetting to plug it back in.
Although the bonding plug has its purpose. None of the generator manufacturers recommend running surge protection and definitely not the autoformer with their products. When running an inverter generator, by design, it's basically it's on surge protector. So disconnecting the surge protector and autoformer still needs to done
@@Rvdaydream Yes I understand it is clean power, but why the need to unplug them, and why do they not recommend using the autoformer, the autoformer will do nothing to the line voltage coming into the rig, it will not cause any further draw as long as the voltage does not drop below 114V, and it will not , as the inverter generator is producing clean power. Still not following the logic on why the necessity to unplug the autoformer and surge protector. Which generator manufacturers are you referring to? No trying to be confrontational, but instead wanting to better understand the need to unplug. Have you called Hughes about this? I think I will put in a call to them today.
@robertknasel2270 I understand your concern. I spoke with Hughes and champion with essentially the same concerns that you have. I did not want to unnecessarily have to wire in a system that required me to unplug. Hughes advised that there's really no additional concern if you ran their products while using the generator. Champion however advised that there was no need for any additional protection at all from an inverter generator. When discussing my setup with Honda engineers and finding out that I was at one time in my life I was a certified generator mechanic they elaborated that adding additional electrical components to a circuit when they really weren't necessary seemed to be extraneous and potentially a problem when it came to harmonics and feedback as each item performs their own function in their own way for example, you would think that I would have been able to install a self sensing generator transfer switch while using a soft start inline plug in device to power a rooftop AC unit by utilizing it's ramp up voltage Style delivery . However, it did not allow enough voltage for the transfer switch to fully sense enough power to keep the circuit energized and would continuously cycle back and forth between no power and generator power until the generator would go into overload protection... I'm going to tell you also that even though the autoformer is not supposed to modify the voltage whatsoever unless it senses something is not entirely true. There is always some sort of modification being done to the electricity coming out of the autoformer versus what it's being inputted as. An inverter generator, the autoformer, and the surge protector all have their own ways of operating while sensing and potentially modifying voltage characteristics as it travels through. And although Hughes can test their surge protector as they are being utilized directly with their Autoformer, the same cannot be said when generator manufacturers are engineering their protections and energy delivery profiles/programs. This goes way above my pay grade whenever you start talking about sine waves and harmonic distortions and that's what comes into play whenever you start adding on additional electrical components..
Hey Mike, why would you need to unplug all your set up while using a generator ? Can I use the same set up and make it work with the generator? I dont want to open my basement wall all the time to unplug the watch dog and the autoformer. Thanks for your help.
I keep meaning to get the metal box that you can lock over the surge protector and rv plug outside for the one I use, but I continue to live dangerously.
Around the 17:00 minute mark, you mentioned battery disconnect, appliances, etc. it’s captain obvious, but you would want to NOT be plugged in to the electric. 👍🤞🤣
Yeah I think I talked about all the potential for water to come down on that stuff. All except that the surge protector is waterproof. It is designed to be plugged in outside your RV. Now the auto farmer has the capability to resist water but it is not waterproof
So what happens if you plug into the pedestal and it is wired incorrectly, do you still risk destroying your shore power cable. Is you shore power cable still at risk? I have elected to buy the non EPO version of the watchdog to put at the pedestal, so in the event of bad wiring or a lightning strike, my shore power cable is protected. I have a smart plug cable and plug, and they are not cheap.
The shore power cable is the least likely to be affected by any miswiring as all it does is transfer the electricity as it is delivered. It doesn't care the strength nor the polarity of what is going through it therefore it doesn't get affected when those things are wrong. It suffers damage whenever it is required to transfer those incorrect parameters to a component such as the rig. So as long as you have something that will correct or shut off demand from that Shore power cord it will not allow it to be harmed.
@@Rvdaydream I agree with most of the premise of your statement mostly, however there is another advantage of having the additional non EPO watchdog at your pedestal still along with the internally rig mounted EPO version. When we arrive at a campsite, once we are parked out of traffic, the very next thing we do , is to check the pedestal with the NON EPO watchdog to verify the pedestal is a usable power source. This can be done with a cheaper option, the Progressive Dynamics plug as well, but for a little more you get a backup surge protect, which in fact can be use inside the rig, if the surger protector EPO became non functional. So you can also monitor the non EPO watchdog line voltage via bluetooth to see park voltage, and then see the EPO watchdog voltage via bluetooth to see the effect the autotransformer is having on the line voltage.
Listen, I get it, you want to make sure that you're protected. Don't overthink it, there's a reason why Engineers say keep it simple, before we started traveling full time I've been over backwards over-engineering and for the most part it came in handy. And not being the type of person that wanted to overexert every function of setup I could not get around manually unplugging the Hughes products when running on a generator. That is I could have spent more time and money on putting in a complete switch system that would reroute around those components but with all the additional cost it's just best to unplug it. And after being on the road for 3 years full time I found the best thing that we could have done was start off with the basics and modify as situations arose. While we were traveling I seen all kinds of stuff going on as far as campsite power. But the autoformer and the surge protector did just fine in their most basic configuration.. the only concerns that had to be addressed was when Park owners that didn't understand how those components worked would frown upon them so that's why they were installed internally in the rig.. as far as the surge protector, I didn't like that it lit up like a Christmas tree and had to be secured to the pedestal in case we were gone for a period of time and somebody decided to liberate the device from our ownership.. you will see campers out there that do Overkill setups especially when it comes to their water delivery, they will have a pressure regulator at the supply spigot they will also have a pressure regulator installed where it enters their rig. This falls under the same category as having a generator that has built-in surge protection yet another surge protector being utilized.. just keep it simple, use the surge protector and autoformer when plugged in to shore power, when using the generator let it take care of the job.. so for 3 years traveling the entire country we would essentially do the same thing every time we set up for power, we would plug in our rig knowing that the surge protector and autoformer we're already plugged in and ready to receive, we would then listen for the loud click that was characteristic for the power watchdog, and then I would look at the app to see what kind of voltages I had coming in on both lines.. at that point since our rig add an app that we control the climate system I would then turn on both AC units and then go back to the Hughes app to watch the line voltage and how well the autoformer modified it.. we never had the test anything at the pedestal. It's really extraneous to do so. The worst potential problem would be that the watchdog could get damaged to the point of needing repaired we always carried an additional cheap surge protector and the autoformer itself has its own surge protection.. within the first year of us traveling we hit 33 States 22,000 Mi and camp that every type of Park/resort that you could imagine.. We had trouble at 3 of them.. Only 1 required a park electrician to fix the pedestal...
Mike, Ken thinks you are very knowledgeable and loves listening to you. We just got a victron Bluetooth setup. We have had the setup, just not the Bluetooth to watch on phones. We were told to keep track of the volts instead of percentage. What is your opinion about watching these readings? I don’t remember if you ever added solar to your trailers.
I love the victron stuff. I honestly don't know what to look at. Of course the percentage is not going to be as accurate as the actual voltage. Just like a gas tank, it would be much more important to know exactly how many gallons you have instead of what percentage of the tank is left but everybody pretty much looks at the gas gauge that is given to them from the manufacturer. I think that you would be able to get away with looking at the percentage until it got down to the nitty-gritty meaning the point at which the batteries would be damaged.
No.. Autoformer will convert available Amps and turn it into safe levels of voltage.. I believe They are the only ones that have that technology available for RVs
Great job Mike. Looks like you got a great electrical setup. I can not believe that you would do something to update your 5th wheel and the project would have anything to do with you anal retentive. LMBO Like really awesome the way you have installed everything.
You have to, because some of these RV parks tend to be very shady with their electrical. Mike has already blown the whistle on several RV parks who had shoddy electrical, one in particular they had to have a guy come out while they were at their site, to get the darn hookup box fixed, its crazy! I think all RV parks who break electrical code should be fined heavily, only way they learn.
@@stellarproductions8888 I understand that because I trust NOBODY that provides a service or any kind. I have my reasons for how and why I feel this way but it is what it is. You have to show me you deserve my respect and my money.
Question ❓ 🙋 Could I gain the same result of protection if I put the autoformer in a metal box with a hole on each side. Plug it in and lock the box. Now no one will steal it.
As long as weather doesn't reach it... Yes... They make a cover for it... And the handle is very sturdy for running a cable through it... And the soft cover will allow room for a cable to exit...
Just hard wire before the transfer switch if you use a generator. And I was told that the Circuit board that will be fried is only 30 some dollars, I do not know, I was just told. I do have the Watch Dog hard wired before my transfer switch.
When Mike said knock on wood, he knocked on his head first, I didn't know Mikes head was made of wood, keep wood peckers away Mike. HAHA 🤣 I agree, 98V is kind of horrifying for a 120V system, most sensitive electronics like microwaves would even throw a fit on that. I think its the RV parks that are doing something illegal, proper electrical code is 50-AMP hookups, if they provide 40-45 AMPS, that is wrong, 100% wrong! Or 15 - 25 amps for a 30-amp hookup. They should be fined for breaking electrical code. What they should really fear, is you spreading the word that their electrical sucks! Auto Former rocks, Bulldog approved! YES SIR! 😁
You are spot on will everything. The only problem the autoformer causes is putting a spotlight on an already existing issue. You are paying for 50 amps you should be able to use 50 amps. I'm going to do a similar setup with my class a. I found an affordable automatic transfer switch that I'm going to wire the onboard generator into that switches between shore power and generator.
100% agreement here. You should be able to get what you pay, and furthermore, they should just follow the proper dam electrical code, 50 amps is 50 amps, not 30, not 35, not 40, not 45, 50. And honestly, if the park was doing it right, it should give a little leeway and be just over 50-amps available, to insure it makes the 50-amps constant. I own a generator, so I think I know a thing or too about AMP outputs at 120v and 240v.
I have this same unit 50 amp power watch dog… has saved my rv once from getting fried when the lineman shorted the pole out front ..it has warned me several times by telling me to go check on stuff.. The blue tooth screen and alarm is a good thing..
Also if you see the voltage starting to sag in heavy demand times , it allows you to go turn something off you don’t need on ,to let run back closer to 120 .. low voltage ruins stuff……your right…makes it run hotter..
I have had it for about 6 years and about 3 years ago it did some funny stuff after a big lightning storm. I called the manufacturer about it and without asking any questions or requiring any hoop jumping he said I will send a new one today “no charge” , when you get it put the old one in the box and return it to me with no cost for shipping to you… he did , got it in 2 days and all was fine ….. wonderful customer service.
Also if you will notice ,these units have 4800 joules protection to resist surges .. that’s more than any of the others I have seen out there .. most are about 2400 to 3000 joules .Plus you can buy the module for about 40 bucks that you can pop in yourself easily to bring it back to like new.
The other ones I know of must be shipped back for module replacement… DIY is a great feature on this unit. , I keep a spare module around but have never had to replace it.
I would buy another if they tripled the price…. Seriously.
I agree 💯
Set the alarm to be the RED ALERT alarm from Star Trek. That way you know sheeeeet has truly hit the fan, and things are a real emergency power wise. That would be cool if you could do that with the Watch Dogs. Copyright you say? Screw copyright, my life is more important then Paramounts intelectual properties. RED ALERT, your RV park electrical grid sucks balls, unplug now, or you have T-30 seconds to reach minimum safe distance.
@@stellarproductions8888 ……Wow man, you need another drink…. Have no idea what you were talking about but it sounded pretty cool…..chow..!
I call that protecting your investment/home from faulty infrastructure. Great video ✌🏽
I love your ideas, I’m going to rethink my plan with our Cougar. I love watching your videos like this. Well I love all your videos 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Mike, a suggestion that will keep you legal. Consider making up your wire nuts (the outdoor ones you used) in a box (plastic or metal).
This is because your wires are 120 volt and not 12 volt.
As we stated in the video This is for entertainment purposes only and I am not an expert. However, I'm not sure who is the one that is making it illegal. What I mean is there is no specific code requirement for an RV. Rvia has their requirements for the manufacturers during production and released to the public for use but enforcing modifications or changes that is definitely a jurisdictional thing and I can't believe that anybody traveling in an RV can be judged by any one specific jurisdiction and the rules that they impose on building codes as the RV is mobile.
@@Rvdaydream not being the code police by any means and legal/ illegal is probably a bad descriptor. Just treating this like you would standard 120/240 wiring in a house. Not sure how much the NEC applies to RVs, but I would certainly feel more comfortable with it made up in a plastic or metal junction box. Connections should always be made inside of a junction box.
@@Rvdaydream mounting these inside somewhere is a great idea. Not all power post in parks have the ability to Lock these to the pedestals.
@@22apoach never know what an insurance company might deny a claim for. Having it meet code might make it a little harder for them to deny the claim.
Mike,
Fantastic video and amazing work. As usual I have a question. I know you said redundancy, but if you had to choose only one to put in there would you use the autoformer or the the surge protector? I am assuming that you are using the bluetooth surge protector so that you can have the added feature of knowing just how much electricity you are using. Is that a correct assumption? I have been thinking about adding the watchdog surge protector for a while but thinking now about adding the autoformer instead. Can you shed some light on that?
Thanks,
Pat
Yeah if I only bought one of course the surge protector because it also protects from low voltage. And I do pay close attention to how many watts and amps we are drawing using the Bluetooth function that's available. But, traveling to so many different RV parks over the last year and not knowing exactly what we're getting when were plugging in really made the autoformer almost necessary for peace of mind. Some of the parks that we would roll into we're fine for a couple days and then the park got packed with Weekend Warriors and all the sudden they're having a problem supplying the correct amount of voltage. There is a rash of poor Campground infrastructures throughout the country and they don't care if you have a problem or not with low voltage. They're hoping you don't know to even look. But, again if I had to choose one only it would be the power watchdog.
@@Rvdaydream That's interesting, I would have thought the autoformer would have been the first choice. What does the Watchdog do that the autoformer doesn't?
This is a great video thank you for making it because I was so lost on how to go about doing this. My only question is have you had any problems with melting connections? It seems to be a common problem with all RVs
As long as the correct wire and connectors are being used..
I guess I used the wrong terminology. Like the 50A connections the male and female ends. Sometimes they will fuse together from getting so hot. We had a 30A plug melt on our old trailer.
We have that setup in our Class C. Lol, I purchase it by mistake thinking it was the plug in type but this was by far the better choice
Hughes Autogtransformers and many other companies makes a bonding plug for your inverter generator. Have you tried to do this as well? This will keep from having to unplug your surge protection, and possible forgetting to plug it back in.
Although the bonding plug has its purpose. None of the generator manufacturers recommend running surge protection and definitely not the autoformer with their products. When running an inverter generator, by design, it's basically it's on surge protector. So disconnecting the surge protector and autoformer still needs to done
@@Rvdaydream Yes I understand it is clean power, but why the need to unplug them, and why do they not recommend using the autoformer, the autoformer will do nothing to the line voltage coming into the rig, it will not cause any further draw as long as the voltage does not drop below 114V, and it will not , as the inverter generator is producing clean power. Still not following the logic on why the necessity to unplug the autoformer and surge protector. Which generator manufacturers are you referring to? No trying to be confrontational, but instead wanting to better understand the need to unplug. Have you called Hughes about this? I think I will put in a call to them today.
@robertknasel2270 I understand your concern. I spoke with Hughes and champion with essentially the same concerns that you have. I did not want to unnecessarily have to wire in a system that required me to unplug. Hughes advised that there's really no additional concern if you ran their products while using the generator. Champion however advised that there was no need for any additional protection at all from an inverter generator. When discussing my setup with Honda engineers and finding out that I was at one time in my life I was a certified generator mechanic they elaborated that adding additional electrical components to a circuit when they really weren't necessary seemed to be extraneous and potentially a problem when it came to harmonics and feedback as each item performs their own function in their own way for example, you would think that I would have been able to install a self sensing generator transfer switch while using a soft start inline plug in device to power a rooftop AC unit by utilizing it's ramp up voltage Style delivery . However, it did not allow enough voltage for the transfer switch to fully sense enough power to keep the circuit energized and would continuously cycle back and forth between no power and generator power until the generator would go into overload protection... I'm going to tell you also that even though the autoformer is not supposed to modify the voltage whatsoever unless it senses something is not entirely true. There is always some sort of modification being done to the electricity coming out of the autoformer versus what it's being inputted as.
An inverter generator, the autoformer, and the surge protector all have their own ways of operating while sensing and potentially modifying voltage characteristics as it travels through. And although Hughes can test their surge protector as they are being utilized directly with their Autoformer, the same cannot be said when generator manufacturers are engineering their protections and energy delivery profiles/programs. This goes way above my pay grade whenever you start talking about sine waves and harmonic distortions and that's what comes into play whenever you start adding on additional electrical components..
I wish someone got a photo of you guys from outside. 🤣
😂😂😂🤣😅😂
Hey Mike, why would you need to unplug all your set up while using a generator ? Can I use the same set up and make it work with the generator? I dont want to open my basement wall all the time to unplug the watch dog and the autoformer. Thanks for your help.
I put a auto transfer switch in.. I use one outlet with Campground power and a different outlet with generator power..
I keep meaning to get the metal box that you can lock over the surge protector and rv plug outside for the one I use, but I continue to live dangerously.
Around the 17:00 minute mark, you mentioned battery disconnect, appliances, etc. it’s captain obvious, but you would want to NOT be plugged in to the electric. 👍🤞🤣
😂🤣😂
Seems like surge protector is kind of close to the water heater. If the water lines develop a pin hole, it would get wet.
Yeah I think I talked about all the potential for water to come down on that stuff. All except that the surge protector is waterproof. It is designed to be plugged in outside your RV. Now the auto farmer has the capability to resist water but it is not waterproof
So what happens if you plug into the pedestal and it is wired incorrectly, do you still risk destroying your shore power cable. Is you shore power cable still at risk? I have elected to buy the non EPO version of the watchdog to put at the pedestal, so in the event of bad wiring or a lightning strike, my shore power cable is protected. I have a smart plug cable and plug, and they are not cheap.
The shore power cable is the least likely to be affected by any miswiring as all it does is transfer the electricity as it is delivered. It doesn't care the strength nor the polarity of what is going through it therefore it doesn't get affected when those things are wrong. It suffers damage whenever it is required to transfer those incorrect parameters to a component such as the rig. So as long as you have something that will correct or shut off demand from that Shore power cord it will not allow it to be harmed.
@@Rvdaydream I agree with most of the premise of your statement mostly, however there is another advantage of having the additional non EPO watchdog at your pedestal still along with the internally rig mounted EPO version. When we arrive at a campsite, once we are parked out of traffic, the very next thing we do , is to check the pedestal with the NON EPO watchdog to verify the pedestal is a usable power source. This can be done with a cheaper option, the Progressive Dynamics plug as well, but for a little more you get a backup surge protect, which in fact can be use inside the rig, if the surger protector EPO became non functional. So you can also monitor the non EPO watchdog line voltage via bluetooth to see park voltage, and then see the EPO watchdog voltage via bluetooth to see the effect the autotransformer is having on the line voltage.
Listen, I get it, you want to make sure that you're protected. Don't overthink it, there's a reason why Engineers say keep it simple, before we started traveling full time I've been over backwards over-engineering and for the most part it came in handy. And not being the type of person that wanted to overexert every function of setup I could not get around manually unplugging the Hughes products when running on a generator. That is I could have spent more time and money on putting in a complete switch system that would reroute around those components but with all the additional cost it's just best to unplug it. And after being on the road for 3 years full time I found the best thing that we could have done was start off with the basics and modify as situations arose. While we were traveling I seen all kinds of stuff going on as far as campsite power. But the autoformer and the surge protector did just fine in their most basic configuration.. the only concerns that had to be addressed was when Park owners that didn't understand how those components worked would frown upon them so that's why they were installed internally in the rig.. as far as the surge protector, I didn't like that it lit up like a Christmas tree and had to be secured to the pedestal in case we were gone for a period of time and somebody decided to liberate the device from our ownership.. you will see campers out there that do Overkill setups especially when it comes to their water delivery, they will have a pressure regulator at the supply spigot they will also have a pressure regulator installed where it enters their rig. This falls under the same category as having a generator that has built-in surge protection yet another surge protector being utilized.. just keep it simple, use the surge protector and autoformer when plugged in to shore power, when using the generator let it take care of the job.. so for 3 years traveling the entire country we would essentially do the same thing every time we set up for power, we would plug in our rig knowing that the surge protector and autoformer we're already plugged in and ready to receive, we would then listen for the loud click that was characteristic for the power watchdog, and then I would look at the app to see what kind of voltages I had coming in on both lines.. at that point since our rig add an app that we control the climate system I would then turn on both AC units and then go back to the Hughes app to watch the line voltage and how well the autoformer modified it.. we never had the test anything at the pedestal. It's really extraneous to do so. The worst potential problem would be that the watchdog could get damaged to the point of needing repaired we always carried an additional cheap surge protector and the autoformer itself has its own surge protection.. within the first year of us traveling we hit 33 States 22,000 Mi and camp that every type of Park/resort that you could imagine.. We had trouble at 3 of them.. Only 1 required a park electrician to fix the pedestal...
Man, those Indiana farm boys can really improve on their wiring and plumbing skill.
will this work when you have a 30amp connection and an adapter to the 50 amp plug? does the Autoformer work with a 30 amp feed
Mike, Ken thinks you are very knowledgeable and loves listening to you. We just got a victron Bluetooth setup. We have had the setup, just not the Bluetooth to watch on phones. We were told to keep track of the volts instead of percentage. What is your opinion about watching these readings? I don’t remember if you ever added solar to your trailers.
I love the victron stuff. I honestly don't know what to look at. Of course the percentage is not going to be as accurate as the actual voltage. Just like a gas tank, it would be much more important to know exactly how many gallons you have instead of what percentage of the tank is left but everybody pretty much looks at the gas gauge that is given to them from the manufacturer. I think that you would be able to get away with looking at the percentage until it got down to the nitty-gritty meaning the point at which the batteries would be damaged.
Wouldn’t the Autoformer and Watchdog together do the same thing as the Progressive EMS? Genuinely curious.
No.. Autoformer will convert available Amps and turn it into safe levels of voltage.. I believe They are the only ones that have that technology available for RVs
Great job Mike. Looks like you got a great electrical setup. I can not believe that you would do something to update your 5th wheel and the project would have anything to do with you anal retentive. LMBO Like really awesome the way you have installed everything.
You have to, because some of these RV parks tend to be very shady with their electrical. Mike has already blown the whistle on several RV parks who had shoddy electrical, one in particular they had to have a guy come out while they were at their site, to get the darn hookup box fixed, its crazy! I think all RV parks who break electrical code should be fined heavily, only way they learn.
@@stellarproductions8888 I understand that because I trust NOBODY that provides a service or any kind. I have my reasons for how and why I feel this way but it is what it is. You have to show me you deserve my respect and my money.
Explained very well.
I did a very similar setup in my Fifth Wheel. Glad to see I'm not the only one think this same way.
Question ❓ 🙋
Could I gain the same result of protection if I put the autoformer in a metal box with a hole on each side. Plug it in and lock the box. Now no one will steal it.
As long as weather doesn't reach it... Yes... They make a cover for it... And the handle is very sturdy for running a cable through it... And the soft cover will allow room for a cable to exit...
Just hard wire before the transfer switch if you use a generator. And I was told that the Circuit board that will be fried is only 30 some dollars, I do not know, I was just told. I do have the Watch Dog hard wired before my transfer switch.
Hey guys!!
When Mike said knock on wood, he knocked on his head first, I didn't know Mikes head was made of wood, keep wood peckers away Mike. HAHA 🤣 I agree, 98V is kind of horrifying for a 120V system, most sensitive electronics like microwaves would even throw a fit on that. I think its the RV parks that are doing something illegal, proper electrical code is 50-AMP hookups, if they provide 40-45 AMPS, that is wrong, 100% wrong! Or 15 - 25 amps for a 30-amp hookup. They should be fined for breaking electrical code. What they should really fear, is you spreading the word that their electrical sucks! Auto Former rocks, Bulldog approved! YES SIR! 😁
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You are spot on will everything. The only problem the autoformer causes is putting a spotlight on an already existing issue. You are paying for 50 amps you should be able to use 50 amps. I'm going to do a similar setup with my class a. I found an affordable automatic transfer switch that I'm going to wire the onboard generator into that switches between shore power and generator.
100% agreement here. You should be able to get what you pay, and furthermore, they should just follow the proper dam electrical code, 50 amps is 50 amps, not 30, not 35, not 40, not 45, 50. And honestly, if the park was doing it right, it should give a little leeway and be just over 50-amps available, to insure it makes the 50-amps constant. I own a generator, so I think I know a thing or too about AMP outputs at 120v and 240v.
open air splice not in a box, wow!!! fire fire fire!!!
Well it is technically still winter... 😂🤣