Progressive Industries PT-50C EMS False Error Report

danemayer · Jun 19, 2019

Pulled into a campground this afternoon and as usual, plugged the EMS into the pedestal and the power cord into the EMS. Turned on the breaker. 4 minutes later, no power inside.

The display on the EMS showed an E3 error: L1 High Voltage.
L1 was showing 208V and L2 121V.
The EMS would not pass power to the trailer with this error.

Park Management sent someone out to check. He took voltage readings and checked for loose wires. Made sure neutral and ground were bonded and all screws were tight. Everything looked good.

Took the EMS to 3 other sites on different power legs in the park and had similar readings and error codes.

John and Debi MacVie happened to be in the park. John was kind enough to bring his Surge Guard over to test the pedestal. It showed power ok. I tested voltage with my meter - looked good. So I plugged straight in without the EMS. Everything worked.

Called Progressive. They speculated that a seal may have failed, allowing water into the electronics. We certainly have had plenty of rain in the past month. They were ok with my taking the back cover off to dry it out but suggested I file a warranty claim even if I get it working as there could be damage from the water.

Sure enough, there was a little water here and there inside. Dried it with a hairdryer on cool setting for about 10 minutes.

Plugged it in and the readings are now normal. Everything is working with the EMS.

Warranty claim will be filed on our 4 year old EMS, but in the meantime I have electrical protection again.

Mrsfish · Jun 19, 2019

If you are at the same park with the Mc Vie’s - there is another heartlanders there in their Sundance. Betty and Gordon Watson from the Az chapter. Good peeps

RDsStudio59 · Jun 19, 2019

Good information Dan. Thanks for sharing.

Sent from Roger using my personal pocket pc on Tapatalk

Fox · Jun 19, 2019

I would be interested in a followup report; I understand Progressive Industries (PI) sold out and the new owners have changed their warranty coverages.

Within a few months of use my original external 30A unit failed due to water penetration - PI took care of it. I also had a second failure that PI took care of.
That's specifically why it didn't stop me from purchasing another PI unit (internal, 50A) from them.

avvidclif · Jun 20, 2019

Fox said:
I would be interested in a followup report; I understand Progressive Industries (PI) sold out and the new owners have changed their warranty coverages.

Within a few months of use my original external 30A unit failed due to water penetration - PI took care of it. I also had a second failure that PI took care of.
That's specifically why it didn't stop me from purchasing another PI unit (internal, 50A) from them.

Go to their website and read the warranty, removes doubts.

Fox · Jun 20, 2019

avvidclif said:
Go to their website and read the warranty, removes doubts.

I did - and I noticed this difference:
My second failure (the plug melted, likely due to a bad pedestal connection) is now excluded from warranty repair.

TravelTiger · Jun 20, 2019

We've had two EMS replaced by PI, both with water damage. Emailed them pic and info they requested and within 5 days had new unit. Ours both exhibited symptoms like Dan posted.

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Fox · Jun 20, 2019

We've had two EMS replaced by PI, both with water damage. Emailed them pic and info they requested and within 5 days had new unit. Ours both exhibited symptoms like Dan posted.

Your warranty experience sounds a bit different than mine; in my two cases I was required to provide a bill of sale and mail them my defective unit (on my dollar) which they then repaired and returned (on their dollar). The competitors (at that time) would have said "sorry, purchase a new unit".

TravelTiger · Jun 20, 2019

Fox said:
We've had two EMS replaced by PI, both with water damage. Emailed them pic and info they requested and within 5 days had new unit. Ours both exhibited symptoms like Dan posted.

Your warranty experience sounds a bit different than mine; in my two cases I was required to provide a bill of sale and mail them my defective unit (on my dollar) which they then repaired and returned (on their dollar). The competitors (at that time) would have said "sorry, purchase a new unit".

I did have to send a bill of sale, sorry I forgot that part. Since I had bought from Amazon, it was easy to find in my purchase history.

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Fox · Jun 20, 2019

This experience was about 5-6 years ago - and is not a dig on Progressive Industries - but rather on (a historic) Amazon.

I originally ordered my first (30A external PI EMS) from Amazon - and received the wrong product.
I went thru the rig-a-mo-roll to return it and reordered another one.
My second received unit was the same wrong product. Repeat the above procedure.

I reordered it a third time and realized they again had it criss-crossed with another product.
I cancelled that order and eventually ordered it from Tweetys.com (at a higher price).

Each time I was speaking to Amazons (Indian accents) customer service personnal and they observed the problem - but were unable to correct it.

danemayer · Jun 21, 2019

The warranty claim I submitted required a copy of the invoice and pictures of the EMS plug and receptacle. Their warranty page makes it clear that external heat/arcing damage is not covered. That exclusion makes sense to me.

avvidclif · Jun 21, 2019

My hard wired version saved my RV the other day. I turned on 1 AC so I could do some work in the rv. It ran less than a minute and shut down. Checked all breakers, OK. Checked PI's panel. Showed E-2, lost ground, and it cut power to the rv. FWIW if you loose ground the rv gets 240v. Not good. Started looking for the problem. My setup at the time is a 30A power cord with a Marinco 50A plug into a Camco 90 deg adapter to the RV. (Much lighter setup than the 50A when full power not needed)Then to the hardwired PI suppressor. Wall plug Ok, when I tried to unplug the power cord from the adapter it wouldn't come out. I removed the outer cover and found the problem. The ground in the Marinco plug for whatever reason had worked loose (after 5 years+). The previous week I had the main AC replaced and ran it for several days to make sure all was Ok and it (plug) got hot and I didn't know it. You can see the result. The cover had no damage visible.

In the FWIW worth dept a pedestal mounted surge suppressor would not have seen this problem and saved the RV, it only looks at the power from the pedestal and not downstream. That's why mine is hardwired inside the RV. It watches all the way into the RV.

porthole · Jun 21, 2019

avvidclif said:
In the FWIW worth dept a pedestal mounted surge suppressor would not have seen this problem and saved the RV, it only looks at the power from the pedestal and not downstream. That's why mine is hardwired inside the RV. It watches all the way into the RV.

And that’s why I hardwired mine in after the transfer switch - full protection.

NYSUPstater · Jun 21, 2019

In the FWIW worth dept a pedestal mounted surge suppressor would not have seen this problem and saved the RV, it only looks at the power from the pedestal and not downstream. That's why mine is hardwired inside the RV. It watches all the way into the RV.

So what your saying is that a PI 50 amp EMS pedestal isn't as good as a 50 amp hardwired and won't protect the coach? Way I understand the PI 50amp EMS pedestal, is that it does the exact same thing for protection as a hardwired unit does, just that it's outside. MY PI 50 amp EMS continuously scrolls both lines of power and reads out what it is and has features that will shut power off if a fault is detected in order to protect the coach.

danemayer · Jun 21, 2019

At the Goshen Rally, we had Mike Sokol (NoShockZone) present 2 electrical seminars. One of the discussions was about ability of a portable unit to detect downstream problems. In general they don't. That would argue that an inline EMS, after the transfer switch, should catch almost every possible problem.

Mike said he's been told by the Southwire engineer that the new Surge Guard EMS units can detect a downstream open neutral. He didn't have details.

He also mentioned that with a portable unit, if it shows a problem, you can take it to another site to find one that works, without moving the trailer first.

carl.swoyer · Jun 21, 2019

danemayer said:
Pulled into a campground this afternoon and as usual, plugged the EMS into the pedestal and the power cord into the EMS. Turned on the breaker. 4 minutes later, no power inside.

The display on the EMS showed an E3 error: L1 High Voltage.
L1 was showing 208V and L2 121V.
The EMS would not pass power to the trailer with this error.

Park Management sent someone out to check. He took voltage readings and checked for loose wires. Made sure neutral and ground were bonded and all screws were tight. Everything looked good.

Took the EMS to 3 other sites on different power legs in the park and had similar readings and error codes.

John and Debi MacVie happened to be in the park. John was kind enough to bring his Surge Guard over to test the pedestal. It showed power ok. I tested voltage with my meter - looked good. So I plugged straight in without the EMS. Everything worked.

Called Progressive. They speculated that a seal may have failed, allowing water into the electronics. We certainly have had plenty of rain in the past month. They were ok with my taking the back cover off to dry it out but suggested I file a warranty claim even if I get it working as there could be damage from the water.

Sure enough, there was a little water here and there inside. Dried it with a hairdryer on cool setting for about 10 minutes.

Plugged it in and the readings are now normal. Everything is working with the EMS.

Warranty claim will be filed on our 4 year old EMS, but in the meantime I have electrical protection again.

Dane I had the same problem. Out of warranty.
What I did was drilled out the tamper proof lugs opened it and removed the water. Once it was completely dry I closed it up tested it and it was working as designed. I then installed it internally between the transfer switch and the distribution panel.

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avvidclif · Jun 21, 2019

NYSUPstater said:
In the FWIW worth dept a pedestal mounted surge suppressor would not have seen this problem and saved the RV, it only looks at the power from the pedestal and not downstream. That's why mine is hardwired inside the RV. It watches all the way into the RV.

So what your saying is that a PI 50 amp EMS pedestal isn't as good as a 50 amp hardwired and won't protect the coach? Way I understand the PI 50amp EMS pedestal, is that it does the exact same thing for protection as a hardwired unit does, just that it's outside. MY PI 50 amp EMS continuously scrolls both lines of power and reads out what it is and has features that will shut power off if a fault is detected in order to protect the coach.

It can only monitor what is fed into it, not what is after it. I don't know of any that look both ways. Maybe some engineer has figured how to do that. A friend uses 2. One at the pedestal and one at the RV.

Progressive Industries PT-50C EMS False Error Report

danemayer

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