Brad
Member
I had resigned myself to thinking I needed an outdoor/portable surge protector, but I really wanted a hardwired unit. A few weeks ago I noticed for the first time that the panel below and to the right of the sink (when looking at the sink) in my North Trail 21FBS is removable. The second I saw that I knew exactly what was behind it. I took off the panel and sure enough, there's the perfect spot for a hardwired unit, right beneath the box where you stuff the power cable from the outside.
I went with the Progressive EMS-HW30C with remote display (the cheapest I found was at RVUpgradeStore.com). It's a pretty cool unit. The remote cycles between displaying the amperage, voltage, and frequency of the power. It will also show an error code when something is wrong.
The unit was a bit bigger than I expected and just barely fits between the cabinet and what I think is the vent pipe for the gray tank.
Installation was more difficult than I expected because I had to place the unit a little towards the rear of the trailer (to left in photo) because the vent pipe gets closer to the interior as you move towards the front of the trailer. Luckily I was able to connect the input end of the wiring with the unit outside the cabinet and then connect the output with the unit inside the cabinet. It could have been placed another 6 inches to the right (towards front of trailer) if I had wanted to mess with mounting it on top of a ~3/4" block to get it up above the lip at the bottom of the cabinet (and thus closer to the interior/farther from the pipe). By far the most difficult part was stripping and prepping that dang 30-amp wire!
I opted to install the display right there on the panel. It was the easiest and least intrusive thing to do. I'm not sure how to pretty-up the hole where the data cable comes through, maybe I'll use a rubber grommet.
I went with the Progressive EMS-HW30C with remote display (the cheapest I found was at RVUpgradeStore.com). It's a pretty cool unit. The remote cycles between displaying the amperage, voltage, and frequency of the power. It will also show an error code when something is wrong.
The unit was a bit bigger than I expected and just barely fits between the cabinet and what I think is the vent pipe for the gray tank.
Installation was more difficult than I expected because I had to place the unit a little towards the rear of the trailer (to left in photo) because the vent pipe gets closer to the interior as you move towards the front of the trailer. Luckily I was able to connect the input end of the wiring with the unit outside the cabinet and then connect the output with the unit inside the cabinet. It could have been placed another 6 inches to the right (towards front of trailer) if I had wanted to mess with mounting it on top of a ~3/4" block to get it up above the lip at the bottom of the cabinet (and thus closer to the interior/farther from the pipe). By far the most difficult part was stripping and prepping that dang 30-amp wire!
I opted to install the display right there on the panel. It was the easiest and least intrusive thing to do. I'm not sure how to pretty-up the hole where the data cable comes through, maybe I'll use a rubber grommet.
Tom
