Surge Protectors — Don't Cheap Out
Plug your RV into a campground pedestal without one of these — and you're gambling your whole electrical system.
Open ground. Reverse polarity. High voltage. Low voltage. Open neutral. Any one of these will fry your AC unit, your converter, your inverter, your fridge. All of it. Eight thousand dollars of damage in five seconds.
Hardwired or plug-in. Hardwired is better — can't be stolen, can't be forgotten. Two to four hundred bucks. The thirty-dollar ones at the truck stop? They only catch surges. They don't catch the more common stuff — bad neutral, low voltage.
Mine reads pedestal status before it lets power through. Bad pedestal? It blocks the connection. I've had it save me three times in six years.
Brand doesn't matter as much as feature list. Get one that catches low voltage and open ground. Comment if you've ever fried something at a campground — I want to count us up.