Quote:
Originally Posted by scout3351
I am definitely not an electrician either, but that's the only change I made at a friends suggestion and no more tingling. It's been over a year now and so far so good. I'm just happy it's gone, it was a very unpleasant feeling.
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That is correct scout3351. Mike Sokol explains in detail how the compromised ground is the problem (which you definitely had with a missing ground in your extension cord)...and how about everything plugged into your AC power in your RV has a small varying amount of leakage to the ground. Since your RV basically works like a subpanel, then the ground and neutral are not bonded together. The only way the RV can get ground is all the way back at the main panel/camp pedestal. If you are missing a ground in your power cord/extension cord, etc...then you have no ground to the RV.
I really recommend to everyone reading this to get his book or print it all off from his N0-Shock-Zone site. The more people that educate themselves on this matter, the more the word can spread. Mike really goes above and beyond trying to help everyone on this subject.
Are “Little” Shocks OK? | No~Shock~Zone
http://noshockzone.org/kindle-ebook-now-available/
Here is an excerpt from Mike:
An RV chassis and skin with ANY significant voltage above earth potential (2 volts is max) is proof that you’ve lost your RV’s safety ground connection. Now, by itself an open ground connection won’t cause an RV hot-skin voltage condition,
but nearly anything inside your RV plugged into its electrical system will cause some leakage current to the RV chassis-ground. And that leakage will show up as a hot-skin voltage of varying degree. The really dangerous thing is that sometimes those can be high-impedance leakage currents that aren’t particularly dangerous. And that’s when you feel a “little” shock. However, that same “little” current can quickly become low-impedance/high-current leakage in a heartbeat, and that will almost certainly kill you if you touch the RV with wet hands and feet. It’s just a matter of degree, and you never know what that degree is. So any feeling of shocks from your RV or appliance is a warning to turn off the circuit breakers and disconnect the power plug immediately.
If you do have a proper RV safety ground back to the service panel, then it should be impossible to develop more than 1 or 2 volts on your RV skin. It will harmlessly drain away the small currents from normal high-impedance appliance leakage, as well as trip the circuit breaker form huge currents that result from abnormal low-impedance leakage, such as a screw driven through a wire inside your wall.
So if you measure more than 2 volts between the earth and the chassis of your RV there’s a serious problem with your safety ground.
This is usually as simple as a broken or loose ground contact on your extension cord or dog-bone adapter, but can also be due to a problem in your campsite pedestal or home power outlet. Old garages are especially dangerous since they can be ungrounded for years without you knowing it, and the first time you plug an RV into it there can be a deadly hot-skin condition. And certainly a worn RV pedestal outlet can have corrosion or loose contacts, and that can cause an RV hot-skin condition.
2011 Flagstaff 831 RLBSS
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