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Pro Power Onboard operating steps? To eliminate surges or breakers tripping
AussieSteveGuy
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I would really love to hear best practices here, too. It feels like it’s still very early days for insights.
daemonic3
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I think it all depends on what you plug in! Just do everything wisely. If you are plugging in things with an on/off switch, I would think make sure generator is on first, then simply flip the switch after plugging. If it is a "hot" load without a switch I would plug it first, then turn on propower. Reason being that you will have a "debounced" connection at the socket, rather than as you slide the prongs in it can be very ugly for the appliance if you don't do it in one smooth insertion. Hopefully everything we plug in will be manually controllable with an on/off switch!
For my setup (documented here: https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/thr...first-hookup-and-test-results.2698/post-40100) I had a unique situation with my surge guard. I believe that the surge guard, upon startup, does a very thorough series of tests and at one step it will short neutral to ground. This is a no-no for Propower as it is already a bonded neutral and will immediately "ground fault" if it detects a remote ground. I moved the surge guard to right near the Propower socket and it worked flawlessly. For all subsequent hookups I won't use my surge guard as the truck is now a "known" source with good, solid power. The guard is only there to protect from unknown sources, like a random pedestal at a campground. I didn't know yet if my truck worked and wanted to protect my trailer.
As far as the trailer, I flipped my main fridge off, water heater off, mini fridge unplugged. The only load I expected at initial plug-in is the AC-DC converter. I found that this floor power happened to be <100W so it wasn't dangerous anyway but there is no "on" switch for it on my trailer except the breaker (which I didn't bother with). Then I enabled things one by one while refreshing the Fordpass Propower screen reading.
For my setup (documented here: https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/thr...first-hookup-and-test-results.2698/post-40100) I had a unique situation with my surge guard. I believe that the surge guard, upon startup, does a very thorough series of tests and at one step it will short neutral to ground. This is a no-no for Propower as it is already a bonded neutral and will immediately "ground fault" if it detects a remote ground. I moved the surge guard to right near the Propower socket and it worked flawlessly. For all subsequent hookups I won't use my surge guard as the truck is now a "known" source with good, solid power. The guard is only there to protect from unknown sources, like a random pedestal at a campground. I didn't know yet if my truck worked and wanted to protect my trailer.
As far as the trailer, I flipped my main fridge off, water heater off, mini fridge unplugged. The only load I expected at initial plug-in is the AC-DC converter. I found that this floor power happened to be <100W so it wasn't dangerous anyway but there is no "on" switch for it on my trailer except the breaker (which I didn't bother with). Then I enabled things one by one while refreshing the Fordpass Propower screen reading.
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