Transfer Switch Install Advice

[Pulln]

I am looking for some advice on what materials to use for this install. I bought a TRC Surge Guard 50A to replace my burned out IOTA. I went out to my camper to scope out the cabling and realized that the cables coming in to the current box will not be long enough to do the job for the new box.

Of particular concern is the output/load side. The current configuration has it going out of the top and the surge guard is setup to exit the bottom.

I might be ok with the cables on the genset and shore side but am open to considering everything at this point as I want to do it right the first time.

I've attached some pix of the new and the old in hopes it will help get this thing installed faster.

Thank you in advance.

Noah

[abneynormal]

so you are installing a new transfer switch and a surge protector. I just added wire to connect the output from my transfer switch to the surge protector then to the fuse panel. that way either on shore or generator problems everything will be protected. all I had to do is get 4 feet of 6 gage wire to loop around from the transfer switch output to the surge protector input and put the output on the surge protector where the wire to the fuse panel will reach the surge protector. I used the progressive industries with the remote indicator. good luck

[Pulln]

I wanted to go with the hardwired solution to try to keep it simple but now it appears that it might have been easier to go with an external surge suppressor as it would have made extending the output side cabling much easier.

I really don't want to have to make a new home run shot from the output side to the breaker but not sure if there is a trustworthy way of adding an extension to the cable and then patching it to the ATS.

I may hit up an electrical supply store tomorrow to see if they have some better products available than Lowes and HD.

[Pulln]

Fortunately for me they left a little slack in the cable below the basement. I was able to get the surge guard ATS installed in about an hour flat. Probably would have finished sooner but I had to run to Ace Hardware for 2 NM cable relief connectors.

The Genset cables weren't color coded Black White and Red, Keystone or Onan use Black, White, Black/Yellow. The Black/Yellow was the red line in my case.

Merry Christmas All. I appreciate all the info you all have shared on here.

[abneynormal]

we do a lot of bike rallys and the power is sometimes sub standard. I will add make sure your surge protector works for broken ground as well as high/low voltages. you never know when some nimrod will hit a power box and mess the ground up. yes it happened to us. lol alcohol and bikers?? just check some surge protectors only work for surges and spikes in voltage. I hope the one you got does it all.

[abneynormal]

white is ground, green or bare copper is case ground and black and or red is hot. all a 240 50 amp is. is 2 120 volt legs.

[Pulln]

white is ground, green or bare copper is case ground and black and or red is hot. all a 240 50 amp is. is 2 120 volt legs.



fortunately the switch was black, white and red so all i had to guess on was the blk/yel cable.

I am not sure if this particular switch will protect against the broader range of power faults but it is a lot better than what was in there before.

Apparently the dealership didn't even have the power running through the IOTA rather they had hardwired shore power to the camper using wire nuts. It looked like recent work so I am guessing they did it to get the camper to pass for the walk through.

I hate to learn about stuff this way but I am getting one heck of a education with this one and from you all.

Now that i am this far in to it might be a good idea to biker proof it huh :) I ride as well but have only been doing track days with my CBR. Now that we have the toy hauler I will be looking to add a cruiser that me and the Mrs' can ride together on.

[abneynormal]

the transfer switch should have tech support with it. to help you install it. that is just to make sure.

[bobbecky]

I know this is hard for some to understand, but don't let yourself get locked in to looking for 240 volts. All you should be concerned about is good 120 volt hot legs. You will occasionally get into a park that has 208Y/120 volt power. This means, you will still have two hot legs that measure 120 volts to the neutral or ground, but when you put the volt meter across the two hot legs, you will see 208 volts.