RV electrical safety round table with Mike Sokol and ABC Upfitters
On this week’s StressLess Camping RV podcast our guests Mike Sokol, Ben Miller and Scott Herman know their electrical safety and share some great tips to help keep you safe. Then we look at a new version of a favorite gadget and we might have even found our next RV.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Our dueling videos about how we pack our Rockwood Mini Lite 2205s campers with TNT RVing
Mike Sokol - rvelectricity.substack.com or rvelectricity.com
Our review of the 2025 Rockwood Mini Lite 2506FK travel trailer
Tips for updating the ventilation on your Magic Chef RV refrigerator: https://youtu.be/9m5vbPJBJ0E?si=kp3VZsd-EzUyIjuN
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Our trusted partners - RV Discounts and Deals
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 268
Peggy Barthel
This week, on the Stressless Camping RV podcast, we have Mike Sokol, Ben Miller, and Scott Herman talking about safety tips and answering some of your questions about RV electricity.
Tony Barthel
We also have what just might be our next RV and a very important safety tip, plus a new electrical gadget too. So join us because I'm Toni.
Peggy Barthel
I'm Peggy.
Tony Barthel
And we're 2 RV industry veterans who travel part time.
Peggy Barthel
In a small or slightly less small trailer.
Tony Barthel
Looking to share tips, and I don't remember what else we do, but
Peggy Barthel
It's written right there.
Tony Barthel
It's written right there, so I'm looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips
Peggy Barthel
Tricks.
Tony Barthel
And discounts. You know, 200 and
Peggy Barthel
After 260 something, you'd think we'd know those words.
Tony Barthel
So if you have always wanted to see how we store our stuff
Peggy Barthel
I'm sure that keeps you awake at night. Like, how where do they put their pots and pans?
Tony Barthel
Where do they put the trash can, and where does the dirty laundry go? We have an answer for you. And not only do we have an answer of where we put our stuff, But Tony and Tina are friends from TNT RV who are out there in the audience.
Mike Sokol
In the crowd of 100, maybe 1000?
Peggy Barthel
Thousands of crowd out there.
Mike Sokol
I think
Scott Herman
they're in the 4th row.
Peggy Barthel
Tony and Tony and Tina from TNT RV ing showed us how they organized their 2205 s, which is completely different from how we do it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And it's kinda cool. So what we did is we videoed their trailer, and they videoed ours. We have both those videos for you to watch at our home on the web at stressless camping.com. So if you're always wondering, where in the wide, wide world of sports do I keep my trash can if I buy a Rockwood mini lite 220 5 s?
Peggy Barthel
Have we got an answer for you?
Tony Barthel
Answers for you.
Peggy Barthel
Well, actually, the trash can's in the same place. But, anyway, we are super excited to have Scott and Ben with us today from ABC Outfitters. So instead of us telling you how great it is, why don't you guys tell us how great it is?
Ben Miller
Yeah. So we installed the power package, which, uh, Tony and Peggy have in their trailer. Um, and we do this system and basically anything that you can camp in, we have, uh, a solution for you, uh, to help get your RV off grid. And we get all kinds of questions. A lot of people are like, can you run your air conditioner off battery?
Ben Miller
Yeah. You can. The idea is, uh, that you paid for the whole trailer. You may as well be able to use it all whether it's plugged in or not. So that's kind of our area of expertise and, um, you know, we're talking about safety features today and, uh, our our system does have built in safety features that we'll be happy to talk about, uh, a little bit later on.
Tony Barthel
One of the things I really like about your system is that everything is from one company. It's Masterbuilt, it's all installed by 1 company and this is something, yes, we're gonna talk about safety later, but it's just, you guys speak English, you know how to translate from nerd to normal, and the systems just work. And I've said plenty of times, the one thing I never worry about in our RV is that power system.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
It's just there and works. It's a great system. How would I get hold of ABC Upfitters?
Ben Miller
The best way to get in touch with us would be by giving us a call. 574-333 3 225. The other new great way to get in touch with us is via our new website, abcupfitters.com. It's got a lot of great builds, uh, that we've done over the past, you know, two and a half years now and, um, also a lot of helpful resources for people who are solar and lithium curious.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of well, this we'll get into later, but just how to get everything done properly and hooked up properly and all of that. And so, I guess, you could start at the basics, and, uh, we're gonna talk with Mike about this. A lot of people have their RV, and they say, oh, I wanna plug I'm at my brother in law's house.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And I wanna plug in with an extension cord. Oh. Oh, yeah. And they do, and they're like, why doesn't my air conditioner work?
Mike Sokol
Well, part of the problem is, you know, people hate the big heavy cords that we use. The short power cords, they're pretty weighty. I've had guys go and they'll take a, um, you know, like a 30 or a 50 to 15 amp adapter and they'll run a 100 feet of skinny little orange extension cord that they got at Home Depot and they'll adapt back the other way. And then, they'll say, but it's showing me I've only got 90 volts when the air and the air conditioner won't come on. What's going on?
Mike Sokol
And, once you go to, you know, skinny cords plus long length, it's equals a lot of voltage drop. Sure. And so that's where you have problems. Now, one of the things I actually have a master volt system in my little Geo Pro. Yes, you do.
Mike Sokol
Toy hauler. In fact, it was prototype that you guys built, and it does something because it's got the hybrid inverter that allows you to go and say, I wanna draw a maximum of, say, 7 amperes from that line. So I'm going to limit it, so it's not gonna draw 30 amps anymore. And in fact, I did that the other day. I've done this a couple of of ways.
Mike Sokol
So normally, you can just go and say, I will take up to 30 amps if I have 30 amp capable thing, But, I've been able to charge this up off of my dad's little e x, Honda EX1000 that he gave me. And, it's a 1,000 watt, I mean this thing is a beast. It's an old thing that looks like an inverter one and I just dumb this down and say 7 amps max and then it uses 7 amps and then whenever the air conditioner is running it takes the extra from the lithium batteries and blends them together it'll take the whatever it needs from the lith from the lithium batteries, and then whenever you're not using it, it puts it back. And, I, you know, the first time I'm thinking I've got to flip switches and turn knobs and everything. No.
Mike Sokol
You just say, I want 7 amps max. And I also did this from the car generator, that that little remote one that you can hook on if you need some backup power when the sun doesn't shine. It's not shining for a few days, you hook that on. 1,000 watt one you can easily set that for 7 or 8 amps and that will then let your engine idle and guess what? You can charge it back up.
Mike Sokol
And, while you're running air conditioning and other stuff because it's just floating the battery up and down and it will keep you from overloading your extension cords too. So it's a safety thing.
Tony Barthel
During Mike's we are all at the frog rally, by the way. And Mike just gave a seminar that I sat through, which another excellent seminar. And you had talked about heating up a extension cord.
Mike Sokol
Oh, yeah. My wife asked me the other day, she said, somebody had something they said when they were 8 years old, they knew what they wanted to do. What did you know you wanted to do? I said, I wanted to have a mad scientist laboratory and get to blow up stuff. So guess what I've got?
Mike Sokol
I have my own mad scientist laboratory, funkworks lab, which I've named it, which I get to blow up stuff. Yeah. So, I took and ran a skinny little 16 gauge extension cord, and I ran 30 ampers to it while I had cameras on it and, um, infrared, uh, you know, thermal temperature gauges on this thing and in 5 minutes it was up to a 190 degrees.
Peggy Barthel
Wow.
Mike Sokol
And, 5 more minutes, I'm sure it would have caught on fire, but I was being a good husband. This is in the house. My wife said no fires in the house, but, uh, now I have a big concrete pad in the back. You know what that means? The control environment.
Mike Sokol
Yeah. Yeah. I've got the environment and you know and I'm thinking okay. I think I need to set one on fire. The local fire company wants me to run a PSA on using, um, surge protector strips to run space heaters.
Mike Sokol
Okay. And, home, because we get they get fires every year when they take those outlet strips, run a space heater in there. Those things burn up like crazy.
Peggy Barthel
Now, you said 16 gauge. Remind people or tell people the the numbers go, like, opposite of the size. Right? The better they are, the lower the number.
Mike Sokol
Yeah. So so for instance, a 10 gauge cord is good for 30 amps. Right? And then an 8 gauge is like 40 amps, and a 6 gauge is like 50 amps. And you go down the other way, you know, 12 amp, uh, you know, a 12 gauge is good for, like, 20 amps.
Mike Sokol
14 gauge is good for, like, 15 amps.
Peggy Barthel
So the 16 is like that little 6 foot,
Mike Sokol
like, thing with the one outlet
Tony Barthel
at the
Peggy Barthel
end of it.
Mike Sokol
They say light duty.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm. Right. But they're the ones that everybody has behind the bed so that you can plug in all your phone chargers on.
Mike Sokol
No. That's 18 gauge.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, that's 18 gauge. Okay.
Mike Sokol
And that's the one with the little pluggy thing on the end Yeah. And no groundy thing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Mike Sokol
Them. That groundy thing.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I thought a 12 gauge was to keep burglars running.
Mike Sokol
No. No. It's like shotgun stuff though. Shotguns that I'm not sure where
Scott Herman
it comes
Mike Sokol
from Same burglary. In America but basically it has to do with the number of balls that you could drop in there that weigh a pound. So a 10 gauge has less balls that you need to weigh whatever the weight is. Twelve gauge is smaller.
Scott Herman
When you tell customers though to get to use the ACN limit and dial it down for the extension cords on the power package, We typically if they're gonna be using the 15 amp extension cords, we tell them to use, like, a heavy gauge. We don't want 50 foot 16 gauge wires. But, again, this the system allows you to dial down the ACN limit on the 3 1,000 watt inverter on power package all the way down to 1 amp.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Oh, it's that low?
Mike Sokol
Yeah. I did it once to to try I have some 100 foot 12 gauge cords Mhmm. That I bought. They're they're basically commercial duty contractor cords, and I can run that for my house all the way out if I need to do something, and I think that's the best thing to get.
Scott Herman
The best solution. Absolutely.
Tony Barthel
As with anything, buy something good, and thicker and more expensive is typically better.
Scott Herman
Big wires, happy wire. Yep.
Peggy Barthel
Yes. You can't go too big. Right?
Mike Sokol
I used to think when I was a kid that the electrons are gonna get lost somehow in the wires. Oh. Of
Peggy Barthel
course, this is awesome. They wouldn't know their way, because it's
Mike Sokol
just a big pad. 5 years old, 6 years old, because remember I started doing this when I was 4. Okay. And then I've quickly learned the bigger you can't get too big of a wire.
Tony Barthel
I just see
Peggy Barthel
through the electrons.
Mike Sokol
You're like,
Peggy Barthel
I don't know which way to go.
Tony Barthel
Can you imagine having a 4 year old, like, what happens if I plug in this? Oh, wait. My parents did.
Mike Sokol
Yeah. Well, imagine, like,
Scott Herman
on a turbocharged car opening up your exhaust and going to a bigger exhaust so you get better flow. That's basically what it is. You have we have a a golf cart that we put our Relion lithium batteries in. It's 48 volt system. And, uh, we just use the factory wires that came with the, uh, lead acid batteries, which is fine because that's all it's rated for.
Scott Herman
But it it all it never hurts to open up that that wire to a little bit bigger to allow those electrons to move faster. Yeah. And you're gonna get better performance.
Peggy Barthel
Right. And
Tony Barthel
and that's something talking about RV electrical safety. People buy an RV now, and it has solar panels on it, and it says solar ready. And I'm sure you guys deal with plenty of those rigs. What do you see when you start looking in the walls and behind the panels and such?
Scott Herman
Well, solar ready is, you know, you have to look at the wire gauge ultimately to determine how much power you can run through it. So there are situations when we're doing bigger solar setups where it's claimed as solar ready that, uh, maybe 10 gauge wire is run to support 30 amps. Well, if we're running an array that that is larger than that, you're gonna have to be aware of that and remove that wire, use a larger gauge wire. Mhmm.
Mike Sokol
I've also had a few of my readers say it was solar ready, and there's a Zamp connector on the outside, and you go inside and the bare there's this wire hanging there, and it's there's no controller, and it's not hooked to anything.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, wow.
Scott Herman
It's 2 wires. So a lot of a common misconception is the solar on the side or that Zamp connector. Mhmm. And, basically, what it is, the 2 wires go into the battery, and that's it. There's no controller or anything.
Scott Herman
So customers have to be aware. You have to put a solar controller in place. Because if you just hook solar panels directly up to that, most solar panels are 20 volt or more. Yep. You're running 20 volts directly to the batteries, and that's kapoop.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Is that okay? No good. That's when things get explodey
Mike Sokol
Right.
Tony Barthel
Which is never good. And and had a good question, and my brain
Mike Sokol
keeps there. Train of thought was derailed. Yeah. Speaking of trains I got sidetracked.
Scott Herman
So solar on the side, you need your own solar controller all the time. It's very important.
Tony Barthel
And if you are planning to put in solar, it's not typically just a matter of I'm gonna put on one more panel and then a lithium battery and and such. I mean, yeah, there are some rigs where you can, but, typically, it's more than that.
Scott Herman
Yeah. You you have to, you know, first look at your controller. If you have 3 panels up there already that are producing 10 AM seats and you add another panel, you're, you know, you're leaving you're not really getting in your money's worth out of that extra panel. Also, you have to look at the wire gauge too and make sure that, you know, the total power running through is the gauge wires is going to support that.
Mike Sokol
And if you have too light of a gauge wire, now you have a voltage drop. Any voltage drop, you're losing wattage. Mhmm. Basically, you're heating up that wire rather than turning it into stored energy.
Tony Barthel
And that's not good. Heating
Peggy Barthel
Heating. Heating
Tony Barthel
ed up wire in a wall? I don't know. That that doesn't sound so good. It's a
Mike Sokol
little bit, but if it gets a lot, then
Tony Barthel
So why when I plug my RV into my generator and I plug in my surge suppressor, it says, no bueno.
Mike Sokol
Uh, okay. Because every modern inverter generator has what we call a floating neutral, So it doesn't have a solid, it doesn't have a ground connection. So like 15 years ago, I invented the little plug in thing with the neutral ground jumper, and it's just a generator bonding plug. If I would have been smart, I would have patented it, but I thought everybody knew this. I was doing this for rock and roll stages, because we bond big generators.
Mike Sokol
So little generators is basically a plug that you can get online for less than $10 from Southwire. It's called a generator bonding plug, And you plug it in an unused Edison outlet on there and what it does is it creates that that neutral to ground connection. You never need to actually put a ground rod on a portable generator. Not required, not dangerous, it's not rated, you don't need to do that. But that will now enable you to plug it into let's say you have an RV that has an an I've got an ATS, an automatic transfer switch at my, uh, office that it says it's a ground, it actually detects grounds.
Mike Sokol
Mhmm. So if it has an open ground, it just shuts itself off in 3 seconds. So if you're seeing that, then you just get yourself a binding plug, plug it in one of the things, and then that creates the correct voltage levels, and then all good. And it is code compliant now. It took me 10 years to get this through the National Electrical Code.
Mike Sokol
As of the last thing, it's now rated for as a temporary generator bond.
Peggy Barthel
Okay.
Tony Barthel
Watching news stations and such, you see a lot of people who are scared of lithium power and all of that. Why is that not true in the RV industry or less true, let's just say?
Scott Herman
It really has to do with the the chemistry that's involved. So in the automotive industry, um, and then retail industry with your cell phones and those hover carts and even, uh, you know, EV automotive, you have 2 things. 1 is it's a different chemistry. It's called cobalt, uh, where the voltage is typically much higher and the chemistry is much more volatile. So you do have better performance from those batteries.
Scott Herman
However, they're a lot more volatile. So, you know, uh, know, you can get those runaway events where it's actually a self igniting situation
Mike Sokol
if you get
Scott Herman
a tremendous amount of heat. Why? Because of the chemistry and also because of the high extremely high voltage. It becomes pretty dangerous. So RVIA has a requirement.
Scott Herman
Uh, in any RV that's manufactured, it it's required to be a lithium iron phosphate battery, which is a much more stable chemistry. Most RV applications are 12 volt. You know? Uh, there are some 48 volt applications, but even that being said, it is a, uh, lithium iron phosphate, chemistry, and that's, you know, very, very safe and, uh, stable.
Mike Sokol
And one thing if I might add, where you see a lot of these fires, so I did a article last year. There was, like, 200 of these little electric scooters that had caught on fire and blew up in New York City. Yeah. I remember that. In in there because they're buying the cheapest junk they can from China.
Mike Sokol
There's no battery management systems, no BMS. And so, this thing is just charging and charging and charging, and they literally, like, erupt when they get when they get overloaded. So, um, I had somebody challenge me and they said that they had seen there was an accident in some, like a muffler or something drove right through the middle of a RV battery of a lithium iron phosphate, and it just shut down. And it didn't it didn't catch on fire. And I said, so if I got a 50 caliber gun and shot through it, it wouldn't hurt it?
Mike Sokol
And they said, no. It would shut down.
Scott Herman
We've done that.
Mike Sokol
Have you? Do you have pictures? Yeah. Pictures. See, how come how come you guys get all the fun?
Scott Herman
Mastervolt has done that. We've shot, uh, the batteries, the MOI batteries with the 12 gauge. And like like you said, the the BMS sees that, and it just shuts everything down. Wow. Again, with the the the chemistry of the battery, it's it's very stable, and it's not going to self ignite.
Tony Barthel
Well and this is something else that, you know, as you're putting together these solar systems and especially as they get bigger and bigger. So for anybody who doesn't know, a good battery has what's called a BMS or battery management system, and it knows temperature and state of charge and just all these variables, and it manages that. And when you're buying those really low price batteries that are import, you may get no or very poor BMS. Yeah. And that's another reason for good quality lithium systems is you get state of the art high quality BMSs.
Scott Herman
Yeah. There's really a couple things there with BMSs. First, RVIA controls what's produced in OEM. It does not control, obviously, the aftermarket and what's available on Amazon or Alibaba or wherever you may find, uh, you know, lithium battery for a good price, you know, they they do a couple things. They require that there's a BMS.
Scott Herman
That being said, there are some BMSs that are not, uh, set up to support the loads that are running the battery. You know, you see a lot of these huge lithium iron phosphate batteries, 300 amp hour, for example, 12 volt, with only a 100 amp discharge capability, which, you know, in many cases, if you're running an AC or a high power inverter, you're going to exceed that and, uh, exceed the the the ratings of the BMS. So Mastervolt, what we do is we have a, you know, 500 amp rated for MLI, uh, discharge BMS. Uh, and in addition, we we hook up a mechanical relay to those batteries. It's called the safety relay.
Scott Herman
So RBMS is talking to the safety relay when the system is on. And if it doesn't like something it sees, high voltage, low voltage, you know, high temperature, uh, it will mechanically disconnect the system from operating. So, uh, some additional safety features that complement the BMS that's already in there.
Mike Sokol
And I think that that's important because the last thing you want is a battery discharging super rapidly. Yeah. And this is remember Star Trek when they would always put phasers on overload? You don't want that. You you wanna have safety features because there is quite a lot that if it if it discharges itself in a a few seconds, it's going to be really, really bad.
Mike Sokol
So safety features are good.
Tony Barthel
Well, I and I know there are some people listening or watching who are just listening to Ben talk about the various specifications, and we're like, what in the heck is he saying? And you want, no, you want people who understand
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
That kind of stuff rather than people who are mystified by it. And and it's good to know you guys you know, that's why we like having you here because you you understand a lot more than the average bear.
Scott Herman
Good to know, and I encourage everybody to do research, especially if you're looking to invest in a system like this. Right? It's an expensive investment. It's a good a big upfront cost. But that being said, the beauty of the system is you don't need to know all that stuff.
Mike Sokol
Right.
Scott Herman
There's very few things you need to know. All this stuff that I'm talking about is something that our master engineers put together in the system to work behind the scenes. So you really don't need to think about it other than just turning the system on and off and monitoring, you know, how much time you have left on on your battery. It's gonna do everything else, managing the loads and making sure you're not overcharging or overdischarging the battery.
Peggy Barthel
But if you are listening and you're like, I wish I understood what Ben said just a little bit more, call them. Ask them specific questions, and they can explain it in a way that will make more sense, or at least say only a few words at a time so you can
Mike Sokol
absorb those words. I will say I can also talk to engineers like myself. Yeah. If I wanna go
Peggy Barthel
deep Yeah.
Mike Sokol
They go deep. Right. To go
Peggy Barthel
long. I'm
Mike Sokol
throwing you a big one here. Nerd to normal. You'll go in, and that's what you wanna know.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I mean, how many people we know have spent a year or longer putting together systems that, yeah, they ultimately work.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
But then, I mean, I don't mean this to be a whole episode commercial for ABCF Fitters, but
Peggy Barthel
But
Tony Barthel
you know, we speak the truth. They put together these systems, and after a year of fiddling and late night, you know, cursings and such, they finally work. And that's just when you're spending that kind of money, it's
Mike Sokol
It's terrifying to me, because they will call and start asking me questions about voltage and amperage. I can understand that they don't know what any of it means. Oh, right.
Peggy Barthel
And I say,
Mike Sokol
I want you to go meter something. Well, I don't have a meter.
Tony Barthel
I don't know how to
Mike Sokol
use a meter. So you're hooking all this stuff, you don't know the difference between voltage, amperage, wattage, you don't know how to run a meter, and you're just hooking something up out of a catalog and I'm going, you're gonna kill yourselves here, because Yeah. This is bad stuff.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. You're playing with there's a lot of electricity moving around.
Mike Sokol
Right. They build batteries from scratch. They go buy themselves. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Sokol
They go buy a box. They put them in a wood box or go buy a BMS and they'll call me and I say, I will not touch this. I won't tell you anything because if you touch it, you own it. I'm not telling you nothing. Go away.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Mike Sokol
Go buy one. It's tested, warranty. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. There is value in getting stuff that that just works. I mean, it's like the old days of where there are some people who built a PC and others who just bought one that worked. Right.
Peggy Barthel
So in an RV electrical system, whether it be a system with the lithium and solar or whether it just be off the rack RV, what kind of maintenance should people be worrying about or may not worrying, but making sure that they handle?
Mike Sokol
Loose screws. Loose screws. Like I no. Well, that that that no. No.
Mike Sokol
No. This is why I'm noting she's doing the the the head loose screw thing. And so so here's the problem. Okay. So now people may have an RV for 5 or 10 years, and all of a sudden, they'll have wiring burn up inside, and they can't figure out what happened.
Mike Sokol
And you'll go in. And some of these I've actually looked at, I can retorque the screws in their load center. Like, I can turn them down a quarter of a turn in. They've loosened up over time because of the vibration and the heating and cooling And and consequently, what it'll do is then once it starts getting loose, it gets high resistance and then it starts getting high temperature, which makes it looser, and it'll burn up.
Peggy Barthel
And now I remember learning from you probably last year when we were here. The reason for when we put our 30 amp in the side of the camper, it's got a twisting lock.
Mike Sokol
Right.
Peggy Barthel
And we used to be lazy about locking that, and you said, if it's loose, then all that all those electrons are lost, and they're panicking.
Mike Sokol
I don't think I said that. No. No. They're not panic electrons.
Peggy Barthel
No. That was in relation to what you said earlier. But when it's not a good solid connection Right. Then things are are trying to jump across gaps and Yeah.
Mike Sokol
Well, what happens and causing trouble. So that's a twist lock connector. Remember, that was designed by Hubble in the forties, and it was supposed to be overhead for sewing machine fax. Right? Yeah.
Mike Sokol
So it was never designed to go on the side of an RV.
Tony Barthel
So you're saying that it's really a so so connector.
Mike Sokol
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For a lot of people don't know that you have to lock them first off.
Mike Sokol
They just stick them in. Yeah. And until you do that extra little eighth of an inch twist, the the little balls, they don't fall in place and get full contact. Mhmm. And then the second part, you really need to get that twist ring on there because that keeps it from, like, pulling out from the weight of that, and it also helps make it moisture proof, because they didn't have a lot of water in sewing machine factories.
Peggy Barthel
No.
Mike Sokol
So they were never designed to be water resistant. So if you don't do both of those things I had one guy said, well, you know, it's it takes me an extra, like, 30 seconds to put that on, and I just don't have the time. I said, you're camping. Mhmm. You don't have 30 seconds to do this.
Mike Sokol
Right?
Tony Barthel
It's funny.
Mike Sokol
And that's the the the overheating point, and the same way the the TT 30, the one that plugs in over on the pedestal itself. The sad face. That one. It was never designed with long enough male terminals on it, connectors on it, so it tends to fall out. Yeah.
Mike Sokol
So one of the things that I've done in and I found this in my own lab. I've got a big bungee cord that I wrap around there just to hold it in to make contact.
Tony Barthel
Well, another tip I've gotten from you in the past, we bring,
Mike Sokol
uh, spritz of deoxid. Deoxid is the best. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
It is absolutely the best. I've seen so many of those 30 amp plugs melt. Yeah. And people say, oh, I have a surge suppressor. Why didn't it work?
Tony Barthel
It was working.
Mike Sokol
A surge for suppression has got nothing to do with this. This all has to do with large amount not even a large amount of current. I had one that I burned up at 8 amps. I did this 8 amps for hours, and I made it as a bad connection. I was able to cause it to melt down.
Mike Sokol
Wow. I can make anything blow up on any turn.
Tony Barthel
I you know what? One of these days, I gotta come out to the Funkstown lab.
Mike Sokol
No. No. No. Funk works. Oh.
Tony Barthel
Funk works. Funk works. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Sokol
It's just in located on the downhill outside of lovely Funkstown, Maryland. Yes. Funkytown was our kids song many years ago.
Tony Barthel
Bup bup bup bup bup.
Mike Sokol
That's it. Lips Incorporated. Yeah. Yes, baby. Funky Kevin.
Mike Sokol
That's it. But, yeah, it really is a matter. I I think that it's I've had guys that have had RVs that are 20 years old, and they've never checked anything. I will say, you wanna get a torque limiting screwdriver to do this properly. Don't just go twisting it.
Mike Sokol
My dad would torque stuff down until it started to strip and then give it another half a turn.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, gosh.
Mike Sokol
Because I go in there and I go, this thing stripped. Well, I made I had to make sure it had good contact. I'm going, oh. So no, if you don't know how to do it, go pay a technician for an hour to go through and have him check all of those. While he's at it, visually inspect all the wires to make sure there's no sign of overheating.
Mike Sokol
A real hot spot is the automatic transfer switch, cause everything that goes into that RV is coming into that ATS. And if something looks bad, replace it. I mean it's just really that simple, but I would go in every few seasons if you're using this thing a lot and recheck it. Make sure lockout tag out, make sure nobody can actually plug this in while you're messing
Peggy Barthel
around on this. Yes.
Mike Sokol
Because this could be really bad. You are holding a metal screwdriver in your hands and doing things.
Peggy Barthel
Touching all the electrical parts.
Scott Herman
We were we
Tony Barthel
were at a camp campground, and the pedestal, the next one over, was having issues. So the the camp host or you know, one of the, uh, work campers sat in a metal lawn chair right after it had rained, so the ground was nice and wet. Oh. And he has the cover up, and he's playing with it. And I'm thinking Definitely.
Tony Barthel
Man, this is a YouTube moment.
Peggy Barthel
Goodness. He couldn't figure it out and they called an electrician.
Tony Barthel
They called a proper electrician. Oh. But, yeah, that was watching that was
Mike Sokol
One of my jobs well, my first jobs when I was in my twenties, I supervised a whole team of plant electricians. And part of my job was to keep them from dying working on industrial gear. So I got this drummed into me. I was one of the very first guys that got trained on OSHA safety when OSHA first came out in the mid seventies. And so I had all of this drummed into me from my OSHA instructors, which I went and instructed my guys and this all sticks with me now.
Mike Sokol
Yeah. One hand. Right? Your one hand, one hand, the other hand you put in your back pocket, you always touch a metal thing with your Back pocket. With your knuckles.
Mike Sokol
So if something comes in any way, you don't grab it. Yes. I have actually grabbed all the things you cannot let go. So every wire is a live wire until you double triple check.
Tony Barthel
Oh, no. Any final tips for folks to stay safe with electricity?
Mike Sokol
I would say the first thing, never accept feeling shocked. If you're an RV, you feel shocked. Don't keep doing it over and over again. Oh, look at this. Every time I touch this, I get shocked.
Mike Sokol
Yeah. Don't do that. Right? Make sure that you find somebody that's going to assist with the quality. If you're gonna do an install system of solar, lithium, and such, find somebody that knows what they're doing.
Mike Sokol
Do not attempt to do this on your own, just out of catalogs. It's just really, really dangerous. You're gonna spend way more money. You're gonna have less less of a quality system. What else you guys got?
Scott Herman
Mike, you you brought up a lot of great points. I think resistance and checking wires for resistance is is key. Not only loose screws, but we've seen RVs come in for upgrades that have heat shrink over the lugs and the terminals, and that, you know, you have that where you're supposed to have solid contact that can create resistance and heat as well too. You know, we typically we kinda maintain and clean all that up on on an installation so we can get it back into working order. So what Mike's describing, all these things are things that we go through on on every job.
Scott Herman
So I'm very familiar with checking those items. Absolutely.
Tony Barthel
Buy the best and try only once.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Scott Herman
Another thing too, and I know you guys have talked to about this quite a bit is, you know, it's always a good idea when you're hooking up to a campground to to check your voltage before you hook up and get going
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Scott Herman
Uh, rather than, you know, setting up, parking and
Mike Sokol
then plugged. Right. I like portable surge protectors that have got all of those things. You could go plug in and say, I don't want this. You're right.
Mike Sokol
They go set it all up, they hook it all up, they level it, they get the slides out, and then they go try to plug in, and it's like, woah, I got horrible power. Wouldn't it be nice before you did all the other making cam? Exactly. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Our first disorder of business is to plug in the power watchdog.
Mike Sokol
Right.
Scott Herman
Yep. Absolutely. And not necessarily. Maybe it could be a safety issue, but, you know, you can do a ton of damage if you hook up to your system. You don't have a low voltage protection
Tony Barthel
Right.
Scott Herman
And they're running 90 volts to all of your appliances that could, you know, likely do some damage to to your RV.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We've seen where, you know, especially now when it's hot, go to a campground and all of a sudden there's all these rigs and everyone's running 2 air conditioners. Yep. And you watch on the power Watchdog, it'll shut you off. And it's like, what happened?
Tony Barthel
Uh, did we have a spike? No. We've had a drop. We're low voltage. It's so
Mike Sokol
Right. And you know there's a way that campgrounds should are supposed to be wired that have alternating l 1 and l 2 through each pedestals, and what it will do is reduce the voltage drop through the whole system. Most of them don't know this. I've been trying to get to get to teach them and they're all scared of me.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. How many campgrounds have been wired right once 30 years ago? All the work campers. And that's not to disparage work campers. There's some great people.
Mike Sokol
They're just not trained.
Tony Barthel
But just some of them are just I think that's where the green wire goes.
Mike Sokol
Yeah. And I will say one thing. If you're on an old campground and you see a brand new pedestal they want you to plug into, never trust it. No. Because somebody ran over the old one, and I'm working for it.
Mike Sokol
Just put that new one
Peggy Barthel
in. Yeah.
Mike Sokol
So double, triple check.
Tony Barthel
Yep. Absolutely. Good points.
Peggy Barthel
Good?
Tony Barthel
Well, thank you.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you so much for Thank
Tony Barthel
you for
Mike Sokol
having us.
Peggy Barthel
Us and helping us make electricity more safe Yeah. And or at least more understandable.
Tony Barthel
So, Mike, where can we find you on a day to day basis? You have a daily newsletter.
Mike Sokol
I've got a daily newsletter. It's rvelectricity. Substack, s u b s t a c k.com, is the best place to find me. I'm now published over 650 articles since last November a year ago. Wow.
Mike Sokol
Wow. So I write every day just for something to do because I got nothing to do. And and I'm also going to convert all of the stuff. I'm putting a library of that back on my original rvelectricity.com site. So you'll be able to find it, because I don't even know what I wrote anymore.
Mike Sokol
I think you
Tony Barthel
have a book.
Mike Sokol
I've got a book of RV Electrical Safety that you can easily find on Amazon. I get out on stuff like this. Who's beeping?
Peggy Barthel
The caterers are bringing food in.
Mike Sokol
Caterers are bringing in food. Yeah. So, yeah. And and and and podcasts like Tony's, you know, and I'll and I'm also doing a lot of stuff over on my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com/rvelectricity. One word.
Mike Sokol
You see a theme here? So so I've been, you know, and I'm around all over the place. I try to do about half a dozen of these live rally things a year. I will be at Frog,
Tony Barthel
which I'm a frog. We are at Frog.
Peggy Barthel
We are at Frog.
Mike Sokol
I will be at Hershey. I'm also going to be at the Tampa show, and I think Tony You
Tony Barthel
think I will be in courtside?
Mike Sokol
Will be in courtside. You'll be back in courtside. We'll be back in courtside. So, yeah. I told my wife, you know, I'm retired this year.
Mike Sokol
I'm not going to do 40 a year, which is what I used to teach for seminars. I'm going to do maybe half a dozen of these things, because she said, don't sit on the couch and stare at me.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Go
Mike Sokol
find something to do. And I said, oh, oh,
Tony Barthel
oh, oh,
Mike Sokol
I can do this. This is fun stuff. So I got rid of the crap I don't wanna do. This is the stuff I really love to do is to teach this.
Tony Barthel
Well, we always appreciate you.
Peggy Barthel
Ben and Scott, remind us how to find you.
Scott Herman
You can find us on our website, abcoutfitters.com. It's a brand new website, so check us out there. And you can always call us if you have any questions regarding, you know, situations in your current RV or if you wanna upgrade to an, uh, a master bolt off grid system. You can call us at 574-333-3225.
Peggy Barthel
Alright. Thank you.
Tony Barthel
Thank you. Alright. The caterers are
Peggy Barthel
coming in. Our best bet now is to take a break.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Thank these gentlemen for joining us. We'll go find a quieter place to finish up.
Tony Barthel
Well, we can't find a noisy one except on the train tracks. Alright. Thank you one and all.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you.
Scott Herman
Thank you.
Mike Sokol
Thanks a bunch.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you.
Mike Sokol
We have a crowd. Our people. Our crowd. Our people.
Tony Barthel
Wow.
Peggy Barthel
We're back. It's a little quieter. Although
Tony Barthel
Just a little.
Peggy Barthel
The trains will come by every 7 to 10 minutes.
Tony Barthel
Not only that, but while we are recording this our good buddy, Mike, is packing up his recording gear.
Peggy Barthel
Hey. Are you
Mike Sokol
guys recording here or what?
Tony Barthel
Or what?
Peggy Barthel
Or what? So we'll still have some noise if that's okay. Yeah. And our our studio audience should be returning slowly. They're all making their own beverages, and they're gonna join us with their adult beverages.
Peggy Barthel
So let's get back to what we probably should have remembered to say at the very beginning. Yeah. August 15th, which is the day this will be released, is National Relaxation Day. So if you aren't relaxing, you're doing it wrong. Get out there and go camping and relax.
Mike Sokol
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And you know what's relaxing is not worrying about whether your pedestal power is Oh. Very good.
Tony Barthel
Well, we have been sitting on something which kinda hurts Ouch. Because it's the Hughes Power Watchdog, but it's the new version. Mhmm. And Hughes has upgraded. If you, uh, already have a Hughes Power Watchdog, keep it.
Tony Barthel
It's a wonderful device. Yay. And we do have an episode where we episode where we talk to the folks from Hughes Power Watchdog, but we also have been testing a new one.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. It's a new version of the Watchdog. It doesn't look that different
Tony Barthel
No.
Peggy Barthel
From just giving a glance at it, you see a big white dog.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Well, or a red dog if
Peggy Barthel
you have problems. Lit up.
Tony Barthel
Let's start there. The new version of the Hughes PowerWatchdog or as a buddy of mine would say, the Hughes PowerWatchdog has a dimmable, or you can even turn off the bright white dog.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So that's kind of a cool feature.
Peggy Barthel
Dim the dog. So if your neighbor is complaining that your lights are too bright on that side, you can dim the dog a little bit. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So our
Peggy Barthel
neighbors are Tony and Tina.
Tony Barthel
Tony and Tina are camp right next to us, and we're lighting up their camper like it's the 4th July.
Peggy Barthel
What's something else? They have Wi Fi capability. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So where that's gonna benefit you is if you have a connection in your trailer or in your RV, I should say, then you can remotely monitor the Hughes Power Watchdog. So let's say you have pets Right. Or a gorilla that's living in your trailer. Uh, you can make sure that the air conditioner doesn't go off or that the power doesn't go off. Right.
Tony Barthel
So it's kind of cool, and you can also remotely monitor your RV. So you could say oh, I think the air conditioner is running because it's sucking power.
Peggy Barthel
I was gonna say how would you know if your air conditioner went off? That's how if you look at your Hughes by Wi Fi, and it's not using very much power, then your air conditioner is probably not running.
Tony Barthel
Probably not. So that's the other thing, and they've redesigned the case The plug from your RV into the Hughes Power Watchdog used to be sort of a tiny little extension cord. Yeah. And now it's actually enclosed on the case, and there's a door that closes over it. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So you put your power line inside and plug it in, and then close the little door, and it's a lot more weather resistant.
Tony Barthel
So not a big improvement because it was such a good device, and it still has where you can swap out the, uh, surge module. So if you do get a surge, you can swap out that surge module without replacing the whole thing easily. So all the good is there, and there's more good.
Peggy Barthel
More good. So we are at the frog rally. We mentioned that a time or 2, and one of the fun things about the frog rally is that all of the Forest River brands bring their some of their new models, not all of their new models, unfortunately, but some of them. There's quite a few. Tony will be talking about those rigs for the next few days in his in his reviews.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. But, uh, uh, as much as I said no it's not gonna happen, no it's not gonna happen, no it's not gonna happen, we're looking at a slightly bigger mini light. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
By the way, Mike Soko, my good buddy, just brought me a beer. It is warrior wheat. Oh, it's a Hefeweizen. Oh.
Mike Sokol
Oh. Thank you.
Peggy Barthel
I would love to try one. Thank you.
Tony Barthel
Taste it before you taste it?
Peggy Barthel
Well, yeah. Let me commits. Before I commit.
Tony Barthel
This is what camping is all about. You have good friends
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yes, please.
Tony Barthel
Good people.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you.
Tony Barthel
So Oh, my. That's good.
Peggy Barthel
So we are looking at nothing is set in stone, obviously. But if we were to have to change from the 2205 we have found a mini light that we think would be very good for
Tony Barthel
The new 25 the new version of the 2506 f k. Uh-huh. And if you saw my article about deciphering RV names and numbers and all, f k stands for freaking cool.
Mike Sokol
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
No. It's
Peggy Barthel
uh, front kitchen. Front kitchen.
Tony Barthel
So it's a 2 foot longer trailer. Mhmm. It has the kitchen in the front. There's a single kitchen slide that has your choice of either a u shaped dinette, theater seats, or a couch, bed couch. I like it because it's 3 rooms effectively.
Tony Barthel
Right. There's the kitchen dining area, then the bathroom is in the middle of the trailer and bisects the whole trailer, and it's the full width of the trailer. So on on the campsite is the shower, on the roadside is the sink and storage, and then of course the, uh, the seat of honor is in the middle.
Peggy Barthel
Kind of in the middle. If you're familiar with the 2506 from the past, the bathroom was sort of on the door side, and then the the roadside was a little hallway. Well, now you pass right through the bathroom to get to the bedroom. I've had a lot of people tell me they don't like that idea. I don't have a problem with it.
Peggy Barthel
It's maybe just a couple's is a little better than family's for that. But honestly, that fact that there's a door to the bathroom and then another door to the bedroom, there's a lot of separation between the sleep space and the work space. And when Tony and I have really natural body rhythms, kind of really different sleep patterns, that would come in really handy for having a quiet sleeping space and a space where it's okay to make a little noise to work.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Make coffee. Make
Mike Sokol
the coffee.
Peggy Barthel
And grind the coffee. That's right. He won't grind coffee in the 2205 because he thinks it's gonna wake me up.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I don't know how she could sleep through it because
Peggy Barthel
Well, I hear it.
Tony Barthel
If a mouse sneezes in the next campsite over, I'm awake. So I really like this. And so it's a little bit longer, and it's, I like the front kitchen because the counter expands or extends across
Mike Sokol
the whole width.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Nice counters.
Tony Barthel
It's got the fridge is one of those where it opens both ways, and the freezer's on the bottom. Yeah. That's a good idea. Reefer for this year. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
But still all of the Rockwood stuff, the torsion axle suspension, the laminated roof and side walls, it's got a rack and pinion slide. It's just a it it's your typical Rockwood. It's just a new floor plan.
Peggy Barthel
As Josh would say, Rockwood doing Rockwood
Tony Barthel
things. Things, and we've been a fan. I mean, this would be now our 4th Rockwood if this happens.
Peggy Barthel
If this happens.
Tony Barthel
We'll see.
Peggy Barthel
Sure.
Tony Barthel
We'll see.
Peggy Barthel
So some of you, speaking of refrigerators
Tony Barthel
Speaking of the Magic Chef fridge.
Peggy Barthel
12 volt refrigerators. I guess they're finding that I don't know if the factory forgot to route out all the vents or something, but apparently the Magic Chefs work better with all the vents working, oddly enough.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. They cool better.
Peggy Barthel
And there are some of them are installed into rigs that don't have all those vents, And so check it out if you have a Magic Chef 12 volt refrigerator from the last year or whatever. Find out, you know, look it up and find out if you have that need to have more vents drilled or cut or whatever into your fridge. I don't know the answer to this. Some people are saying if you do it yourself you screw up the warranty.
Tony Barthel
Well, they've they've now issued a recall.
Peggy Barthel
They've issued a recall. So If
Tony Barthel
your fridge is affected, you will likely get a recall notice, and they will get in there and and make it more better.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Well, finally, our question of the week.
Peggy Barthel
So last week we asked you, do you tent camp? Have you tent camp? Would you tent camp? And we asked for stories, and we got so many great stories.
Tony Barthel
It's fantastic.
Peggy Barthel
I can't I you know, sometimes I read you guys all the answers. That's not happening this week. I noticed that a lot of people who tent camped in their youth are now of an age where they prefer to have a bed and protection from the weather and things like that. I mean that's totally my answer. Right?
Peggy Barthel
That's absolutely true. Well, we've
Tony Barthel
tent camped and like it
Peggy Barthel
in our point too again. We do. We do still like tent camping. Some of you have a RV, but still like to tent camp once in a while. Some of you prefer to just plain old tent camp, and that's awesome.
Peggy Barthel
Go into the Stressless Campers Facebook group and read those answers. Read people's camping stories. And, uh, by the way, Cathy Jo, get your story in there. I love your story about the last time you had a tent when camping.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. But there are some hilarious stories, so it's really worth taking a little bit of time, and even if you're kinda like, I don't like Facebook much, I don't blame you, but there are some good people in there who answer questions and are kind, or they go away.
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Tony Barthel
And that's our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group.
Peggy Barthel
And that's why we're asking the question for this week, which is have you met up with other people who have your brand of RV? As you know, we're at the frog rally, so anyone with a forest river rig is welcome to come to this rally. Have you ever been to a rally that's
Tony Barthel
Brand specific.
Peggy Barthel
Brand specific?
Tony Barthel
You can answer that in our fun and friendly Stresses Campers Facebook group. Also, I don't know if you know.
Peggy Barthel
I don't know if you know. Do you know? We have They
Tony Barthel
may not know.
Peggy Barthel
A weekly newsletter
Mike Sokol
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
That is absolutely free to register.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And, uh, you can find stories, and videos, and podcasts, and all of that sort of stuff, and we never share your info with anybody. We're really respectful of the fact that you are willing to share your email with us, and we try to provide value there.
Peggy Barthel
That's right. So just check out the bottom of any page of the website, and you can sign up for the once a week newsletter. As we always say, it's only coming once a week because that is all we have time for.
Tony Barthel
Well, one of the reasons you might go to our website in addition to the newsletter is to check out the show notes for this episode. Right. Episode 268.
Peggy Barthel
268. And that's on the podcast page at stresslesscamping.com. Also on stresslesscamping.com, you do not wanna miss our deals and discounts page.
Tony Barthel
No, you don't. For the best deals on the things you'll need for your stressless camping adventure.
Peggy Barthel
And you know, if you have a great deal that we don't already have on the website, please let us know. We are always happy to make that page bigger.
Tony Barthel
Yep. Absolutely. Of course we are in all the social places, sometimes antisocial places. And so if you would like to join us wherever you like being social, there's links on our website too. So you can jump off to all the places you enjoy wasting time on the Internet, because I know I do.
Peggy Barthel
And if you enjoy wasting time listening to us, you can get on your favorite podcast catcher and subscribe to Stressless Camping RV Podcast, and then you won't miss a single week.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Whether that's good or bad. But we are saving you a seat around our virtual campfire, and of course, we really appreciate your reviews, and comments, and shares, and likes, and whatever.
Peggy Barthel
All those things.
Tony Barthel
Really makes a big difference. Share something you liked? Share what you find off our website, and we have a link in our newsletter of how to do that too. You can share it with your friends on social media and make yourself even better resource by providing answers that we are very careful to make sure are accurate to the best of our knowledge.
Peggy Barthel
I guess that is it. Yeah. We didn't even get a train?
Mike Sokol
No. That's,
Peggy Barthel
uh, yeah.
Tony Barthel
Here at the frog rally, we're at the Elkhart County Forage Fairgrounds, and every 7 seconds a
Mike Sokol
freight train rolls by,
Tony Barthel
except now.
Peggy Barthel
Except now.
Mike Sokol
Just for sure.
Tony Barthel
We were recording the caterer was coming in, so I guess that made up for the trip.
Peggy Barthel
I guess that made it up. Well, anyway, that's what we have for you this week. We appreciate you being here. We look forward to seeing you again next week, and stressless camping. Cheers.
Tony Barthel
Cheers.
Peggy Barthel
Dink.
Speaker 6
We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next stress less camping adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure, and we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you.
Mike Sokol
Head down. Our people. Our people.
