So all of this is just my two cents, which if you ask my wife is only worth one.....
So I had to make the judgement call on whether the catastrophic failure of the
surge guard outweighs the catastrophic failure of the converter and wiring due to the lack of a
surge guard. For the past five years I had a plug-in-the-end-of-the cable model and it travelled all over the United States and Canada. I noticed one day that the rubber/plastic of the plug, where the
surge guard plugs into the shore power plug from the trailer, was burned and cracked. Corrosion from the years in the elements had degraded the connection to the point of danger. I immediately threw the
surge protector away and replaced my entire shore power cable.
(Any of you Navy or Marine Corps people remember Corrosion Control School ? LOL! Not that I would have another Forrestal but better safe than sorry)
I spent seventeen years in the Marine Corps as an Avionics tech, worked my way through colege as an ASE certified mechanic and spent the last ten years working in the Semiconductor field as a robotics engineer. I would like to think that I have some knowledge about electro-mechanical systems, of course if you ask my wife......LOL
As to whether the 'warranty' such that it is, would cover catastrophic damage from either the installation of the
surge protector or the lack of one, is purely speculative. Until it actually happens to one of us and we report the results, just like the question, "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop", we may never know. On that note, I sincerely hope NONE of us ever finds out about a catastrophic failure of any type !
I have included some more pictures to show how I fit the
surge protector into the converter cabinet. As you can see, there is plent of room. I also installed a small battery powered smoke detector to the roof of the enclosure, you can't see it in the pictures but I figured it couldn't hurt.
Edited by: nordstromfamily