To the OP - one possible source of the loud arcing you heard could have been the converter charging up. The one I had in my previous camper had such a large initial surge when you plugged it in, it would sometimes make me jump. It would also sometimes trip my old 6 kw inverter which had a 12 kw surge! Once the internal capacitors were charged up there was no surge no matter how many times you plugged/unplugged it. And that same inverter had no problem running everything in the camper after that point. My current 2010 camper's converter has a noticeable surge, too, but not nearly as bad as that 1997-era converter.