50 amp to 30 amp pigtail

Ricoh

Ricoh

Past Ontario Chapter Leader
I want to get a twist lock 50 to 30 short pigtail for my 3185 so I can plug it in at home and charge the batteries and do some work on it this winter. I don't want to use my long 50 amp cord. Is this what I need
adaptor.jpg
.
Looks like very good quality but the price is $114 . YIKES any other ideas????

Rick
 
Ricoh

Ricoh

Past Ontario Chapter Leader
Forgot to mention that I don't want to use my long 50 amp RV cord for this.

Rick
 
JohnDar

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
OK, then it looks like $114. Another possibility would be to unplug your converter from the outlet it's in (behind basement wall) and run a standard 120V extension cord to it. That will give you 12V systems and charge the battery. If, for instance, you wanted to run the refer on AC, then unplug it and run another extension to it.
 
jnbhobe

jnbhobe

Well-known member
Rick; I just picked up a marinco 50amp plug put in a jumper and made up a 30 to 50 amp cord. Depends on what you have laying around, I think I have a 20ft and a 50ft 30amp cords
 
Crumgater

Crumgater

Well-known member
I recently bought an adapter from cordtec (www.cordtec.com), they might have what you're looking for for less. They had great customer service (I had to have my adapter custom built) and shipped quick, too.

-Tina
 
porthole

porthole

Retired
I got a used 50 amp connector that was obviously left by someone who forgot to unplug their camper and threw the whole thing away.

Used the camper end 50 amp plug and just wired in a 10 gauge extension cord. As long as I don't use the air it is fine (it will run the AC though).
 
truknutt

truknutt

Committed Member
Ricoh said:
I want to get a twist lock 50 to 30 short pigtail for my 3185 so I can plug it in at home and charge the batteries and do some work on it this winter. I don't want to use my long 50 amp cord. Is this what I need
adaptor.jpg
.
Looks like very good quality but the price is $114 . YIKES any other ideas????

Rick
Click to expand...

You'll still need a cord to go from the adapter to the wall socket. Am I missing something or is it that you just don't want to mess with a 50 amp cord?
 
jnbhobe

jnbhobe

Well-known member
truknutt said:
You'll still need a cord to go from the adapter to the wall socket. Am I missing something or is it that you just don't want to mess with a 50 amp cord?
Click to expand...

He don't want to carry around that 50amp cord Dave!!!! Might overload that Chebby. LOL
 
Ricoh

Ricoh

Past Ontario Chapter Leader
Ya I met Jon at the Ontario Rally last year. All the Ford guys were jealous of my Chev but I did not rub it in. Jon actually tried to leave me behind on the 401 ( highway) but my old Chev just stayed right there with him and could very easily have passed him but again being the very nice guy that I am did not want to make him feel bad. Actually he asked me later what kind of chip I was running and just about choked when I told him she was stock.LOL Now back to business. The reason I want this pigtail is to plug it in at home to charge the batteries and do some work on my trailer over the winter without having to use the long 50 amp cord in the snow and crap. It's just easier.
 
D

Dave49

Well-known member
Ok first off I am mechanicaly fit and work with tools very well. But electricity and me...........well lets just say I need a lot of work in that area.

Now heres what I have. I have a regular 30 amp plug with the 30 amp ends. I also have the 50amp Marineco end that goes into the trailer. So if I was to take and eleminate that male plug off the 30 amp cord and put the trailer plug in, how would this be wired up. 4 wires on the 50 amp, 3 wires on the 30 and in what position do they go? And which one does not get used?

Thanks in advance.
Dave
 
Last edited by a moderator:
caissiel

caissiel

Senior Member
Re: 50 amp power cord

The wiring is from 4 wire to 3 wires.
Red, Black, White , Green on the 250 Volt 50Amp.
Black,White, Green on the 125 Volt 30Amp.

You need to join the White with the White, Green with the Green and the red and Black with the black on the 30 Amp wire.

I made a 125 Volt 30Amp dual to connect on my 50 Amp trailer cord at home and this what I found.
One line had 25 Amp load and the other had a 15 Amp load. When I checked the amperage through the 2 extensions I found that the both extension took a load of 20 Amp. Because the ground lead was common it balanced the flow to 20 AMP. So I could not feed my trailer with a 15Amp load and 30Amp load like some adapters say they can. This is not realy related but thats the way it works as I found out.

So the only power you will be loading to the trailer will be 30Amp on 125Volt but the trailer will get 2 different loads of up to 30Amp total of the 2, like 20 Amp on one line and 10 Amp on the second line to the trailer. Any more it will kick out the circuit at the source.
 
JohnDar

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
I really don't think you can do that safely. Assuming the 30A is black=hot, white=neutral and green=ground, the white and green go to the corresponding terminals in the 50A plug for neutral and ground. But the black(hot), needs to somehow connect to BOTH hot terminals of the 50A plug in order to feed both 120V circuits in the rig. I suppose in theory you could run a jumper between the two terminals, but the wire gage may make that very difficult to fit inside the housing. I'd hazard a guess that the adapters they make for connecting a 30A cord to a 50A cord actually have four wires molded in them, two of them running from the single incoming 30A hot to the two hot terminals at the other end, giving you the capability of 120V/30A on both circuits in the rig. However, if the combined draw exceeds 30A, you pop the pedestal breaker.

Why go through all the trouble? Just get a 30A to 50A pigtail adapter ($20), plug it into the 30A supply and the 50A cord to it and the rig and be done with it.
 
gmc

gmc

Reitired - California-Central Chapter Leaders
tweetys.com has a 50 amp to 15 amp pigtail for around $54.00 dollars I use one all the time and it will run the lights and charge your batteries.
 
J

JJnLilly

Well-known member
I made my own cord. Found a 50amp Marinco plug and a 30 foot 30amp cord on eBay. Put them together and now have a 30 foot with a 50amp female and 30 amp male. As most places we go and even at home we only use 30amp lugging that heavy 50amp for me was a pain. You can check several places on this forum and others on how to make the jumper in the female plug. Does not hurt anything, unless you try to run two AC's, the microwave and water heater at once.

The OP wanted something for home use to keep the battery up and maybe run some lights while loading - what I described works fine.
 
jnbhobe

jnbhobe

Well-known member
Its make just like explained above in the last post. Just put a jumper wire between the black and red wires.Thats the way the yellow adapter at the start of this thread is made. Thats where I got the 50amp plug to make my cords.
 
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