30 amp avail. with Big Horn

Was talking with dealer over the weekend and one of his guys told me that when you hook up the big horn's 50 amp cord to a 30 amp (through an adaptor of course) you will lose power in some of the items in the coach as only one leg will be powered and whatever is hooked to the non powered leg will not work. I always thought that using 30 amp power like at many parks and the smaller generators would work everything in a coach - just not be able to run as many at one time as with 50 amps and certainly not two air conditioners or dryer if one had that. I am curious if that is actually correct. Our coach will not have two ac's or a washer dryer and was planning on being able to run everything in the coach with the 30 amp adapter when it needed if 50 amp not available as well as being able to run the ac with 2 honda 2000's hooked together along with other 110 type appliances in the coach. Anyone know if the fellow at the dealer knew what he was talking about? Or, was my earlier assumption correct and you can still operate all in the coach within the 30 amp limitation?

We use a 30A power cord most of the time to save the high $ 50A'er and every thing works the same as if we used the big'n with the 30A adapter. I do not understand what they were saying about the "leg"? Unless they were just pulling yours.........Good luck.....

Everything works for us while using 30amp. Everything working is sometimes a problem when you forget your on 30 and pop a breaker on the pole. Senior moments do happen, I guess.

chardel,
The 30 amp. adapter bridges the two legs together so that everything will work! Some people just do not know what they are talking about!

Ken

I hope those guys specialize in plumbing or HVAC or some other area because they certainly do not understand standard RV electrical wiring!

Interestingly enough, he was a retired fellow who was one of their representatives who does walk-throughs for new deliveries of rv's. I thought he was not correct but since I have only owned class c's before that only had 30 amp service anyway, I was not sure if perhaps I was just not aware of how the more powerful systems operated. I was pretty sure you folks would be able to let me know what the real story was. Thanks, for confirming what I thought was correct all along. It makes me wonder how good their delivery information and instruction will be be. To prepare, I have been researching and reading this forum and have prepared a rather extensive "pdi" of my own which when talking to my salesman about the delivery schedule, I said I was planning a "pdi", to which he replied he was not familiar with that term and when I said it was a list of items I would be inspecting prior to delivery and expected it would take about a half day to complete, he said that they allowed 2 hours for the delivery person to spend with the new owners and they had several scheduled deliverys each day. After talking with the salesman, we arrived at a plan which would have the delivery rep. with me for the two hours and then I would stay in their overnight parking area for up to two days to complete any inspection I wanted to do and they would set up an appointment as soon as I was finished to to have their service department take care of any "punch list" items I discovered that needed attention before leaving for home. (The dealer is about 4 hours from my home) I feel like that is fair and have been trying to educate myself to do a good job of inspection which is probably better than relying on their rep anyway. I saw their checksheet for for their "dealer prep" that they advertise each unit goes through prior to scheduling a delivery and if they actually do it, it should make the inspection go smoother. I have talked to their service manager, parts manager and some of their service personnel and feel like they will be a good dealer to work with. Time will tell - soon.

Hello Chardel:

When you will go for your pre-delivery inspection (PDI), I strongly recommend that you bring with you, your own checklist that you will find at the link below. I used it when I took possession of my 07 3670RL and believe me, it really saved me a lot of hassles. The dealer may have its own checklist; it is not as comprehensive as the one I used. After all, you are investing a good chunk of money, so treat yourself, make a thorough pre-delivery inspection that may save you a lot of time in the future. I am not writing this to discredit the dealer. Au contraire! You are not that interested to travel 4 hours everytime you have a problem with the functioning of the unit. Also, the dealer is not interested to see you coming regularly to fix little defects or major problems. I am confident that once you go through a thorough PDI, you will be happy with your purchase.

Santiago

http://www.bitware.com/5er/pdi.htm

The guys were correct when they said the 50A service had 2 legs, but after that they blew it. Like Ken said, the 50A to 30A adapter bridges the circuits and everything works. Just so that you know: 30A service has a single 30A 120V hot wire, and is connected to a 2 pole breaker. 50A service has 2 120V 50A legs or circuits and connects to a 3 pole breaker. 30A service has a max of 3600 (30x120) watts of power available, while 50A service has 12,000 (100x120) watts available. However--many parks suffer from low amp/volt because of undersize wiring, old or loose connections, high demand because of hot or cold weather, and miscalculations by the electricians, so you usually will have less that the above stated watts available.

Santiago, that is one of the best PDI lists I have ever seen...good one!

chardel,
If it were me I would walk back to that dealer and ask the same person who told you that ridiculous lie to prove it to you. Maybe they can point you to another manufacturer that does wire their coaches that way. I bet he cannot. I would also be a bit gun-shy of anything else they told me. Yes, I am an antagonizer at times but these types of mis-information really makes me boil sometimes. Could you imagine being somewhere and having only 30 amp service and could not run your microwave or AC? What about the poor schlep who has a 50 amp rig plugged into a 20 amp circuit, he might be able to turn on the television and nothing else. It just doesn't make sense and of all people, a salesman to spew that junk on an unsuspecting customer.

OK OK, ranting over. As you can see, if you want good information there are plenty of people on this forum to lend a hand and there is factory input available also. Please keep this forum in mind as you shop for your next rig, it is a big part of what help make Heartland so successful.

Good luck and keep us posted,

Mark

mrcomer, you have a point, I have to laugh, as I have posted before, at my PDI the knucklehead told me that spare tires were no longer offered when I asked where mine was.....I said OK.....HL sent me one when I questioned that story....sheeesh...

Another 50 amp question.

Okay you electrical wizards out there, I've got a rather strange one I need a couple of answers for. I'm going to be parking our 3055 at a house that has both 30 and 50 amp service receptacles at an RV pad. Come to find out, their 50 amp receptacle is connected to a single 50 amp breaker at the house instead of a two-pole breaker. (We have no idea how the 50 amp receptacle itself is wired.) I'm assuming this means I will only have one of the two 120v lines coming into my trailer. Does that mean that only some of my trailer breakers are going to be fed thus limiting which devices will work? And if that is the case, can I assume there must not be enough wiring there to swap the single pole for a double pole breaker without pulling more wire?

I have a Surge Guard model 34560. If my assumption is correct, can I expect to only see one line lit on its LED's?

Thanks!

dennylm,

First thing, check for 120V in both 30A and 50A outlet to verify they are not wired as 220V. The 30A outlet, if 3 prong, will operate all RV circuit breakers with a 30A to 50A pigtail. The 50A outlet, if 4 prong, will operate all circuit breakers without a pigtail. The 30A outlet will limit your usage, where as, the 50A will allow usage of most everything. You really don't need two separate 120V circuits, provided the single 50A wiring circuit is properly sized and the outlet wired correctly.

A friend's motor home barn was wired with a 220V 3 prong 30 amp outlet by mistake, when plugged in, the converter, inverter, and several electric appliances went up in smoke...................rather costly mistake.
Forrest

IF the 50A breaker is a single pole, then you really won't have 50A RV service. It will be like having only 30A plug with a 50A breaker, which is not good. I would not plug anything in until the wiring is verified and correct. Blowing out all your 120V appliances could be expensive. True 2 pole RV service has 2 120V legs but they are independent and wired so that each leg goes to certain 120V circuits and appliances-but they are not tied together anywhere to produce 220/240V.

Yes, you can, but then you're getting into some non-standard wiring and you end up with only half the amperage available that you would with the 2 pole set-up.

To be (50amp), or not to be (50amp), that is the question.

Forrest,,, any reply to CT0218's note?

I understand staying away from non-standard wiring. I wouldn't begin to do such in my own abode. But the owner of this space doesn't care if I rewire the receptacle, as long as I don't burn something down!

I got all excited by your reply Forrest, but now, after reading CT0218's reply, I'm concerned about being able to use multiple a/c's, microwave, etc. as if I had true two-hot wire 50amp.

Any consensus here?

And thanks y'all. I really appreciate this help!

Dennylm

dennylm said:

Forrest,,, any reply to CT0218's note?

I understand staying away from non-standard wiring. I wouldn't begin to do such in my own abode. But the owner of this space doesn't care if I rewire the receptacle, as long as I don't burn something down!

I got all excited by your reply Forrest, but now, after reading CT0218's reply, I'm concerned about being able to use multiple a/c's, microwave, etc. as if I had true two-hot wire 50amp.

Any consensus here?

And thanks y'all. I really appreciate this help!

Dennylm

Click to expand...

Try this link ....www.myrv.us/electric ....even has pictures.... Ken

Not to be (50amp), that is the answer.

Thanks Ken, that's a great link. It gives GREAT instructions for "normal" wiring. Unfortunately, my situation is slightly "abnormal". It appears that I have a single pole 50amp breaker in the service panel with only three wires (ground, neutral, and one hot) going to the 50amp RV receptacle.

My concern is if I jump the one incoming hot over to BOTH hot terminals inside the receptacle, will I have usable 50amp service?

After reading help from Forrest and CT0218, I took a look over on RV.net and am now concerned that even if I do get total 50amp service, being able to run any devices at the same time, there's a good chance that the hot and neutral wires may not be big enough to handle all the amps returning from two 50amp routes.

I think for safety's sake, I'll just use my 50-to-30 dog bone and use the 30amp receptacle next to the 50 and be satisfied for now to always be careful about what's already running before I turn on any other watt hog.

I'll sanity check the 30 before I use it to make sure IT isn't also wired in some unconventional way.

Bottom line is, thanks everyone for the help. After reading all the horror stories of having to replace all my 110 applicances, I think using the 30amp receptacle is the safest way to go. I'll study how the 50amp receptacle is wired, what size the wire is and how easy/difficult it would be to pull another hot wire and change over to a dual pole breaker like it should be.

I'm reminded of an old acronym we used in the army - DIRTFT (dirty feet!)
"Do it right the first time!"

Thanks again one and all.

Denny

You'll have 50A either way, but with a single pole breaker and jumper you'll end up with just half the amperage in a normal setup. Nothing will burn up, and you'll have 60% more amperage available than in a 30A system (assuming the wire size is appropriate). Not sure if it will run 2 A/C units or not, never tried it. Your start-up amps may get you there. If you do that jumper then it would be a good idea to tag it so that anyone else using it in the future would know what they're dealing with. Usually, in a normal setup, each A/C is on a different 50A leg, and each leg should have about half the max possible load divided between the 2 legs. A true 50A double pole service gives you a total of 100A available. Even with that I have tripped out running the 2nd A/C when the voltage has been low (105V-109V)