Plugging 30A 5th wheel into 50A service

Coach-man wrote:
The original question was can I plug a 30 amp RV into a 50 amp outlet, the answer was yes with an adaptor! Someone, mentioned that, that was dangerous, it is not, in fact several posts indicated that is was less likely to have a problem, brownouts, triped circuit breakers, etc by plugging into the 50 amp outlet, too which I agreed. At least one person disagreed and went into an esoteric discussion on wiring, and that it was the same regardless of which plug was used. I disagreed and continue to disagree! A "50 amp" plug is actually 100 amps total, that is two 120 volt 50 amp feeds with a common neutral. You can get real close to overloading a 30 amp circuit, but you have more cushion, with a 50 in a rig designed for 30 amp service. If there is a problem, your main circuit breaker in the rig would blow long before your pedistal breaker would go, and no you can not draw more than the maximum of 30 amps, and in a 30 amp rig with adaptor there is no way of seeing 240 volts in your rig! Even in a 50 amp rig, 240 volts to your equipment would be unlikely due to the fourth lead, ie ground!

So much misinformation in a single post. I brown out in the park power will be the same if you are plugged into a 30amp breaker or a 50 amp breaker with an adapter. The source on the 30 amp breaker and the 50 breaker are the same buss in the power pole. The breakers clip onto the same exact buss. To keep the neutral balanced on each power run through sections of the park, the 30 amp breakers are alternated on the two power phase busses. In a perfect world the neutral has little to no current flow back to the source, as the two phases cancel out.

BTW loose neutral when you have a 30 amp service just kills you power. This happen two days in a row while we were in Hemet in January and Golden Village Palms RV resort. I watched and talked to the maintenance guys while they repaired it. The first day they miss the neutral buss problem. Quote from them: "Be glad you are not a 50 amp coach/trailer!" My friend that was two sites over and who we stopped to see, said last week a guy burned up all the stuff in this MH! Duh!

More cushion on a 50 breaker. I 30 amp breaker is a 30 breaker, the one in trailer will not let you have more cushion!

Fourth lead?? The ground and neutral are not common in the trailers wiring. The ground is there to protect you, and you better not connect it to the neutral in the trailer. They are separate back to the main distribution panel.

"in a 30 amp rig with adaptor there is no way of seeing 240 volts" This is the only true statement you made.

We are all here to learn and people with both 30 and 50 rigs will read these posts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownout_%28electricity%29

Chris