50 amp cheater

dsteinman wrote:
I am always confused about these adapters and I even have an electrical engineering degree, although I hated the power electrical class.

But, it seems to me that you have to make sure that the hot legs of the 30 amp and 20 amp circuits are out of phase with each other. Otherwise you would have the possibility of 50 amps on the neutral which would be fine for the motorhome and adapter, but I am not sure about the wiring in the electrical box.

Even worse would be using 2 30 amp plugs if both were in phase, which would then allow 60 amps on the neutral wire and overload all the wiring.

So, if someone can correct if I am wrong, I would appreciate it.

David

60A would be more than the rated 50A but it's not likely to be a problem and most certainly not if it's not a sustained 60A draw.

The significant issue for a CG (even if they don't understand the details) is that this adapter connects the 2 neutrals together which in turn causes the current in each neutral to be based on the impedance of each wire. This means that the maximum amp draw on a given neutral is no longer limited by the CB on the corresponding hot line. It's possible for example with a 30-20 setup the 20A neutral could be carrying 30A. This applies to the cheater neutral and the pedestal neutral. Also this is much more likely to be a problem when both hots are on the same leg vs connected to split phase legs.