Plugging into the electric dryer outlet

On a 30 amp RV outlet on your stick house, you will find that back at your main electrical panel, the neutral and ground are bonded together so even tho they have two separate prongs on the outlet, they are both tied together and electrically are the same.
On the 30 amp dryer outlet, the neutral is bonded to the ground back at the main electrical panel so even tho there is not a separate ground slot, the neutral acts as the ground.

Here is a neat photo marked up to shows the comparison...


NOSHOCKZONE image

Your 30A RV Unit must comform to these 30A Socket readings... Note they are the same as for a standard 15A-20A 120VAc Receptacle with the exception they are controlled by a 30A 120VAc Breaker...


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There doesn't seem to be good way to use an adapter cord and come up with these required readings from the 240VAC DRYER connection shown here...

In my opinion of course...

Roy Ken

bisgaard wrote:
It's been a while since I last asked a question on this forum & I did try to see if the topic had been covered through lots of searches, but nothing turned up.

As electric cars gain in popularity, I've noticed that Tesla & others use the traditional NEMA 14-50R socket (we usual see as our 50A service) for their charge stations. With that, there's also been a lots of 10-30P to 14-50R adapters showing up on the market (a 30A 240V pre-1996 clothes dryer to 50A RV adapter).

I'm looking to see if anyone has experience with these adapters & what lessons learned are?

... TJ

It should work just fine using the Tesla adapter altho you will not have a full 50 amp capacity on each leg. You will only have 30 amps available.
On the stick house side of the dryer outlet, both the ground and the neutral are bonded together so when the Tesla adapter is plugged in you will still have a ground and a neutral that are connected together. The 30 amp hot leads will be split to the two hot sides of the 50 amp plug and this will be fed to your main electrical panel. In your main electrical panel in your coach, at the top of your 50 amp main circuit breaker, you will have 120 volts on each input that will be out of phase with each other. IN other words 240 volts across the two inputs. All items in your coach will work fine altho you will only have 30 amps available on each side instead of 50 amps.

There's two types of electric dryer receptacles. One (older version)3 wire. 2 hots, and a ground wire. The newer version is 4 wire. 2 hots, 1 neutral, and 1 ground. Do not use the 3 wire receptacle. The NEC changed the requirements for wiring of new dryer outlets probably over 10 years ago.

Plugging an RV into an electric dryer outlet.....one word....BOOM!
240V running through a 120V RV system and everything connected will be fried.

There are two basic problems with a dryer outlet. as many RVers have found out.

First they are 240 volt. not 120/240 (though they may have a light weight 120 volt ability) if the outlet is a 3-wire outlet there is no safety ground. and though many have Jumpered to provide neutral/ground bonding at the outelt THIS IS DANGEROUS and should not be done.

The other issue si the neutral may not be up to FULL POWER 50 amps (or whatever it's fused at) and if your RV's inverter was installed by the idiot who installed mine (THey put both Air Conditioners on teh same leg when they moved breakers around) that could get kind of hot and here comes the fire department.

Isn't a dryer outlet wired on both legs? If so you do not want to plug in your rv. You'll fry stuff fast.

I believe the 10-30P has a ground but no neutral. I wonder how the adapter is wired- I cannot see them deriving a neutral from the ground and getting any kind of certification.
Bottom line- bad idea.

Tesla doesn't use the 'neutral' in its charging circuit.

The 10-30P doesn't have a 'ground'

Might be OK for charging up a Tesla but I would NOT plug my 50A RV into one