Upgrading 30 amps to 50 amps?

Two answers One for trailer one for motor homes, or to be more precise one for vehicles WITHOUT a built in generator one for vehicles WITH

Without
New cord, (optional inlet) new breaker box.. IF you have an energy management system that sheds loads that will need an upgrade as well.

WITH: all the above plus a new automatic transfer switch.


Additional optional stuff....
If you have an Autoformer or a "Surge Guard" (The good kind with an LCD display) you will need 50 amp versions of those as well.

SUGGESTION:
If doing it yourself, Before you unhook the wires from teh circuit breakers (and fuse panel if the power center has both in one box) LABEL THEM so you know what they are.. I mean 10 identical wires can be a problem, Use a Sharpie fine point and write on the outer jacket of the ROMEX for most of them,

explorenorth wrote:
I've just bought a 2007 Fleetwood Terra LX 31M that has 30 amp service, with dual a/c. I may never use both a/c units, but what is involved in upgrading the system to 50 amp so it doesn't have to cycle/share? My Googling the question has had zero result.

IMO don't bother and install a dual power adapter that involves splitting the rear AC circuit coming from the 20amp circuit breaker on the genset.
This is done with a standard plug and outlet, so that you can unplug and re-plug it into a separate pedestal outlet at will.

My Fleetwood runs both on 30. The EMS starts one, fan first, then the compressor, then the 2nd AC fan. Then the last compressor. Mine pull 25-26 amps. A little more as the temps go up.
Another thought is to separate the rear AC from the panel wire in a separate power cord and plug it into the extrac15-20 outlet on the pedestal. Cheap and effective.

The air conditioners alternate on/off on my 34 footer. It keeps very cool and comfortable even on the hottest of days. I would use it as is for a while to see if you really need to run both airs at the same time. If you do, search RV.net for adding a 15 amp line to run the rear air. The front air would run on the 30 amp service. Most electrical pedestals have a 30 amp and 15 amp service.

on my past unit I cut the wire to one of the a/c units,installed a male plug leading to the a/c and a receptical to the other end of the wire cut,plug it back in for the stock opperation when wanting to use both unplug and plug the a/c to a heavy duty extension cord and plug that unit into the 20amp plug at the power post.Works perfect,cheap and easy good luck.

on my past unit I cut the wire to one of the a/c units,installed a male plug leading to the a/c and a receptical to the other end of the wire cut,plug it back in for the stock opperation when wanting to use both unplug and plug the a/c to a heavy duty extension cord and plug that unit into the 20amp plug at the power post.Works perfect,cheap and easy good luck.

It sounds like there's not really any point to doing that much work. Especially on a rig that may very well never have both a/c units running. I really appreciate all the comments, folks.

explorenorth wrote:
It alternates the units - is that load shedding?

That is a lone sharing device. I'm not sure how to get around that but if there is some kind of disable feature you may try that and just run the two AC's at the same time. 30 amp has no problem with that. Just put the fridge and water heater on gas. That's all a load shedding device does. Puts the fridge and water heater on gas and if you use the microwave it sheds the compressor of one of the AC's. Our Southwind wS like that. Ran two AC's on thirty no problem.

Good luck.

in your situation, why bother? I ran my 2 acs, etc., on 30 amps for 20 years.
bumpy

John & Angela wrote:

explorenorth wrote:
The ac units do load-share on the rig we bought.

So it is a load sharing device not a load shedding device? Meaning, will the device allow both units to run at the same time or only alternate them?

In some applications both units can run at the same time but there is a delay circuit that will not allow both to start up at the same time.