A well spoken and polite lady arrived at the office to proclaim that the site she had taken would not run the air conditioner. Office personnel informed her that the site provided only 15 amps which would most likely not run an air conditioner. The lady was soon to come back to the office exclaiming that she could still not run the air conditioner; even though her camping friend next door lent her a 30 amp adapter.

cross country wrote:A well spoken and polite lady arrived at the office to proclaim that the site she had taken would not run the air conditioner. Office personnel informed her that the site provided only 15 amps which would most likely not run an air conditioner. The lady was soon to come back to the office exclaiming that she could still not run the air conditioner; even though her camping friend next door lent her a 30 amp adapter.

I heard a report of British campgrounds and those in Europe are normally only supplied a 7 amp circuit for the campers over there. I don't know that I would ever want to camp with limited shore power. 30 amps is small enough. Anything smaller, and I would rather be dry camping. . .Normally I only use the solar power anyway, unless it is warm, and then I will want a 30 amp circuit to run the A/C. The A/C should use about 1,200 watts on a moderate temp day, while it can use upwards of 1,500 watts on a hot day. If the power into it is only 105 volts on a hot day, that can be a little over 15 amps just for the A/C.HAve fun camping!Fred.

She obviously needed a 50 amp adapter.

Golden_HVAC wrote:I heard a report of British campgrounds and those in Europe are normally only supplied a 7 amp circuit for the campers over there.That's 7 amps @ 220 - 240 vac / 50 Hz, not 7 amps @ 120 vac / 60 Hz ... BIG difference. :RWorld Electrical StandardsI don't know that I would ever want to camp with limited shore power. 30 amps is small enough. Anything smaller, and I would rather be dry camping. . .Although I'd normally use campsite 30 amp service when available we typically pull well below that maximum rating even when running A/C simply by managing our power draw. If we want to temporarily use another high draw device we simply dial back the A/C thermo so the compressor kicks off, then dial it back up when we're done ... as long as the unloaded source voltage is reasonably close to a nominal 120 vac and the run to the power source isn't excessively long I can easily power what I need to in the camper, including A/C, with just 15 amp main service.

Chris Bryant wrote:She obviously needed a 50 amp adapter.Beat me to it. :BI think there are a LOT more people who don't understand this than we might think.

30 amp adapter | Good Sam Community

Ozlander
Explorer
Aug 16, 2015
A lot of blonds on here.

Right over their head.
wa8yxm
Explorer III
Aug 16, 2015
The problem with me is I studied electronics (have wallpaper to prove it) I am cross trained on electrical and automotive as well (this means I'm color blind cause if you trust colors you gonna get burned).

So I have a hard time understanding how folks can fail to understand that, to use Oliver Douglass' explanation to his wife Lisa (Played by Eva Gabore) or a variation on it.

You can not plug in 10 when the generator only supplys 10 ZZZZAAAPP BUZZZZWEEWTTT there goes the generator again,.
philh
Explorer II
Aug 18, 2015
Golden_HVAC wrote:
The A/C should use about 1,200 watts on a moderate temp day, while it can use upwards of 1,500 watts on a hot day. If the power into it is only 105 volts on a hot day, that can be a little over 15 amps just for the A/C.

HAve fun camping!

Fred.

Why would a hot day use more current than a moderate temp day?

105 volts? That sounds like a recipe for burned out motor.
reed_cundiff
Explorer
Aug 18, 2015
One of the folks at the beachside RV park near Tulum monitored the voltage and it ran from 80 to 140 V. One German couple burned out just about everything in their 5th wheel. Our son installed 1.5 kW of battery charger so that our power goes from pedestal to battery charger to battery suite to PSWI/converter 48 V to 12 V. We previously had burned out one micr-wave in Baja and another in Yucatan.

We can pull 1400 W from panels to MPPT but it still draws an additional 750 or more W from the battery suite to run the Dometic air conditioner. There are energ losses at each junction: MPPT, inverter... Should like to install a mini-split which draws only 500 to 750 W but we just go north or higher in altitude - or suffer. We cab run the a/c from panels/battery suite for 4 hours but that is about it.
Reed and Elaine
MitchF150
Explorer III
Aug 18, 2015
She also probably had the fridge on electric, the HW on electric and tried to run the micro too! ;)

Mitch
psuce
Explorer
Aug 18, 2015
Chris Bryant wrote:

On second thought, it would have been funnier if I said she needed a 35 or 36 amp adapter- but some still wouldn't get it :)

220, 221...whatever it takes!

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30 amp adapter

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