50 Amp Usage Question
I occasionally have friends visit and stay in their camper. I have installed a 35 amp RV box by the back driveway. I also have a 4 wire 20 amp 220 outlet by my carport for an emergency generator which...
Forum Discussion
dodge guy wrote:ScottG wrote:dodge guy wrote:ScottG wrote:dodge guy wrote:
Well first off you can’t use a 220V circuit on a 50A RV!
Second higher amps is always the better way to go.
But since you’re wiring everything, why not just run a couple 50A RV services with a 30A RV outlet.
Every 50A RV has 240VAC coming into it but it's then separated into two 120VAC circuits.
Look at the wiring of a 50A RV outlet. It is not 240V! Now you can wire in 240 after the panel in the RV. But coming in, no it’s 2 120V 50A circuits. Just adding up the voltage does not make it 240!
I'm sorry but you just don't understand what this circuit is. It's simply a 240VAC range outlet. It does measure 240 across in your RV's panel and yes, adding up two 120VAC circuits that are on opposite sides of a split phase does give you 240V.
Maybe we're just getting stuck in semantics here..
To call it a 240V outlet for RV use is wrong. Someone may make a big mistake! There are 2 separate 120V legs, 1 Neutral and 1 ground. At no point do they make 240V unless you install that type of breaker in the panel and run 240 off of that.
Semantics. Semantics.
If you measure with a volt meter across the two 120 vac hot legs at the RV outlet, you will indeed measure 240 vac.
And even though you will measure that same 240 vac at the breaker panel inside the RV, it will not supply 240 vac to anything inside the RV unless you install a double pole breaker for that purpose. And only then if your particular style breaker panel is configured to be able to do that. Not all are.
Call it a 120/240 vac outlet to be technically correct.
