Dual 30 amp rv's?

CA Traveler wrote:
John,

The typical use of the dual 30A male to 50A female is on a 30A pedestal with a 20A plug and it's the 20A plug that is usually GFI protected. The GFI plug will trip and not work with this adapter.

You are quite right, they will not work with the 20 amp GFI on 1 leg. They work very well with 2 30 amp legs. Still limited to 30 amps per outlet.

John,

The typical use of the dual 30A male to 50A female is on a 30A pedestal with a 20A plug and it's the 20A plug that is usually GFI protected. The GFI plug will trip and not work with this adapter.

One common name for this adapter is The Cheater Adapter. There are a number of potential issues with this adapter and I don't recommend it's use.

Golden_HVAC wrote:
Hi,

I think that what you saw was a pair of 30 amp plugs going into a 50 amp receptacle. While it might work in some situations, modern RV parks use GFI receptacles, and will not work with that adapter.

You might find a few RV parks with a pair of 30 amp receptacles at a RV site, however it would be a 'pair' of campsites sharing a single power post, with two 30 amp plugs - 1 for each RV. SO if the neighbor's site is filled, they will use on, and you will only be able to use one of the plugs, and not this adapter.

Any 20 amp GFI that you plug this adapter into will trip, because all of the power going out on the 'hot' line is not returning on the 'neutral' line.

At first I was thinking that you saw a used RV with twin power cords. While that is possible, the past owner might have installed 'anything' - but RIVA will not allow two power cords on one RV, so it was not installed at the factory that way.

Good luck!

Fred.

I do not doubt you. But we traveled 7k miles last year from Indiana to Oregon and back and never saw a 30amp or 50 amp GFI protected receptacle in any campground. In fact I have not seen either in a campground in the last 14 years any where. Not saying they may not be out there though.

Redterpos3 wrote:
Was doing some "window" shopping on Camping World site, and saw a dogbone for dual 30 amp to a single 50 amp receptacle. Are there actually RV's that have 2 30 amp hookups??

Not from the factory but some folks will add another system .

If you are talking about 2 female 30's and on male 50 The primary use of those is putting two 30 amp RV's on one site.

If you are talking about 2 30 amp MALE and on 50 amp FEMALE the primary use of those is tripping GFCI cause that is what will happen if you plug into a GFCI protected outlet. I recommend against those

But if you have a 30 amp rig.. That one with 2 FEMALE 30's.. Lets you pick L-1 or L-2, run 2 rigs or you can run a 2nd 30 amp service to the motor home/trailer.. There are reasons for this. I have a cord for the job in fact.

Redterpos3 wrote:
Was doing some "window" shopping on Camping World site, and saw a dogbone for dual 30 amp to a single 50 amp receptacle. Are there actually RV's that have 2 30 amp hookups??

Well I'm sort of confused on what you actually saw, but my trailer now has a dual 30A system feed by a 50A to dual 30A dogbone. I added the second 30A service feed and you can see all I did HERE. Below is a pic of the 50A to dual 30A dogbone I made ...



I did this mod in lieu of converting my trailer to a true 50A service feed because of the cost of conversion and not wanting to wrestle that 50A Anaconda cord in colder weather.

greenrvgreen wrote:
I have a 30-amp trailer and I added an auxillary 20-amp inlet, along with a discrete run of wire feeding 20-amp GFCI outlets placed near to major items that I may want to plug in.

I use this when my main source of shore power is rather weaker than the 30-amp capacity, and/or I wish to exceed the available capacity, even at a full 30 amps. I can feed the aux inlet from a generator or from a second, separate shore power source.

I don't use this aux inlet very often, but when I need it it really saves the day. Even if my next RV has a 50 amp service, I will still add an aux inlet and power bus, just to have the option of a secondary (concurrent) power source.

I installed an auxillary 20A circuit in my 50A rig. It can plug into the engine block heater circuit which is a dedicated 20A circuit or it can be plugged into a CG pedestal when the CG is 30A.

This circuit is used for 2 additional ceramic heaters.

I have a 30-amp trailer and I added an auxillary 20-amp inlet, along with a discrete run of wire feeding 20-amp GFCI outlets placed near to major items that I may want to plug in.

I use this when my main source of shore power is rather weaker than the 30-amp capacity, and/or I wish to exceed the available capacity, even at a full 30 amps. I can feed the aux inlet from a generator or from a second, separate shore power source.

I don't use this aux inlet very often, but when I need it it really saves the day. Even if my next RV has a 50 amp service, I will still add an aux inlet and power bus, just to have the option of a secondary (concurrent) power source.

The city CG outside my wife's hometown has 2-30's per pole. They were out of phase so I built a twin 30A male to 50A outlet for use when we visited. This adapter allowed us to run 60A to the RV as opposed to just 30A. It was not as good as a 240V/50A hook up but far better than using a 120V/30A to a 50A amp adapter. When the CG was full, which never happened, we were planning on running off of the 120V/30A.
Randy

Have seen one used at a fairgrounds rv parking area. Power outlets were in pairs, with the idea of close parking for events shuch as rallies, dog shows, and othr events that attract lots of folks in rvs. 50A rig would pull in with a smart-ass driving, then take two 30A plugs using one of these adapters to use both plugs on one post. Ment that someone else didn't get a power hookup because these guys with their bigger rigs thought they deserved it. In that case, what they didn't know is that both the outlets were sharing the same 30A wiring.

I do have one, used with permission is a case there I knew that both 30A plugs were on different sets of breakers. Used to power both ACs in a very warm weather situation. Dealer offered to let me borrow it, then I bought it thinking that I might sometime need it again. Want one at my cost???

Thanks all! I thought it was odd.