Electrical help please

MandJ76 wrote:
When I hook to 30 amp service, I get one leg of 120 volts and 30 amps on one leg with 0 volts to the second leg which will allow me to run only one AC.

Then, your 30 male to 50 female adapter is bad. In the adapter, the single hot in the 30 amp end is wired to BOTH hots on the 50 amp end.

If safe working around 120 VAC, check for correct voltage at the 50 amp end of the adapter:

Either outer straight (hots) to center straight (neutral) OR to center round (ground) should read 120 VAC.

If your genset has a three wire twist lock receptacle and is marked 240 volts, you fried your rig.
If the genset has a four wire twist lock the receptacle should be marked 120/240.
Make and model of genset?

wa8yxm wrote:



How to run both A/C's on a 30 amp rig...... at once...

I "Broke" the wire to my Rear AC (disconnected it from power panel) and extended it to an outside compartment using 12 ga wire... There I put a plug.. and then I ran a new line from the original connections at the breaker to a SOCKET in the same compartment. When I am on a 50 amp site (Where I am now) it is easy I just plug the plug into the socket

When I'm on a 30 amp site (one week ago) I use a 12 ga Extension cord to the park's 20 amp outlet.

Have you ever monitored voltage drop when doing so?

At a lot of the places we camp (PA state parks)they have older wiring, done in the late 70's early 80's before everyone had to have a 96' rig with 3 AC's, 2 electric fireplaces, and a washer dryer and sauna. The pedestals have a 30 amp and a 20 amp receptacle. However the pedestal is fed with a 30 amp circuit. They did not run a dedicated 20 amp home run back to the feed for the 20 amp receptacle, which in some cases is a few thousand feet away. I've seen more than my fair share of dripping and melting dog bones and extension cords, and fried components over the years, from people using dogbones or devising methods in an attempt to pull more than what is actually available. We had a guy a few years back that decided to rewire the pedestal on a Friday evening. He killed the entire loops power to about 50 sites for an hour and a half until maintenance could be called in to reset the main breakers, and did a fine job of frying some components in the trailers on the sites down the line from him.

You state you have a 50 amp RV. So, if your genset separates the line voltage equally to 30 amps on each leg, your thinking is correct. Your Genset must have a 4 pin(50 amp) receptacle to do this. What type of Genset and what type of receptacle from your Genset do you have? Doug

Uh, You thinking is flawed. or may be.. Read on.

30 amp Trailer (3 prong plug) explanation.
Your generator gives you 30 amps at 240 volts divided (Meaning 30 amnps at 120 volts _+ 30 anps at 120 volts)

Now there is a way to do it.. but it is not as easy as you think I will cover later.

Pluging into 240 volts frys stuff to a nice crackley crunch (Converters about 200 dollars. TV, Microwave. And more.

IF your 5ER is 50 amp then ues it is that simple.. HOWEVER your camping neighbors won't like a CONTRACTOR type noise maker. Use an INVERTER generator please. not many of those do 30 amps at 240 volts.


How to run both A/C's on a 30 amp rig...... at once...

I "Broke" the wire to my Rear AC (disconnected it from power panel) and extended it to an outside compartment using 12 ga wire... There I put a plug.. and then I ran a new line from the original connections at the breaker to a SOCKET in the same compartment. When I am on a 50 amp site (Where I am now) it is easy I just plug the plug into the socket

When I'm on a 30 amp site (one week ago) I use a 12 ga Extension cord to the park's 20 amp outlet.

Most 30 to 50 adapters connect to both legs. You have 30 total, for example if each leg was pulling 16 amps, the breaker would trip.