travel trailer electric power

MitchF150 wrote:
Bet you have your fridge on electric and if you have an electric water heater and you have that on, it could be that all are on when you are running your coffee and toaster??

Hard to say really..

Good luck!

Mitch

Not picking on you but why do people keep mentioning the fridge? When it's cycling my 6.4 fridge draws a whopping 50W, less than half an Amp. The water heater I can see being a huge deal if running on electric or in electric boost mode, heating 6 gallons of water takes a ton of energy.

macastle01 wrote:
not real confident about electric power for my travel trailer, however I am confused as to why my breaker goes off when I have a coffee maker and toaster plugged in and in use. How can I improve this. I presently hook up to 30 amps.

well, between a coffee maker and toaster you could easily be drawing between 24 and 30A. close to the breaker limit. add to that any draw from the charger, fridge on AC or anything else and your asking for a tripped breaker.

IMHO with a 30A service you can reliably have ONE of the following on at any one time.

AC
microwave
household toaster
household coffee maker
household hair dryer
HWW electric element
portable electric heater on high

now there are lower wattage coffee makers and hair dryers available. our travel hair dryer draws 700W max, the keurig is a hotel version that also draws 700W. Using these give the opportunity to run one of the other big items in addition, or the coffee maker hair dryer at the same time.

One of these on should give enough margin to run things like the charger, tv, fridge on electric etc.

any two of the above on at the same time is risking a tripped 30A breaker.
Coffee, toaster on a single 15A breaker is really likely to end up tripping the 15A breaker. each could easily draw around 12A. quickly will trip a 15A breaker.


It's not like your house 200A panel or a trailer 50A service that is pretty much unlimited in what you can run at the same time.

A trailer 30A service is rated for about 3600W peak, somewhat less continous. A trailer 50A service is rated for 12,000W peak, 6,000 on each leg. big difference in what you can run at the same time.

Need more info...

What is the wattage of the toaster and coffee maker?
What else is running at the same time? Is the HWT on electric? AC unit running?

What are you plugged into and is it 15, 20 or 30 amps? CG pedestal? What is the voltage? (Need a voltmeter or permanent plug-in digital LED meter inside your camper). Which breaker is tripping? The one in your panel that is supplying the kitchen circuit, the 30 amp main in your panel or the one in the CG pedestal? Does the breaker trip quickly or after a couple of minutes? Is there a poor connection at the shore power plug to pedestal receptacle? Your plug blades should always be kept clean and shiny (use emery cloth) but the inside of some CG recepts. can be really bad but you can't see inside them.

Wattage of coffee makers and toasters can vary quite a bit. We use our 800 watt toaster and 700 watt coffee maker together all the time and can run other things at the same time too like microwave, converter, fridge. A fridge element is only 300 watts so should have little affect on total load. If you are tripping the 15 amp breaker in your panel for your kitchen recept., consider getting smaller wattage appliances or only use one at a time.

Be aware that low voltage in CGs is a common problem. AC units draw more current when the voltage drops which can lead to a tripped breaker. Installing a permanent voltmeter inside is a good idea for anyone. Never let your AC unit run when the voltage gets below 105. Appliances like toaster, coffee maker & hair dryer will draw less current as voltage goes down but less than the increase from an AC unit.

Running electrical appliances in 30 amp RVs requires managing loads by not plugging in multiple high wattage appliances at the same time. Simple once you realize what to do and what the wattage of your appliances is. We have never had a breaker trip, like most RV-ers find. I installed an LED ammeter and it rarely gets much above 15 amps unless the electric heat, AC or DW's 1875 watt hair dryer is running while other things are on at the same time.

Without getting into technical details, a circuit breaker will not trip the instant it gets to it's rating (unless a short circuit) and for heavy draw appliances that operate for a short duration like a toaster, coffee maker or hair dryer for ex., will be able to run long enough to get it's job done. The longer the duration is and the higher the current, the sooner it will trip.

Note - if you are at a pedestal that has a 50 amp recept., it's often a good idea to use a 30 to 50 amp adapter because you will likely get better voltage and the 50 amp recept. will be in better shape.

Now you know why most homes have at least 200 amp service and multiple outlets.

Most TT outlets are rated to 15 amp, that means you can draw about 1800 watts before the breaker trips. The power pedestal is 30 amps so the total TT load is limited to 3600 watts.

To overcome this, the larger TTs are wired with two 50 amp 120 volt circuits.

In our case the water heater often limits our current draw.

What breaker is tripping. If it is he one at the pedestal then ou have too many high draw items plugged in.

If it is a breaker in the trailer then you have both high draw items plugged into the same circuit. You need to move one of them to a different circuit. The next time it trips leave the breaker off and try other plugs until you find one that is working. It will be on a different circuit. Now resume with the items on 2 circuits.

Bet you have your fridge on electric and if you have an electric water heater and you have that on, it could be that all are on when you are running your coffee and toaster??

Hard to say really..

Good luck!

Mitch

The only solution to that is to sell the 30 amp trailer and buy a 50 amp trailer. Otherwise, you will have to limit your high draw items, like coffee maker and toaster, to two at a time. Other high draw items are refrigerator, water heater, converter/charger, microwave, air conditioner, etc.

Part of that can be alleviated. Put your water heater on propane, not electric, put your refrigerator on propane, not auto. Other than that, you just limit concurrent use.

An easy way to keep this from happening is to realize with 30A, you can run two larger items; coffee and water heater, space heater and hair drier, etc.
If the water heater is on that takes one thing so you can only run one more thing at any given time.

Think of electricity to be like water in a pipe. Only so much water can pass through a 1/2 inch pipe but if you increase that pipe to 1 inch then much more water can pass through. In an electrical circuit, the wire can carry only so much amperage at a time without becoming overloaded and thus overheating presenting a fire hazard. That is why the breaker is there, to prevent an unsafe overload condition. High amperage appliances will easily overload a circuit if used at the same time so your choices are to use them one at a time or put them on different circuits.

Which breaker is tripping? Maybe you can simply plug one into a different receptacle.