Electrical Issue 30 vs 50 Amps

[Stutch]

Hey All!!! I have a Newmar 4018 with 50 AMP service. Just got back from a weekend where the pole was 30AMP only. I have one of those (2) 30 AMP male to (1) 50 AMP female splitter.

The coach would not charge batteries. I turned off everything except the fridge and it still did not charge the batteries. The power monitor recognized 119 volts coming in (on line 1), but it seemed there was not enough to charge the batts.

So, the inverter was using the batteries and eventually I go a LOW BATTERY fault.

I came home, plugged it into my 50 AMP outlet and all is perfect. What do you think? Is it the splitter, pole was not really 30 amps, what???

Thanks

[rgatijnet1]

I am guessing that the splitter you have, since you said it was expensive, is one of those designed to be plugged in to a 30 amp outlet AND also the 20 amp outlet on the shore pole. That is the only type of 30-50 amp adapter that I know of that would be expensive. The others are fairly cheap at under $20.

[Old-Biscuit]

Your (2) 30A male to (1) 50A female adapter has only one leg HOT from each 30A side

So IF only plugged into (1) 30A receptacle then only (1) leg of 50A is HOT.
Therefore only one buss in your AC Panel is hot.....obviously NOT the buss that converter was feed from hence no battery charging.

[Beverley_Ken]

I agree with Dale. Sounds like the adapter you have is designed to pickup two different power sources and send one to each leg of your 50 amp coach service. Get another adapter with only one 30 amp male plug, they are designed to connect each leg of your 50 amp service, you will only have a max of 30 amps available, not the 50 x2.

Ken

[Stutch]

-- The splitter is one of those sealed splitters I got from Camping World. I forget the manufacturer but is was not cheap. I was getting some juice so I can't understand how it could be miswired.

-- As far as other 110 appliances.. I am not sure what was drawing directly from the power or what was being inverted. Was very tough to tell. No matter what I did I could not get the MH to charge. I started the GEN and all was up and perfect. When I shut down the GEN it appeared it went back to running off the inverter.

[rgatijnet1]

It may depend on the size of the inverter/charger that you have and the amount of charge needed to replenish the batteries. My coach has a 3000 watt inverter/charger and if the coach batteries are close to dead, it takes a lot of current to just run the charger portion. On most inverter/chargers, you can turn the charger portion OFF or adjust the amount of charge to minimize the current needed when you are on limited service, like 30 amp.

[Dale_Traveling]

Did anything else 120AC powered in the coach quite? Water heater, one of the A/C's, a couple of wall outlets and such. Might be a long shot but I wonder if you might have only been powering half of the breaker box and the inverter was on the unpowered half but if that was the case you might also have lost a few other AC powered items.

Did the camp site power panel have two 30 amp outlets? If not I think the adaptor you have might not be optimum for your needs since without the second 30 amp outlet you'll only have one hot leg of the two needed for your coach.

What was your monitor reporting as volts on L2? If zero then your problem was the missing second hot.

[We_Cant_Wait]

Dump the adapter you're using and use a standard 30Amp male to 50AMP female adapter. It sounds like your 2,30AMP male ends are miswired.

[dougrainer]

Your Y splitter, the second leg was not connected to 120 power. So, only 1/2 of your RV had 120 power. Obviously the Inverter/charger side did not have incoming 120 power to activate the charger section. Doug