30 amp service

[Screaming_Eagle]

Sitting here on a 30 amp site with a 50 amp coach having to do the power shuffle to prevent a tripped breaker. The guy on the next site tells me he doesn't have the same issue because of a pig tail he brought that plugs into the 30 amp and the 15 amp sockets, his surge protector shows 45 amps. Has anyone else had experience with one of them? Good / bad? He did say it won't work if the 15 amp socket is a ground fault.

Thanks in advance.

Jim

[Retired_JSO]

i bought ours to use in a specific campground when we had an RV with 50 amp. Laura Walker State Park in Georgia had twin 30 amp plugs at the pedestal along with a duplex 15 amp GFCI. It allowed us to run both a/cs along with fridge and WH on electric.

[Chandalen]

As mentioned, often the 30a plug is the same line as the 15a standard plug line.
In that case, this device MAY only help if the 30a breaker is weak from old age, and actually trips less than the 30a its supposed to. This is what happens when a 30a plug always trips when the AC turns on, or the AC and the microwave.

Another problem, is what if the 15a side trips, you are back to the 30a side only or vice versa.

The only good mixing of connectors I have found is the 50a to 30a adapter for my 30a camper plug. Even if the 50a breaker is old, and no longer rated for 50a, I have never had a problem getting the juice I needed @ 30a.

[beemerphile1]

They work like your neighbor said, if the circuit isn't ground fault protected. Almost every campground you will go to is ground fault protected.

If the place you are staying now does not have ground fault protection, it has old and substandard electrical service.

[DrewE]

A bad idea IMHO, and not very useful in practice. They basically put the power from the 30A on one leg of the 50A line and the power from the 15A on the other leg of the 50A line.

Why is this a bad idea? Let me enumerate some of the ways...

1. As was said, this will not work with a GFCI protected 20A (or 30A) receptacle, such as has been required by the NEC for camp sites for quite some time. The number of places where these are usable is rather slim.
   
2. In the event of a faulty neutral connection on the 30A side, you could end up with 45A going down the 15A's neutral line. That's a significant overload and fire hazard.
   
3. With miswired outlets, you could end up with live hot wires on one of the plugs when connecting or disconnecting.
   
4. With miswired outlets, you can create a hard short when plugging in. Hopefully this will trip the circuit breaker.
   
5. At least in some cases, the 15/20A socket "shares" the circuit with the 30A socket, so you don't actually get any additional power available. (The 30A breaker would be a master breaker for the pedestal in such a setup.) I don't know that this is a super common setup.
   

[DutchmenSport]

I've heard of them and they can be found easily enough on the internet and some RV parts places. I suppose if they did not work, they would not be manufactured. I've never had the experience with one myself. I can only repeat what someone else has said, they do work. How well? (That I don't know).

Found one here: Click here.