30 vs 50 amp electrical issue help

[ODG255]

Hello,

I recently purchased a 2023 heartland mallard 32ft travel trailer. When I bought it at dealer they assured me it was a 50 amp service during purchase and during walk through. During walk through it was already hooked up via 50 amp cord and that is the cord I was given.

We camped two nights and lost all power during the night, come to find out we were running solely on solar despite the cord being plugged into appropriate 50 amp outlet at the camping ground.

Turns out the trailer is 30 amp! Above power receptacle on trailer it states 30 amp only. This is all confusing but I figured I would ask if anyone has had similar experiences… my concern is that at some point 50 amp power went into the trailer rated for 30 amp and fried it all. Thank you for input.

[wa8yxm]

I am going to repeat this question with photos
If you go to your Main AC Distribution panel (Breaker box)
Is the largest breaker there like this one of the below and which one is it




The single or the dual
And that will answer is it 30 (Single) or 50 (Dual)

Look close and you see 20 on the single but yours will say 30 and 50 50 on the 50s

[toedtoes]

ScottG wrote:
I'm thinking the only problem with the OP's trailer is that they put the wrong sticker (30A) over the shore power cord connection.

I would agree had the manufacturer not stated that the OP was simply missing an adapter between the inlet on the trailer and the power cord.

That shows that they have no clue as to how they wired th is trailer.

For someone with extensive knowledge of RV electrical systems, this wouldn't be a big issue.

But the OP is not that person. And the OP needs a trailer they can trust for their trip. The last thing they need while trying to deal with a medical issue for a couple months is for their trailer to lose power in the middle of an Arizona summer.

And if the dealer hasn't been able to determine the issue yet, I would not be trusting them to correct the problem.

[dougrainer]

Cptnvideo wrote:
My 50 amp power path is shore to EMS to 3kw inverter/charger (pass thru) to breaker panel. Inverter feeds all circuits, including all 3 A/C units (1 has soft start). While off shore power it is up to me to choose what I can run off solar/battery/inverter.

Yes, that is the way I would install on my personal RV. But, you cannot do this on standard production RV's. You have to look at the level of knowledge the potential RV'er has, MOST do not have the expertise to adequately monitor their 120 load consumption to utilize a Inverter for the AC circuits. Doug

[dougrainer]

wapiticountry wrote:

dougrainer wrote:

ODG255 wrote:
Well, the plot thickens. I just got off of the phone with Heart land I asked them to look up my build based on VIN.

They told me that my trailer was supposed to be shipped with the 50 amp cord that I have but that there is supposed to be an “adapter” between cord and trailer. He stated that the trailer itself is 30 amp but when I told him that I want to run a second AC he said that will be no problem at all.

I asked if this is some kind of hybrid between 50 and 30 and he said yes exactly.
So everything in my trailer is 120v…. And it’s 30 amp but supposedly I can run 2 ACs?

I was hoping for clarification but this makes the whole thing even more convoluted.

I talked to my sales guy and he said that was the craziest thing he’d ever heard, I don’t know much but I have to agree with him!

Well, it appears that both Heartland AND the Dealer will lie to fix this problem. What Heartland told you is NONSENSE. YOU CANNOT RUN 2 RV AC UNITS ON 30 AMP SERVICE. PERIOD. You stated MY link is the wall connection to your trailer. That is 50 amp. Period. You need to go to the trailer and open the 120 breaker box access lid. Until YOU do this, there can be no good resolution to this thread. IF your breaker box has (2) 50 amp breakers, your RV IS 50 amp. Doug

PS, I had a Jayco electrical engineer tell me that I could NOT add a 3rd AC to a customers 39 foot Jayco with 50 amp service, because 3 AC's would draw about 42 amps and that would leave only 8 amps for the rest of the RV. I e mailed his boss and told him that person needed to be FIRED. 50 amp RV service is a TOTAL of 100 amp service.

Wow, a guy makes a mistake and you email his boss telling him the guy should be fired. How many hours would you last at your job if one mistake and you are out was the standard.
And the guy wasn’t totally incorrect. 50 amp service is not referred to as having 100 amps available. Care would have be be taken in wiring the third AC to assure it was not on the same leg as the other two units, or that leg would draw 42 amps which overloads a fifty amp circuit since continuous duty rating is 80% of the maximum rating. Load balancing would be critical and depending on how many other high amperage items (hot water heater, electric cooktop, microwave, other electric appliances etc.) it may indeed be problematic adding a third AC unit especially if there is no load management system. Actually there is nothing in the electrical codes that would prevent adding 20 AC units since the lines are protected by the 50 amp breakers. Of course such a system would be useless because you would be tripping breakers constantly, but it wouldn’t be a code violation. . It is reasonable the engineer was talking in practical, not theoretical terms, and he very well may have been correct that adding a third AC unit to that specific rig, would be a problem due to power management.

This was NOT a mistake by the standard Phone call taker at OEM call taker center. This was in response to an elevated problem due to the floor plan and design of this model 39 ft 5th wheel where the 2 AC units could not keep the rear bunkhouse area cool at all even with ducted air. The customer requested Jayco to pay for install of the 3rd AC and the customer just wanted to pay for the Parts and no Labor. Under warranty, which he was. So, Jayco went up the Chain to the Electrical Engineers. This idiot engineer, told me that ****. ANY electrical engineer at a RV maker should KNOW 120 capability and parameters. He deserved to be fired, but I doubt he was. After I elevated at Jayco, we got the authorization to get the 3rd AC done. Doug

[Grit_dog]

ODG255 wrote:
I am going to try and get to the dealer today and see if I can take pictures of the breakers. I’m sure they have been dragging their feet and haven’t looked into it at all.

This is turning into quite the disaster. My gut tells me I should get rid of the trailer but I doubt they will do that without a fight. Going to do some research into consumer law and try to be prepared

Until you attempt to actually answer some concise questions that you should be able to answer, the only disaster sounds like your lack of knowledge combined with what sounds like a pretty sus dealer/repair shop.
I’ll ask again.
What DOESNT work? (Besides the fireplace).
Did you or did you not lose the AC and fridge (which you appear to have confirmed is a resi fridge, 120v only?
Or maybe I’m overstepping and you dont have the capacity or ability to even begin to deal with it yourself right now? (I understand completely)

[Grit_dog]

toedtoes wrote:

ODG255 wrote:
I am going to try and get to the dealer today and see if I can take pictures of the breakers. I’m sure they have been dragging their feet and haven’t looked into it at all.

This is turning into quite the disaster. My gut tells me I should get rid of the trailer but I doubt they will do that without a fight. Going to do some research into consumer law and try to be prepared

Trust your gut.

If you take this trailer to Arizona and try to power two AC units, you are going to burned. It doesn't matter what they do, you cannot trust the wiring on this rig. It's dangerous.

In your expert electrician opinion formulated by cryptic descriptions from the OP that still leave most of the necessary info to one’s imagination?
I really feel for the OP but until he can at least provide enough info to identify what supply setup he has, what ACTUALLY doesn’t work (because he’s only said the battery went dead afaik) and whether it’s pre wired for a second AC, most of this is pure speculation on our part.

While anything is possible it’s highly unlikely that the camper is “wired all wrong” which is what’s being suggested by many.
And it is of less than zero use to keep discussing how many air conditioners people can run off their boondocking on steroids setups.

[ScottG]

I'm thinking the only problem with the OP's trailer is that they put the wrong sticker (30A) over the shore power cord connection.

[toedtoes]

ODG255 wrote:
I am going to try and get to the dealer today and see if I can take pictures of the breakers. I’m sure they have been dragging their feet and haven’t looked into it at all.

This is turning into quite the disaster. My gut tells me I should get rid of the trailer but I doubt they will do that without a fight. Going to do some research into consumer law and try to be prepared

Trust your gut.

If you take this trailer to Arizona and try to power two AC units, you are going to burned. It doesn't matter what they do, you cannot trust the wiring on this rig. It's dangerous.

[toedtoes]

stevenal wrote:
Adapter

Here is an adapter as described. Internally, the ground, neutral, and one of the legs connect straight through. The remaining leg remains unconnected. Note that it carries no UL mark. This same sort of adaptation might simply be wired into the RV, and would likely be in violation of RVIA standards. If so, the 12000 W expected from the 50 A service is only 3600.

As others have indicated, find your main breaker. It will be a single pole 30 or a double pole 50.

That adapter is simply a 30 amp to 50 amp adapter.

The OP has indicated that both the inlet port on the trailer AND the detachable power cord have 50 amp plugs. So the female end of the adapter wouldn't even fit.

In addition, that adapter doesn't turn a 30 amp system in a 50 amp system. It merely allows a 30 amp system to plug into a 50 amp outlet - pulling only the 30 amps.

It certainly doesn't allow the OP to use two AC units as claimed by the manufacturer.

[CA_Traveler]

I don't think we have the full story. Mfg says they supplied 50A cable and adapter. OP says no adapter. Dealer is useless. Used modified RV or what???

Yes a 2000W inverter can run a small A/C, run time depending upon batteries. But that is not main stream mfg production because it's not practical for most RVs. I know of a RV with 6x GC's that could run a small window A/C for 2 hours. Yes off topic just like about every thread.

[ODG255]

I am going to try and get to the dealer today and see if I can take pictures of the breakers. I’m sure they have been dragging their feet and haven’t looked into it at all.

This is turning into quite the disaster. My gut tells me I should get rid of the trailer but I doubt they will do that without a fight. Going to do some research into consumer law and try to be prepared

[StirCrazy]

CA Traveler wrote:
My charger/inverter internal transfer switch only switches the MW and one plug circuit. No A/Cs for various reasons. The main RV ATS switches all shore land gen power.

Whole house inverters are not that common due to large amount of power required.

Once you get to 3000watt ones they are quite common to be whole house. Maybe it's different in the US or even different from east coast to west or age. just because its whole house doesn't mean it takes more power, it depends how you use your power when you're on batteries. My 2000 watt is a whole house, and it can run the AC, sometimes it struggles with the smaller inverter which is why I was asking about micro start.

This isn't about inverters, and we have branched off from the original issue and don't want Gritdog yelling at us. this is simply if they prewired it for 50amp and forgot to change the sticker haha
b

[StirCrazy]

ODG255 wrote:
Well, the plot thickens. I just got off of the phone with Heart land I asked them to look up my build based on VIN.

They told me that my trailer was supposed to be shipped with the 50 amp cord that I have but that there is supposed to be an “adapter” between cord and trailer. He stated that the trailer itself is 30 amp but when I told him that I want to run a second AC he said that will be no problem at all.

I asked if this is some kind of hybrid between 50 and 30 and he said yes exactly.
So everything in my trailer is 120v…. And it’s 30 amp but supposedly I can run 2 ACs?

I was hoping for clarification but this makes the whole thing even more convoluted.

I talked to my sales guy and he said that was the craziest thing he’d ever heard, I don’t know much but I have to agree with him!

so, I can't remember if you posted what breakers were installed or any pictures of your ends of your cords, were all kind of speculating now.

but this could be right, and it could be a prep for the future install. the only difference between a 30 amp rv and a 50 amp rv really is the wires from the outside of the rv to the fuse panel, the breaker size, and sometimes the size of the fuse panel its self, but not always, after that there the same.

if they put a 50 amp cable on and put an adapter that only uses one leg of that power supply then that's fine, inside they may just have one wire taped off and not connected but in the area so when you do install your second AC they just have to hook that leg up with a 50amp breaker in the RV and it will put that second AC on its own leg so it won't compete with the first AC. Personally, I wouldn't have worried about the adaptor, and I would have just wired it up with 50amp cable on the 30amp breaker and left one pole off and isolated. You can have a smaller breaker one a larger feed for now with no issues as the breaker is to protect the wiring and that's just over protecting it from drawing too much. Then later you just change out the 30amp breaker for a dual pole 50amp breaker and hook the new AC up and away you go.

[Cptnvideo]

My 50 amp power path is shore to EMS to 3kw inverter/charger (pass thru) to breaker panel. Inverter feeds all circuits, including all 3 A/C units (1 has soft start). While off shore power it is up to me to choose what I can run off solar/battery/inverter.

[CA_Traveler]

My charger/inverter internal transfer switch only switches the MW and one plug circuit. No A/Cs for various reasons. The main RV ATS switches all shore land gen power.

Whole house inverters are not that common due to large amout of power required.