hooking 30 amp TT to 50 amp service

[mydaisy]

Last summer we hooked up our 30 amp TT to a 50 amp service. The breaker inside would trip. Is it a problem to plug into a 50 amp?

[mydaisy]

Hubby added water to battery.. was low. Seems to be charging. Converter not cutting on and off like it was and lights not dimming when converter not running. Hope that this is all it was. Thanks for everyone's input.

[ken56]

I have been to 1 CG that had 50a service but had the 30a plug and the 50a plug in the pedestal I went back and asked at the office if that was ok as I have never came across that before and it was explained to me it was fine. It was, no problems.

[wa8yxm]

An automatic, self resetting circuit breaker, with a bad battery (Shorted cell) will cause exactly that to happen, here is the sequence.

Battery draws max current from converter which lowers voltage to keep from blowing the fuses on it or damaging it internally. Lights dim.

Circuit breaker trips.. Converter sees excessive load go by by so it ups the voltage, Lights brighten.

Circuit breaker resets, and the cycle starts again

MY converter is fairly large, if the batteries are low it can easily pull 10-12 or more amps... IN fact it plus 13.5 amp A/C can take out an older 30 amp breaker (And did a few times) .

YOu need to have your batteries tested.

Procedure: FIRST, find the negative cable which goes off somewhere (NOT a battery) Mark it with black tape or paint and a piece of paper marked NEG.

Find the positive cables that run off to who knows where (NOT to another battery) And mark them with RED (Tape or paint) and a piece of paper (Sticky note) marked POS,

ON both sticky notes write down the number of cables connected.

Take a picture

Then disconnect negative leads, then positive, and take battery(ies) to battery store for testing.

[Wayne_Dohnal]

1st guess: Auto reset circuit breaker cycling from overload. Try leaving the lights and all other 12 volt loads off. If you have a PD converter, pull it out of boost mode for a while. 2nd guess: Broken converter.

[mydaisy]

Okay, new problem. Plugged into 30amp at home. (Cleaning getting ready to go out next week). Lights on, ac on. Everything running fine then lights dim and then brighten several times. Then main breaker trips. ?????? Turn off air turn breaker back on. Lights continue to dim and brighten when converter goes on and off. Checking battery. But with battery low and trailer plugged in what would cause breaker to trip? Thanks.

[wa8yxm]

No, what happens is this:
IN most parks if you plug into a 30 amp outlet the park breaker is old and a tad anemic so long about 29 amps (or less) CLICK and your internal breaker never trips, even if you have Eva Gabor Disease (TV-Show Green Acres she never could count to the limit of the generator so she was constantly overloading it).

But if you plug into a 50 amp with the proper dog bone.. Then your INSIDE breaker trips.. Much easier to reset when you have your shoes off.

[RoyB]

BUMPYROAD - I probably should build up one of those as well for the RV TOOL BOX.

I usually don't see many 50-AMP service places where we usually go. Lucky to find 30Amp and 20Amp connections hehe...

The opposite of that would be the two male 30AMP PLUGS feeding a 50A FEMALE socket adapter. I have heard of some folks swapping out one of those 30AMP PLUGS for a 20AMP PLUG and then can have the 30A and 20A pedestal connections feeding a 50AMP FEMALE connection adapter to power up both zones of their 50AMP trailer (One side with 30AMPS and the other side with 20AMPS).

Diagram from DMBRUSS

Since I don't have a 50AMP trailer guess I don't need any of these...

One always has to worry about having a HOT male plug laying around before it gets plugged in I guess... I don't think this one could be back-fed from the 50AMP trailer however - would definitely do some checking first if I had one hehe...

Roy Ken

[Bumpyroad]

I built an adapter with one 50 amp male plug and two 30 amp female outlets so I could use the side with the best current. older/modified campgrounds sometimes vary a lot.
bumpy

[mydaisy]

Thank you everyone.

[CA_Traveler]

ChooChooMan74 wrote:
The breaker was doing what it was supposed to be doing. Tripping on a load over 30 amps. You were trying to run too much.

X2 Unless it's defective. Furthermore your sustained load should be limited to 80% or 24A.

CB's are safety devices and not intended to act as a switch. Find out how much power you are using where and start managing it. Hair dryers, HW, MW and even the charger can draw lots of power.

A $25 Kill A Watt could be very helpful.

[ChooChooMan74]

The breaker was doing what it was supposed to be doing. Tripping on a load over 30 amps. You were trying to run too much.

[1492]

Moved from Forum Technical Support

[RoyB]

This is a diagram of the RV50A MALE to 30A FEMALE ADAPTER...

Note this adapter only is connected to one of the HOT 50A ZONES.

Drawing by DMBRUSS

Should not be any problems using this arrangement on a 30A Trailer setup. Alot of folks like to plug into a RV 50AMP service using the RV50A to 30A adapter when 50A service is available at the camp grounds. The pedestals are usually in great shape on the 50A side as they are not used as much as the 30A connections are used.

Your trailer will only use 30AMPs of the 50AMPs available due to the trailer installed 30A MAIN BREAKER...

Just my thoughts
Roy Ken

[fla-gypsy]

No, I do it all the time