Oddly wired Distribution Panel

[fred42]

On my last trip, the converter failed and I had to use a portable battery charger to keep up my coach battery. Back at home, I removed the distribution panel to get to the bad converter. It was a WFCO 55amp, I plan to put in a Progressive Dynamics PD9260C.

I see that the wiring diagram shows the two 50amp legs of my power going to separate buses as you would expect.



The odd thing is that I apparently am not using any of the black leg power and this coach has two ACs, electric water heater, and microwave. On my last trip on arrival I was blowing the park 50amp breaker. Never had this happen before, but the park changed their breaker and it was OK. Maybe this setup pushes the limit of one leg of the breaker. Another odd thing is that you would expect the DC converter to be on its own 15amp breaker, but this one has the converter and two house circuits nutted into a single breaker (rightmost 15amp breaker). That poor little piece of 14 gauge wire must get warm at times.



If this seems odd to you as well, I may purchase another breaker and put it on the left black leg bus and then put just the converter on it.

thanks for any ideas,
Fred

[time2roll]

That romex looks like it should be inserted further so the jacket is in the strain relief.

Slam dunk on the deck mount converter replacement.

[fred42]

Thanks for the information.

I wanted to clarify what I had concerning the PD4600 suggestions. I too thought I was going to have to get a PD4600 as I have done with other RVs. I only opened up the panel to see which amperage to order. Then I saw that this WFCO distribution panel had an external converter and an AC plug on the back.



This makes the switch very easy. So I plan to get the PD9260C. Here is the old WFCO unit:

[BFL13]

mobeewan wrote:
My Progressive Dynamics converter only uses at max 600 amps, so it doesn't need its own breaker. It's on the GFCI circuit along with the Norcold fridge which also draws about 600 watts max.

Your converter has a power factor of about 0.7 so it draws more VA from the power supply than its rated watts. Even so 600w is low for a converter unless it is small like a 35a DC size.

It won't show so much on shore power, but it will if you have a smaller portable generator like a Honda "1000w" model.
------------------

The PD9280 is supposed to be on a 20a circuit with size 12 wire. It is not PF- corrected. If it were, then it could run on a 15a circuit.

[wa8yxm]

CA Traveler wrote:
Move one of the A/C breakers and it's companion CB to the left of the main breaker and you'll have better balance, maybe another heavy load like HW. The WFCO only uses a few amps so no reason for it to be on a separate CB but I'd put the new charger on it's own CB.

I have had the converter on my Rig (Progressive Dynamics Intella-Power 9180 + wizard) take out a 15 amp breaker once. Normal draw is about 10 amps is batteries are dead, that's more than "A Few".

Normal draw if the batteries are well fed.... Well .. low single digits. (A few).

Moral.. State of charge affects power draw of converter, 60 amps at 12 volts is 5 amps at 120 volts PLUS conversion loss and divided by power factor (powerfactor is never greater than 1.0 (Perfect) so if you divide 5 by a power factor of say 0.9 you get what, 5.55555555 (Goes on forever)

[mobeewan]

My Progressive Dynamics converter only uses at max 600 amps, so it doesn't need its own breaker. It's on the GFCI circuit along with the Norcold fridge which also draws about 600 watts max.

[jandjbaums]

Damn you guys are good! Didnt even see the bare wire that close.

[time2roll]

I would also get rid of that wire nut and put those items on separate breakers.

[Golden_HVAC]

Hi,

I noticed that one of the bare copper wires is very close to the neutral bussbar, and should have a little more separation, The bare copper should not be touching the white bussbar, and the wires must not be connected to the wrong bussbar.

Is the 30 amp breaker going to a inverter? That is how many RV's are wired, with 30 amps going to the inverter, where either two 15 amp or one 15 and one 20 amp circuit breakers feed inverter power to certain circuits in the RV.

The converter/charger normally will only use 1-4 amps, so is not a significant load on any circuit breaker.

Good luck!

Fred.

[BurbMan]

wa8yxm wrote:
Now, on the issue of Progressive Dynamics, You might want to look at the 4600 line, May (or may not) fit in the space provided by gutting the WFCO better.

Ditto, the PD 4655 will replace the WFCO in the existing load center, it is a drop in replacdement so you don't have to rewire a whole new load center. You can also get the charge wizard pendant with the 4655.

[BFL13]

Not unusual for the converter to share its 120v breaker with a receptacles' circuit. It/they only need 15a/14 wire, but of course you have to "manage" what 120v things you plug into the shared receptacles with the converter charging low batteries so it is drawing its full need.

If you ever run an inverter "whole house" (shore cord plugged into inverter) so you need to turn off the converter, it can be a problem if the those receptacles are the ones you want to stay "live" to run the television or whatever.

So it is useful in that case to have the converter on its own breaker so you can use the breaker as the converter's on/off switch. Otherwise you would need to wire in a new switch for the converter's 120v before it gets to that shared breaker.

Also, AFAIK the whole idea of 50a instead of 30a on the 120 side, was so you could run two air-conditioners. So both A/C should not be on one leg, or what's the point?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

May I compliment you on a nicely portayed and laid-out question.

[fred42]

Thanks all for the input.

smkettner: nice catch, that 30amp breaker has to go, it has a 12g wire going to the AC.

wa8yxm: Thanks, I have no generator. My current WFCO55 was an external standalone, plugin converter. So the PD9260C is an easy upgrade.

DrewE: Correct, I misspoke, but that breaker has been breaking a lot when using certain circuits.

[RoyB]

A 50AMP Trailer is provided two 50AMP ZONES with it own circuit breakers to use. The RED and BLACK wires come from each of the two available 50AMP zones from the pedestal.

Don't get confused by seeing a full size 120VAC circuit breaker being substituted by two half size 120VAC breakers. These are both valid circuit breakers - just different physical size width size. The WFCO 50AMP circuit breaker panel is provide with 8 full size holes for circuit breakers to be installed. IT is normal to have two half size circuit breakers installed side by side in a full size circuit breaker hole.

i.e in my 30AMP WFCO 120VAC circuit breaker panel I have five lfull size holes for circuit breaker. I use one full MAIN circuit breaker for the MAIN 30AMP rated circuit breaker. This leaves my four remain full size hole to mount additional lower rated circuit breaker which can be filled with four full size circuit breaker or eight half size breakers. In my case i am using the half size circuit breakers so I have control to a total of nine separate circuit breakers in the 30AMP panel.

This allows you to have more circuit breakers in your system. Each of the half size circuit breakers will perform independently...

I really don't see anything odd about your dual zone 50AMP circuit breaker layout. Like said above if you want to re-distribute which zone is being used for certain appliances just move the HOT wire to the 50AMP zone you want it to use.

Hope all of this makes sense haha...
This WFCO panel ID shows what I am saying...

This layout appears to be using three full size circuit breakers and eight half size circuit breakers with one empty full size circuit br3eaker hole for future use.



Roy Ken

[DrewE]

If the 15A breaker is working properly and the connections are tight and correct, the 14 gauge wire isn't getting dangerously hot. That's the whole point of having the breaker there—to ensure that the current through the wire is not excessive so that the wire overheats.

If you have a built-in generator, make sure it's wired to power both legs before moving circuits over indiscriminately.