RV (Rec Veh) wiring question

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Water is good....

I have lived in some pretty austere places but having reliable water makes living a whole lot tolerable...
 
Zeldman said:
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Water is good....

I have lived in some pretty austere places but having reliable water makes living a whole lot tolerable...
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Since a couple people are going nutzo over their electrical installation opinion...
Yer gonna have to address the erosion from the surface water discharge. Any rilling must be corrected immediately and steps must be taken to minimize all future erosion. All this should be in your site permit and SWPP.

That is all.
 
FastEddieB said:
I was mainly warned about the voltage drop from a long extension cord plugged into a 15A circuit damaging the air conditioner.
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IMHO, use a good quality extension cord, measure amp draw and check it out. Don't run AC and micro wave at the same time.
 
FastEddieB said:
I'm not sure you meant that to be condescending in the above, but it's easy to read it that way.

The pedestal is set up to take two hot wires. BOTH would run to the 50A receptacle, if it were to be utilized. But for now we only ran one hot lead.

Normally, one hot lead would feed the 20A outlet, the other would feed the 30A outlet and both would feed the 50A outlet. I just wanted the single hot lead to feed either the 20A or the 30A. Power out would be the same, but it would allow me to plug our trailer's plug directly into the 30A outlet, forgoing an adapter plug to the 20A outlet. That's the reasoning behind the jumper.
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Sorry. I did not mean to be condescending, I was genuinely puzzled.

Unless the bus bars are not as they appear, it's unnecessary. One leg (terminal on the right) feeds all the 110V breakers-20A and 30A as well as one leg of the 50A, and the one on the left only feeds the second leg of the 50A. (The 30A is 110V, right?) If that's true, the jumper serves no purpose that I can see.

John
 
Apology accepted.

Yes, the 30A receptacle is 110v with a hot, neutral and ground. That's what most campgrounds routinely provide, with only some prividing 50A service which can provide both 110v and 220v. Those really huge RV's can even have washers and dryers so may need that much power.

If you look closely, the 30A breaker's upper lug is fed by a different hot "leg" than the 20A - the one on the left of the two-pole 50A breaker that is unused in this installation with only one hot lead so far. Hence, the jumper is necessary to energize the hot terminal of the 30A outlet, by "bonding" the two legs into one.

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Of course, it renders the 50A receptacle unusable as designed - with two separate 110v legs to provide 220v - which is why I taped it off and marked it "INOP".

Is that clearer?
 
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FastEddieB said:
Apology accepted.

Yes, the 30A receptacle is 110v with a hot, neutral and ground. That's what most campgrounds routinely provide, with only some prividing 50A service which can provide both 110v and 220v. Those really huge RV's can even have washers and dryers so may need that much power.

If you look closely, the 30A breaker's upper lug is fed by a different hot "leg" than the 20A - the one on the left of the two-pole 50A breaker that is unused in this installation with only one hot lead so far. Hence, the jumper is necessary to energize the hot terminal of the 30A outlet, by "bonding" the two legs into one.

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Of course, it renders the 50A receptacle unusable as designed - with two separate 110v legs to provide 220v - which is why I taped it off and marked it "INOP".

Is that clearer?
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Coming to this late, but why not just pull the 50A dual breaker out of the panel and move the 30A over one slot to energize it? No jumper needed, and no juice going to the "INOP" 50A connector at all.
 
FastEddieB said:
Apology accepted.

Yes, the 30A receptacle is 110v with a hot, neutral and ground. That's what most campgrounds routinely provide, with only some prividing 50A service which can provide both 110v and 220v. Those really huge RV's can even have washers and dryers so may need that much power.

If you look closely, the 30A breaker's upper lug is fed by a different hot "leg" than the 20A - the one on the left of the two-pole 50A breaker that is unused in this installation with only one hot lead so far. Hence, the jumper is necessary to energize the hot terminal of the 30A outlet, by "bonding" the two legs into one.

34475808926_748a20b919_z.jpg


Of course, it renders the 50A receptacle unusable as designed - with two separate 110v legs to provide 220v - which is why I taped it off and marked it "INOP".

Is that clearer?
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Ah. Couldn't see the bus from the other picture. Now it makes sense. Just make sure you never, ever plug anything 220V into the 50A receptacle while it's wired that way.

John
 
Half Fast said:
Coming to this late, but why not just pull the 50A dual breaker out of the panel and move the 30A over one slot to energize it? No jumper needed, and no juice going to the "INOP" 50A connector at all.
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What's the expression? From the mouths of babes?

Sounds like a much better plan - and one that never occurred to me!
 
Eddie, you really shouldn't Mickey mouse stuff like this, especially in areas where others may be able to access it, even if they have no business doing so. Bad things can happen.
 
It's clear that if you ever do connect something to the 50A plug, it may fail to work, or it may end up causing a fire. Again, you do not have a suitably large NEUTRAL to have two 50A conductors wired to the same leg.

If your intent is to never allow this to happen, the answer is simple. REMOVE THAT TWO POLE 50A BREAKER. All the red tape over things doesn't properly disable dangerous things.

If you remove the 50A breaker, you can move the 30A breaker over to the live leg and get rid of the UNDERSIZED hokie jumper.
 
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PaulS said:
Eddie, you really shouldn't Mickey mouse stuff like this, especially in areas where others may be able to access it, even if they have no business doing so. Bad things can happen.
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Point taken.

The pedestal is on private property, in a fenced yard with a locked gate. But I suppose someone could criminally trespass, break the locks on both the temp pole and gate, plug the pedestal wiring into the temp pole, ignore the large "INOP" sticker by the 50A receptacle, peel off the red tape from both the 50A breaker and the 50A receptacle, throw the 50A breaker, plug in and then have bad things happen. Would almost serve them right!

But taking Half Fast's advice, this all becomes moot.
 
FastEddieB said:
Point taken.

The pedestal is on private property, in a fenced yard with a locked gate. But I suppose someone could criminally trespass, break the locks on both the temp pole and gate, plug the pedestal wiring into the temp pole, ignore the large "INOP" sticker by the 50A receptacle, peel off the red tape from both the 50A breaker and the 50A receptacle, throw the 50A breaker, plug in and then have bad things happen. Would almost serve them right!

But taking Half Fast's advice, this all becomes moot.
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Yep, but the last step in your above scenario is some less than honorable lawyer (which does NOT describe our esteemed counselors here :) ) will take up their cause and sue you for negligence, unsafe conditions, and putting their client in harm's way.
 
FastEddieB said:
Point taken.

The pedestal is on private property, in a fenced yard with a locked gate. But I suppose someone could criminally trespass, break the locks on both the temp pole and gate, plug the pedestal wiring into the temp pole, ignore the large "INOP" sticker by the 50A receptacle, peel off the red tape from both the 50A breaker and the 50A receptacle, throw the 50A breaker, plug in and then have bad things happen. Would almost serve them right!

But taking Half Fast's advice, this all becomes moot.
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You wouldn't believe the effort some put into stupid. As far as Half Fast's solution, I think you might need to move the 30 amp over 2 slots, but it is tough to tell.
 
FastEddieB said:
What's the expression? From the mouths of babes?
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Babe?

Well, I guess maybe from your vantage point.... :)

(Babe with BEE, MSEE, Senior Member of IEEE, 32 years professional practice with Lockheed Martin, patents, awards,.....)

Just yankin' your chain, Eddie! Hope you're having fun with the grandkids and the camper isn't on fire.
 
FastEddieB said:
Nope - one slot puts it on the same powered bus as the 20A breaker.
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Nope, It alternates by full size slot. That's why the 50A two poler gets opposite legs (when the panel is wired correctly). To confuse matters, GE makes "thin" breakers that allow you to stuff two in one full size slot. You do not have any thin breakers in the pictures you provided.
 
Still pretty sure moving the 30A breaker one slot left will put it on the same energized bus as the 20A, which was Half Fast's newly erudite opinion as well.
 
FastEddieB said:
Still pretty sure moving the 30A breaker one slot left will put it on the same energized bus as the 20A, which was Half Fast's newly erudite opinion as well.
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Yes, and then you can get rid of the undersized jumper (it's wrong even for the 30A breaker it's kludgily feeding).

If you pull the breakers out it will be clearer, but you can see it even in the picture above. The black wire from the feeder is going into one leg bus bar. You can see the tabs coming out of it feeding the slots which now hold the right side of the 50A breaker and the 20A breaker.

From that bus there's the bogus jumper to the bus for the other leg which you can't quite see but it feeds the left side of the 50A breaker, the 30A breaker, and the unused slot on the right side. You can just see the other end of that bus and another screw terminal on the right side.

So your slots are LEG A - LEG B - LEG A - LEG B - LEG A. The feeder is connected to LEG B and then jumped on the left side over to LEG A.
 
There were some comments above that seemed to me to indicate that some folks weren't quite realizing that RV "50 Amp" is really a two phase service.

I know Eddie isn't planning on using his 50A outlet right now, so it's not relevant, but... just in case...

RV 50 Amp is this...

http://www.myrv.us/Imgs/PDF/50-amp Service.pdf

It's essentially two phases of 120 with two hot leads.

The other thing nobody mentioned but you should probably do, is add a starter capacitor to the A/C unit. Unlike commercial/industrial stuff where that's just assumed, the silly RV A/C makers leave them off the motors and sell them for a profit.

With so many RV parks that have complete crap electrical work, I always add them to the A/C units early on, besides a way to check the park's pole before plugging it into the trailer.

They'll start up easier. Easier on your generator too, if you ever do that. Takes virtually no time to install one.
 
Eddie, I can't tell from the photo. Did you sink a ground rod at the post?
 
Update:

Camped at the property Thursday night, first time with power to the pedestal.

Removed the 50A breaker and moved the 30A over one slot:

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Now clearly both on the same leg. No jumper required. Thanks for the idea, Half Fast.

After testing the 30A outlet, plugged in and viola! - works as intended.

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Did not need air conditioning, but meant to try it out and forgot.

Also drove in and hooked up an 8' ground rod.

I now just need to install blanking plates for the two empty slots. Thanks again for all the input.
 
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They sell plastic fillers for the empty slots.
 
Very good educational thread! Good interaction among all involved, refreshing to see a topic discussed with civility and very thoroughly with extremely experienced posters adding valuable input to the discussion.

I know a bit about electricity but have enjoyed learning and know just enough watch the discussion from the sidelines and not to add useless input. This thread is certainly working the way the forum should!

Fast Eddie, a very good source for electrical info is "Ugly's Electrical Reference " and can probably be found very reasonable on eBay or the like. Will provide your wire sizes, load carrying capacities, and even bend radii for conduit. It may not have all the info that an Electrical Engineer would want but certainly has most of what you could ever want on a job site or around the hangar. eBay has them and for general info purposes it may not even have to be the latest new version.


Happy Father's Day to all of you fathers, you're an invaluable resource and guide to and for your children and truly shape their, and our country's future through your leadership! For those whom still have their fathers; enjoy the blessing that you have and gain all that you can from it. For those of us who now only have their fathers in our memories; continue living our lives to make them proud, show them what you learned from them, and hope that one day we'll be reunited! (If you share that belief)

And now for the useless addition to this thread: Where's the AOA fit into the panel? Temp pole, RV panel, or both?
 
Looks like a good temporary solution now. That was a good catch on moving the 30A over.

I hope it works very well for you!
 
The Mike Holt website is also an excellent resource.

It has answers for just about anything, from repairing a faulty wall receptacle to a library of formulas and calculations required for a multi-megawatt electrical service.

http://forums.mikeholt.com/

diabolical said:
Fast Eddie, a very good source for electrical info is "Ugly's Electrical Reference " and can probably be found very reasonable on eBay or the like. Will provide your wire sizes, load carrying capacities, and even bend radii for conduit. It may not have all the info that an Electrical Engineer would want but certainly has most of what you could ever want on a job site or around the hangar. eBay has them and for general info purposes it may not even have to be the latest new version.
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Good news!

We drove from Kitty Hawk to our TN property yesterday and camped last night. We were tired and waited until this morning to hook up to our pedestal.

Air conditioner started up and ran just fine. As an experiment I also ran the microwave at the same time and nothing tripped. We may be at the limits of 20A sevice to our 30A receptacle, but not overtaxing it as long as we don't run everything at once.

Thanks again for the guidance!
 
Zombie thread, but I though a final update might be in order.

The setup described above held us in good stead for power to our home-away-from-home for well over a year as we were building our new home in Lenoir City, TN.

A few weeks ago, the meter was removed from the temp pole and installed on the house and, viola! Our house has power.

The day before yesterday, the final wiring was pulled through the conduits for our two RV pedestals and our shed to be powered from the main panel.

Here's a rough schematic, albeit without the underground ROMEX from the junction box to our shed:

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It provides 50A service to each RV pedestal and 20A to our shed.

The existing meter panel had plenty of slots for the additional circuits (possibly a 220V charging for our possible Chevy Volt or other hybrid?) :

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The junction box by the transformer:

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Anyway, thanks for all the input. The fact that no one got electrocuted in the process is just a bonus!
 
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