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Old 12-04-2017, 09:17 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quincy View Post
Will somebody let me know if I am correct here?

The thirty amp plug offers thirty amps maximum amp draw. The fifty amp connection actually divides the power between the two busses in the circuit panel. If you reduce everything down to a fifteen amp plug and add an extension cord you could be asking for more than the circuit can deliver even with the refrigerator alone. Let alone, the other minor things that will be added to the draw.

Can you reach the dryer plug? If so, take it down to thirty amp plug and use that for your power source. Otherwise you might need to install an outside plug for the MH only.

I dont know about the newer coaches but you must have a float charger such as a small solar panel to keep the battery charged.The fridge will run off of its own converter and if you want to you can recharge the fridge only battery if needed with a seperate battery charger.

Hope this helps Q

When people reference 50amps, it is actually two legs of 120vac each being fused at 50 amps, which happen to be 'out of phase'. Most RV's now adays just use those two legs separately, providing up to 100 amps of 120vac. The wire is actually 4 wires: 2 legs @120vac (red and black), a neutral (white), and a ground (bare or green).

A 30 amp power plug at a campground, is 30 amps @ 120vac. A 15/20 amp plug is 15or 20 amps @ 120vac.

When you connect a 50 amp coach thru a dongle to 30 amp plug, then a 30 amp to 20 amp plug converter........all of the circuits are technically able to try and draw power from that garage socket of 15/20 amps. Obviously if you turn too much on, they will blow the house circuit breaker protecting the wiring.

You cannot necessarily take a 30amp house dryer plug, and use it for your coach, reason being is it may be two legs each at 120vac (or 240vac), without a neutral, but an earth ground. If an electrician rewires both the socket and the wire at your breaker box, they can make it work. However you can't just change the socket end. The electrician needs to make it 30amp leg, neutral, and ground........as opposed to two 30 amp legs, and ground. You can do serious damage to your coach if this is not done correctly, and burn up expensive coach electrical items.

My refrigerator uses 1 amp when compressor is running, 8 amps when it shifts to defrost cycle. You charger/converter (some people incorrectly call it the inverter) can easily consume up to 10 amps or so, if you don't have it configured to throttle back it's charge current. An A/C can typically consume about 15 amps.
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Old 12-04-2017, 11:22 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by Quincy View Post

Can you reach the dryer plug? If so, take it down to thirty amp plug and use that for your power source. Q
If you are suggesting that someone adapt a dryer outlet to a 30 RV plug, that person needs to fully understand 120 and 240 volt circuits.

If its a 3 blade plug, there is no 120 volts available for a RV 30 amp, 120 volt service.
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Old 12-04-2017, 11:40 AM   #17
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With only a 15A shore power available, and wanting to run fridge, AH (on diesel) and a few lights, I would set the shore power charging to 5A max!
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Old 12-04-2017, 11:52 AM   #18
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Previously, when I've connected to the 15 amp circuit at home - power would occasionally drop then cycle back on. It never blew a breaker .. but power would drop in the coach for a few seconds ... then start back up on it's own. If I happened to be outside the coach - I could hear "clicking" which I associated with this issue.

I tried connecting to the 15 amp circuit once since the inverter was replaced (again, without making any adjustment to settings at the controller) this past summer. This time I noticed the power cycling problem immediately - so I disconnected from the 15 amp source and simply ran off the generator for the short time I needed.

Do you have a power quality/surge guard installed on the shore power? TRC or Equivalent? It may be tripping/resetting on low voltage if you are using a long small gauge extension cord.

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Old 12-04-2017, 01:46 PM   #19
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SpaceNorman, my coach is plugged into 20 amp power 24/7 while stored with no problems, but I am not running refrigerator, although mine is electric or propane. I am surprised you are having problems tripping breakers on 15 amp service, two questions: how long is your extension cord and what is the wire size of cord, if it is #14 wire that could be part of your problem, my cord is #10 wire. If your batteries are at full charge when you plug in and all your using is lights and refrigerator I would think 15 amps would be marginal but should work.
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Old 12-04-2017, 02:10 PM   #20
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I've posed this question in anticipation of trying this again on Friday when I'll be parking the coach at home to unwinterize and load up in preparation for a Saturday morning departure for Arizona.

For the sake of clarification ... to the best of my knowledge, the power drops I mentioned were not popping breakers - either in the coach or on my house panel. I've yet to have to reset a breaker. What has happened in the past was that there would be a audible click in the coach - then the coach refrigerator would lose power. A short time later (sometimes seconds, sometimes a few minutes) there'd be another click - and the refrigerator would again be powered. The refridgerator is a Frigidaire residential model which according to the specs draws 8.5 amps at 120 volts.

At the time I experienced the problems - my house batteries were in pretty bad shape. I replaced the house batteries less than a month ago. Based on what I've gleaned from the numerous responses I've gotten - I suspect that maybe the charger was kicking in - trying to keep my old dying batteries charged.

Based on the comments and suggestions in the responses - I'm going to do a few things different this time. First, I'm going to change the "Shore Max" parameter to 15 amps. Second, I'm going to upgrade the extension cord that I'm running from the house to the coach from a cheap orange yard task special ... to a heavier duty contractor extension. I'm not sure about the specs ... but the contractor extension is certainly a much beefier cable. I'm also going to take a closer look at what else might be on the circuit that I'm plugging into ... I've been using one located near the door in living room. As I recall there's not much plugged into it ... but, I think I'll throw the breaker and see what (if anything) else stops working.

Hopefully, I'll get 18 hours of stable power so that I can avoid having to run the generator to keep things powered as we load up and unwinterize prior to our departure on Saturday morning.
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Old 12-04-2017, 02:23 PM   #21
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When you buy the new extension cord, look for 12 gauge wire.

The packaging will list it and it should be stamped into the outer covering.
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Old 12-04-2017, 04:05 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SpaceNorman View Post
I've posed this question in anticipation of trying this again on Friday when I'll be parking the coach at home to unwinterize and load up in preparation for a Saturday morning departure for Arizona.

For the sake of clarification ... to the best of my knowledge, the power drops I mentioned were not popping breakers - either in the coach or on my house panel. I've yet to have to reset a breaker. What has happened in the past was that there would be a audible click in the coach - then the coach refrigerator would lose power. A short time later (sometimes seconds, sometimes a few minutes) there'd be another click - and the refrigerator would again be powered. The refridgerator is a Frigidaire residential model which according to the specs draws 8.5 amps at 120 volts.

At the time I experienced the problems - my house batteries were in pretty bad shape. I replaced the house batteries less than a month ago. Based on what I've gleaned from the numerous responses I've gotten - I suspect that maybe the charger was kicking in - trying to keep my old dying batteries charged.

Based on the comments and suggestions in the responses - I'm going to do a few things different this time. First, I'm going to change the "Shore Max" parameter to 15 amps. Second, I'm going to upgrade the extension cord that I'm running from the house to the coach from a cheap orange yard task special ... to a heavier duty contractor extension. I'm not sure about the specs ... but the contractor extension is certainly a much beefier cable. I'm also going to take a closer look at what else might be on the circuit that I'm plugging into ... I've been using one located near the door in living room. As I recall there's not much plugged into it ... but, I think I'll throw the breaker and see what (if anything) else stops working.

Hopefully, I'll get 18 hours of stable power so that I can avoid having to run the generator to keep things powered as we load up and unwinterize prior to our departure on Saturday morning.

Those are the symptoms of a Progressive EMS disconnecting the power from the coach, because it has detected something wrong (low voltage, missing neutral, missing ground, something miswired.
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Old 12-04-2017, 04:23 PM   #23
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When we plugged into 15 amp the controller set itself to 30 amp and continually blew the breaker. I set the controller to manual and found there was a 20 amp option. Selecting that and there were no further issues. Later plugged into 50 amp and it went back to auto and selected the proper setting.
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Old 12-05-2017, 12:17 PM   #24
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Spacenorman,

I have the same equipment in my coach. As you have discovered there are two different systems in the RV. One is the Inverter/charger which the Magnum remote controls and the other is the Power Control System which operates the shedding function. Both have power limiting controls.

You are on the right track in that the Shore Max setting on the Inverter/charger should be set to 15 or less. Since it's only for a short time would just turn off the charger or set it to 5 or 10amps to prevent the charger from using all 15amps of power.

The Power Control System panel should be set to 20amps max to control the shedding system (too bad it doesn't have a 15amp setting).

Both of these system are only to prevent a potential problem. Doing nothing will most likely work just fine... until the charger decides to go into bulk charge or something on the shedding circuit decides to turn on.

Like Kiawah said, I suspect the clicking and power off/on that you experienced was the Progressive EMS shutting down the power from a voltage drop caused by the light extension cord. I know from experience that a 50' 14ga cord is not enough for a full 15amp continuous load without significant voltage drop. I ended up switching all my shop extension cords to 12ga or 10ga.

And if you do make changes to the settings don't forget to put them back where they were...
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Old 12-05-2017, 12:49 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quincy View Post
Will somebody let me know if I am correct here?

The thirty amp plug offers thirty amps maximum amp draw. The fifty amp connection actually divides the power between the two busses in the circuit panel. If you reduce everything down to a fifteen amp plug and add an extension cord you could be asking for more than the circuit can deliver even with the refrigerator alone. Let alone, the other minor things that will be added to the draw.

Can you reach the dryer plug? If so, take it down to thirty amp plug and use that for your power source. Otherwise you might need to install an outside plug for the MH only.

I dont know about the newer coaches but you must have a float charger such as a small solar panel to keep the battery charged.The fridge will run off of its own converter and if you want to you can recharge the fridge only battery if needed with a seperate battery charger.

Hope this helps Q
NO_NO_NO! A 30A dryer receptacle is 240VAC. It will quickly let the smoke out of everything powered by 120VAC.
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Old 12-05-2017, 01:27 PM   #26
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You can get your 120 volts out of a 3 pole 4 wire dryer outlet. ( NEMA 14-30R 3 pole, 4 wire ). The 4 wire outlet has been in use since 1996. You do need to know what your doing, though.

For that matter you can get 30 amp 240 volts and adapt it to your 50 amp 240 volt RV cord. That will give you 60 amps or 7200 watts total.

If its an older, pre 1996, 3 pole 3 wire outlet, ( NEMA 10-30 R 3P 3W ) then you CAN NOT use it, because it has no neutral.
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Old 12-06-2017, 07:35 AM   #27
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You can get your 120 volts out of a 3 pole 4 wire dryer outlet. ( NEMA 14-30R 3 pole, 4 wire ). The 4 wire outlet has been in use since 1996. You do need to know what your doing, though.

For that matter you can get 30 amp 240 volts and adapt it to your 50 amp 240 volt RV cord. That will give you 60 amps or 7200 watts total.

If its an older, pre 1996, 3 pole 3 wire outlet, ( NEMA 10-30 R 3P 3W ) then you CAN NOT use it, because it has no neutral.
JMHO and I respectfully submit that I think the three wire dryer 30 amp would be fine to use. In a MH the ground and common are electrically the same. They are connected. So you will still have short protection in the unlikely case that anything goes wrong.

In the days before Plastic (sadly, I can remember those days) all power tools were made of metal and needed a ground wire to protect a short from "letting the smoke out of the operator" I just love the quote form YC1.

Q
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Old 12-06-2017, 07:53 AM   #28
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The RV panel is a sub panel and the ground and neutral are not bonded. That should only happen in the main panel.

Yes you can get 120 out of the old 3 wire outlet, but it won't be to code.
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