Electrical Problems (AC)

[UFO Pilot]

While plugged in to shore power today, everything suddenly shut down. I have a dedicated 30 amp circuit for the MH. I found one half of my 30 amp house breaker was tripped. I reset it and all was working. I turned on the Air Conditioning and heard a breaker in the RV trip. I found the AC and one other breaker tripped. I unplugged the shore power and started the generator and let the AC and the TV run for 10 minutes with no problem. I then hooked up the shore power and noticed that the control panel reads 50 amp service even though I am plugged in to a 30 amp circuit.

I have been plugged in to the same circuit since Monday and no problem until today. I tested my circuit and it reads 121 volts on each hot leg to ground. I tested across both hot legs and it read 242 volts.

I will call the dealer service Monday morning but don't know if it is a problem with the RV or my shore power or if they can get me in and out in the next 2 weeks.. I am trying to get the RV ready for the Pomona FMCA Convention and then 3 weeks in AZ and NM.

Sorry for such a long post but wanted to give as much info as possible. Any suggestions on what to check will be greatly appreciated.

[UFO Pilot]

While plugged in to shore power today, everything suddenly shut down. I have a dedicated 30 amp circuit for the MH. I found one half of my 30 amp house breaker was tripped. I reset it and all was working. I turned on the Air Conditioning and heard a breaker in the RV trip. I found the AC and one other breaker tripped. I unplugged the shore power and started the generator and let the AC and the TV run for 10 minutes with no problem. I then hooked up the shore power and noticed that the control panel reads 50 amp service even though I am plugged in to a 30 amp circuit.

I have been plugged in to the same circuit since Monday and no problem until today. I tested my circuit and it reads 121 volts on each hot leg to ground. I tested across both hot legs and it read 242 volts.

I will call the dealer service Monday morning but don't know if it is a problem with the RV or my shore power or if they can get me in and out in the next 2 weeks.. I am trying to get the RV ready for the Pomona FMCA Convention and then 3 weeks in AZ and NM.

Sorry for such a long post but wanted to give as much info as possible. Any suggestions on what to check will be greatly appreciated.

[Tom N]

I'm not certain how you have you 30amp RV outlet wired but you should not have 2 hot legs. You should have a hot 30 amp, a neutral and a ground.

Only a 50amp RV outlet has 2 hot legs and those are 50amp each.

-Tom

[ro.co3]

Wayne I have the same set up (double throw 30amp) and the other day my breaker in the house tripped. Everything seemed to be fine but after I really thought about it one leg probably had more than 30amps on the circuit. If one of the a/c's the electric water heater, fridge or maybe the microwave/convection oven are on the same leg it wouldent take much more. After I reset it I told my wife to turn on the inverter when the a/c's are on when running the the micro. So far so good. Our house is for sale so weve taken up house keeping in the RV. By the way I've got a 65 vette, save the wave.

[UFO Pilot]

I will rewire the circuit tomorrow to 30 amp single pole breaker. I wonder why it took 5 days to act up?

[Renegades]

wthomas1, whoa, before you rewire, what is your normal shore plug connector? is it 3 prong or 4 prong? If 4 prong that is 2 hot, 1 netural & 1 ground. This is normally fed with a 50 2 pole breaker, BUT, you can also feed this with a 2 pole 30 amp breaker, but you need to remember your load draw for each leg. If it has been working fine and it just started to blow a breaker, you said it only tripped one half of a 2 pole breaker. That means that circuit was drawing over 30 amps and the other was not. It did what it was suppose to do, TRIP. Let us know if you have a normal 30 shore cord which is 3 #10 wires (black, white, green) to a 3 prong connector, or it's a normal 50 amp shore cord which has 4 wires, 3 #6 (black, red, white) and 1 #8 (green).

It all depends on who and how they wired your outlet for the coach. They might not of have the required size wire for 50 amps so they cut it back to 30amp.

Give us some details. Don't be hasty in changing things when they were working fine. Let us know.

Jim
(electrician)

[UFO Pilot]

Renegade

Thanx for your reply. The Coach has the normal 50 amp cable with 4 prongs. I am using an RV 50 amp to 30 amp dogbone to adapt to the 30 amp receptacle. After the earlier reply, I searched the internet an the sites I looked at all seemed to agree that RV 30 amp service is supposed to be 3 wire single pole service. According to my power management board, I was pulling about 25 amps total when it tripped.

[RV Wizard]

Wayne, DO NOT USE your current setup any further. The 30 amp adapter you are using on your power cord is to be connected into 110 - 130 volt 30 amp circuit ONLY. This must be changed and I hope that you have not done any serious damage already. Here is a link to electrical circuits and how they are to be wired. http://www.myrv.us/electric/ Please let us know how you have it wired before you plug back into your home shore power.

[ro.co3]

Wayne after reading further I agree with the other posts, you need to find out what your pluged into. I thought that you were pluged into a 30amp 220 receptical. If its a double throw 30amp hooked to a 110v recept. thats going to have to be changed. But let me add that if you do have the 30amp. 220v available why not put in the proper four prong recept. and use it that way. Its alot better to have two 30amp legs feeding the coach than one.

[Tom N]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ro.co3:
Wayne after reading further I agree with the other posts, you need to find out what your pluged into. I thought that you were pluged into a 30amp 220 receptical. If its a double throw 30amp hooked to a 110v recept. thats going to have to be changed. But let me add that if you do have the 30amp. 220v available why not put in the proper four prong recept. and use it that way. Its alot better to have two 30amp legs feeding the coach than one. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

If he wires his 30 amp breakers to a 50amp 4 connector receptacle he'll occasionally blow the house breakers when the coach tries to draw more than 30amps on a leg.

The Destination will operate fine on a single 30 amp receptacle including full basement AC. The power management system will shed loads as needed.

-Tom

[ro.co3]

Tom N is correct, But I would still rather be connected to 60 amps than 30. I used to have a 30amp coach which shed as needed, it worked but having two legs to draw from is better. No disrespect just my opinion.

[UFO Pilot]

I rewired the curcuit so it is a 110V single pole 30 amp curcuit.

All of the 110V appliences appear to be OK now, except for the Apollo 1/2 Time oven. The light works when you open the door, other than that it appears to have no power. I checked the breakers and they are all OK. Is it possible that there is another breaker or reset on the oven itself?

Than you for all of your imput on my wiring problem.

[Hillbilly2]

If only one half of the breaker tripped, it is not a double pole, it is two single pole breakers with a home made tie, as a UL listed breaker has an internal trip that opens both poles if one side is overloaded.

[UFO Pilot]

The breaker is a Zinsco brand that came with the house 32 years ago. It has the external pin but is very sloppy. Maybe breakers that old didn't have the internal mechanism? The replacement I bought also has the external pin.