Just bought our new 5th wheel and have a question. We have never had a trailer that had 50 amp connection that the new one does always before had 30 amp. If we camp at a campground that only has 30 amp service what limitation might we expect? can't use both ac units?  any other restrictions? Just never before had a 50 amp trailer and alot of places we camp only have 30 amp service.

Making some generalizations here as “it depends.” 

One AC only on 30 amps – Either is fine but only one if you have two

No AC and Microwave AT THE SAME TIME

Run hot water on gas when on 30 amps

Run fridge on gas – however, not necessary if you are not running AC / Heat Pump

No hair dryer and AC / Microwave at the same time

Naturally all of this depends on the “30amps” being a “good” 30 amps.  Meaning the voltage holds above about 105 when under load.  A good volt meter is very important.

There are products made, and are a very good idea, like a Progressive Industries power protector / monitor that can really help when power of any amperage is limited.  These will protect the expensive eletrical stuff in the rig, like microwaves an TV's, etc. from low or high voltage as well as spikes.  They also provide a volt meter and amp meter to help you manage "marginal" power.

Bill

mesquite47 wrote:

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ok thanks for the imput ,, but yes I do have a good meeter but never checked voltages,,, where would i connect to do this ??
thanks

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On a 30 amp feed you can plug your meter into any outlet in the trailer.  When you are on 30 amps it doesn’t matter which “side” or leg the outlet is on because, on 30 amps, the adapter puts both sides of the 50 amp plug onto the 30 amp feed.  So any plug reads the 30 amp feed voltage.

If you were on a 50 amp service naturally the outlet could be on leg 1 or leg 2 and those two legs could be significantly different from one another and you would have to find a plug on each different leg to check.

For clarification, you do understand that 50 amp service is actually just two 120 volt feeds at 50 amps each. That gives you a total of 100 amps with a limit of 50 amps per side or leg.

On a 30 amp plug all you get is one 120 volt feed and that is at 30 amps max.

Forgive the details above in case you already knew all that.  Just trying to be clear just in case.

Hope that helps a bit

Bill

rockyroad wrote:

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This thread is scary. I can ill afford to burn up my wiring or appliances due to bad wiring at the campground and also makes me wary of 50 amp service. I would like to buy any gizmo that would prevent these kinds of problems and I am not any kind of electrician.

Anyone want to recommend a list of must have items to prevent these electrial problems and any hook up procedures they do as soon as they get to the campsite.

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 Don't be overly concerned, especially with 50 amps.  Just purchase one of these:

http://www.progressiveindustries.net/ems_hw50c.htm

Have it installed on the shore power input inside the rig and relax.  Call Progressive Industries if you have any question.  They will help.  Not trying to be overly simple, but it really is just that simple.  Read the instructions and all will be good.  Yes, these are expensive.  But yes, they work and you don't have to be an electrician to understand the user part of the manual.  Any good RV tech can install them. It's just 4 wires in and 4 wires out plus a little cable that looks like a telephone cable plugged into the read out that goes in the rig.   (Camping World will try to sell you another brand by the way.  My opinion and others - you want this one. Better specification and more information you can use.)

This is just another aspect of RVing and after you understand it you will be fine.

Bill

Bill is giving good advice with respect to the Progressive Industries device.  Another member had issues at a park about 30 miles from where the Progressive Industries company is located.  It was late in the day when he called the company, even after closing time, but the president of the company still answered the phone.  Upon hearing of the problem, the president of the company then drove the 30 miles over to help the customer.  They solved his problem and even replaced a circuit board free of charge.  The president of the company told the customer that they now have a lifetime warranty on the Progressive Industries power protection systems.

There are devices that one can buy to plug into the electrical outlet before hooking up that will give on an opportunity to find out if there is a bad outlet.  However, I'm not familiar enough with those to give you a good recommendation.  I'm sure that others here can help with that.

Like Bill says, don't be overly concerned with the 50 amp.

Terry

Thanks all for your advice, I will definately buy one of those units. I am sort of on a shoestring and need to prevent as many uh oh's as possible

Well, we recently had a rainy, windy day here in Oklahoma City and experienced a few temporary power outages.  When one lasted longer than the earlier ones, I decided it was time to exercise the Honda generator and pulled it out and hooked our power to it.  After a couple of hours and seeing that our neighbors had electricity, I unhooked and hooked back up to the shore power and had.........nothing.

When we hooked back up, something in the basement area was clicking.  It was the automatic switch box that was installed since we had DRV put in the generator prep so there was wiring at the front of the coach.  After a weekend of running on the generator, the electrician came out on Monday.  He replaced the main breaker box and breakers (very old stuff) and hooked us back up.  We plugged the trailer back into the outlet and .......nothing.  Just the clicking box in the basement.

So, they called out our electric utility company and they finally got to us around 8:00pm.  He told me that it looked like the trees had pulled the feeder wire enough to create an "open neutral."  He explained that the open neutral would give us what we were reading with the multimeters...one leg with 150V and one leg with 95V.  He trimmed back some limbs, reconnected the feeder line and we were good to go.

While we don't have the Progressive Industries unit, we will be getting one, even though the automatic switch box was not letting us get power into the coach anyway.  I just have to figure out where it will go with all the other electrical devices this coach has.

So, all said, if in doubt, get some protection with the Progressive systems.  Darn sight cheaper than replacing appliances and such.

Terry