Confessions of a Power Cheater

Yes, I am a Power Cheater.

When faced with no 50A Socket on the power pedistal I am able to suck in enough juice from a 20A and 30A circuits or two 30A circuits to handle most of the needs of my all electic coach.

Here's how I do it. Ask for permission of the Campground Host first. They may ask for an additional power fee.

First, lets take a look at the 30/50 DogBone adaptor we all use when faced with only 30A service. Figure 1 below shows that within the 50A socket, the two Hot Legs are tied together applying 30A to both Leg 1 and Leg 2. In this configuration your coach can draw a maximum of 30A before tripping the breaker on the pedestal.

http://www.trims.com/lee/power.jpg

By using a Power Cheater Cord as shown above in Figure 2, you are able to combine two 30A circuits or a 20 and 30A circuit to deliver extra power to your coach distribution panel (Figure 3).

You'd think 20+30=50A Service or 30+30=60A service... Not so, with true 50A service each leg has 50A available whereas with the Cheater you have a maximum of two 30A Legs.

If your coach has 3 CruiseAirs (two on one leg and one on the other) you can only run one on each leg. Two on one leg draws more than 30A and will trip the breaker on the post.

My Liberty has 2 CruiseAirs, Washer/Dryer, Charger and Water Heater all on same leg. Way too much for 30A so I have to give up something to stay below 30A on each leg.

While it's not 50A, it is much better than only 30A.

If your coach has 240V appliances you must be sure that the voltage between the two hot legs on two input circuts is 240V or those appliances will not work.

If memory serves me correctly you cannot use the cheater box with GFI protection without some mocifications. Is this correct?

John

I think it is important to point out the 30 amp legs you draw from must be totally different from one another. The second one coming from another site's connection box. This exposes your scheme and as you pointed out you better check with park management for permission. I'm no expert here, but this is how I understand it.
It's amazing how many parks will not go 50 amp even on new installations. They are in the business of selling electrical hookups as well as park space. They can add $ for the 50 amp use and increase the parks ability to service a larger clientel base.

Our coaches (Libertys) will not run on a GFI. Only way is to cut off the Ground Lug from the 20/30 HockeyPuck or 30/50 Dog Bone. I assume this will also work on power cheater with 30A GFI's but don't recommend it.

I've been on the road since last April and have only come across two camp sites with 30A GFI and in both instances have asked the CG host to reassign me to another site.

Harry:
Two 30A feeds will work as long as each is protected by a 30A breaker. They both can be same leg (0V between legs) or can be different legs (240V between legs).

See Figure 3 of my drawing. Each leg supplies a group of breakers in your power panel. The loads on each group cannot exceed 30A or a breaker on the pedistal will pop. If Both legs are the same then your 240V appliances (if you have any) will not work.

We're here at the Iowa State Fairgrounds waiting for Dog Show this weekend (2000 campsites - 600 Full Hookups) and each power pedistal has four (4) 30A outlets -two on each leg.

While at my Ranch in Idaho I split the 50 amp cord with two 30 amp cords with the adapter made by Liberty (1-50amp240 volt female recepticle in a 4-s box and two 30 amp 120 volt pigtail and cord caps ) Then with two 50 fooot cords i pluged into two seperate circuits , 1-30 amp and 1-20 amp.
It worked ok but not great because the inverters charge and use some of the juice as well. Next year I am going to up grade the service and the RV sites.

Harry,

Since we sell a lot of electric boxes to campgrounds I can tell you for sure the only 20/30 boxes sold anymore are replacements. They are used where the original ones in a campground are damaged or are too old to be serviceable.

When a campground puts in new sites or service they ALWAYS use boxes with 50 amp receptacles.

The only exceptions are for "primitive" sites where RVs are not anticipated such as for tent camping.

John: I'm amazed at how many new and old RV parks east of California have 50 amp available. Most CA sites do not. Some of the newer modern ones are going 50 amp, but newer parks in CA are few and far between. I guess it's because they price land here by the square inch.

Current Electrical Code section 551.71 pertaining to RV Parks/campgrounds says minimum requirements for new construction all sites need 20A GFCI, 70% of sites need 30A and 20% need 50A. This is the 2005 code. Possibly 2008 code will change this.

I also looked at product offerings from Midwest Electric - one of the major manufacturers of power pedistals and the only GFCI's they offer as standard is 20A. 30A and 50A GFCI pedistals are not in their current catalog.

The certification standards as yet do not mandate 30 amp GFCI outlets, but there have been some customers that have specified them. Codes may mandate them in some markets, but they are rare. Generally applicable codes follow the NEC.

There are two ways to provide GFCIs and right now the cheapest is through the receptacle, but a 30 amp recptacle with GFCI is not the most practical way to go due to availability, so in its place a 30 amp GFCI breaker is used. This is a very expensive way to get GFCI protection.

The GFCI receptacles typically will trip when our coaches are plugged in due to the transfer switch not being fast enough to establish ground continuity. So far the only coach I am aware of that addresses that is the Thompson Coaches that have the software to sense shore power, and establish the ground continuity before making the switch from inverters.

One of the problems with upgrading older parks in California is Southern California Edison. They want to charge the owner for the entire upgrade fee for their Transformers, wire, poles etc. When I owned a Park in Mojave, California I would get monthly updates regarding the Park industry. SCE was taking the attitude that to allow Parks to upgrade their Services to accomodate 50 amp power, the owners would have to pay for all of the infrastructure because the pay back was too little and too long in charging them a higher monthly rate. Anyway, I do not remember the final outcome of all this, but most small RV Parks would be hard pressed to re-design their electrical systems unless they could justify the cost over 3-5 years. My Park, Sierra Trails, had a combination of 30's and 50's with some on their own SCE meters because it had once been primarily a Trailer Park.