50amp-30-50.???

[dcheatwood]

Need an expert opinion. I'm set up in a relative's yard plugged in to his 50amp RV service. My 25' 50amp cord would not reach the outlet so i used a 50/30 adapter to connect to a 25' 30 amp cord, then a 30/50 amp adapter to plug into the outlet.
Can I run both ac's with this set up? Or does the smaller cord restrict me? Or does it not provide 50amps now due to the 30amp adapter being used? Thanks.

[wmtire]

Originally Posted by dcheatwood

Need an expert opinion. I'm set up in a relative's yard plugged in to his 50amp RV service. My 25' 50amp cord would not reach the outlet so i used a 50/30 adapter to connect to a 25' 30 amp cord, then a 30/50 amp adapter to plug into the outlet.
Can I run both ac's with this set up? Or does the smaller cord restrict me? Or does it not provide 50amps now due to the 30amp adapter being used? Thanks.

Correct Dave, when you adapted to the 30 amp cord at the pedestal, you actually did away with one entire 120 volt leg or 50 amps worth of potential. You need to understand that a 50 amp service is actually TWO 120 volt legs (L1 and L2) and each leg is capable of 50 amp..or 100 amps total.

However, now that you are limited to one leg, the adapter from the 30 amp cord back to your RV's 50 amp cord, is now sharing this one leg across both buses in your RV......so you do have power to everything in your RV, but it is limited to 50 amps (which normally would be 100 amps or 50 amps per leg).

Now your 30 amp cord would overheat most likely if you try to pull the entire 50 amps thru it though...so you are now limited to really 30 amps due to the cord being your weakest link.

I would not recommend running two air conditioners on a 30 amp cord.

This recent thread may help:

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...ml#post1211168

and this diagram shows how you get power to both buses inside your RV when the 30 amp male to 50 amp female adapter jumps the L1 to the L2 side:

[bubbles]

I think what you have is basically your 50 amp plug connected to a 50 to 30 amp adapter that plugs into a 50amp protected circuit. Which would mean only 1 phase at 50 amp is available to your unit which normally would get 2 phases totaling 100 amps which in turn is applied to a split bus (50 amps each) within your unit but will now receive 30 amps total to both buses. However; there is 25 feet of 30 amp cable involved and it may not be capable of handling that available 50 amp breaker trip that is protecting the cable. I think you should be able to operate just like a unit that has a 30 amp system and they typically can run both ac's but probably not with much else. Also, you would have to be extra cautious in what you have powered at once so that 25' cable doesn't disintegrate. I think I read your post correctly. There will be other chime in's.

[dcheatwood]

Thanks wmtire and bubbles. I had discussed this with my relative and we both thought that it was not possible. I did not want to try it, on his urging, to "see what will happen." And he asked where we could get an expert opinion. I knew exactly where to turn. Rain moved in to Savannah today so the one AC was more than ample. Thanks again.