markopolo-ClassB
Senior Member
Just another general observation.
Some campsites only have a 50A receptacle at the pedestal. I spent 4 months on such a site once. Their website advises you to bring a 50A to 30A adapter if needed as they only have a limited supply of adapters to loan. I once chose to use the 50A receptacle at another campground because the 30A receptacle was melted.
I mention this to point out that some form of breaker or interrupt would be needed at the first incoming electrical point of contact to make sure that the shore power cord never sees more than 30A (assuming your rig only has a 30A rated cord).
In more RV traditional setups that 30A interrupt would occur at the RV main panel 30A breaker if the rig was plugged into a 50A receptacle.
I have a Samlex inverter/charger unit that lets the user set the incoming amp limit / protection. I can set it to 12A if using a 12A rated cord for example. I normally have it set at 30A so plugging into a 50A receptacle is not concern. The cord won't see more than 30A for more than 5 seconds.
It appears to me that there could be the potential for overloading the 30A rated shore power cord on the unit being discussed in this topic if connected to 50A shore power and if the charger is running at max output at the same time that heavy current usage is occurring at the downstream RV house panel. The instruction manual referred to in this topic (installation point 8 says to use a 40A breaker to allow for charger consumption in addition to allowing full use of the 30A pass through. That seems to tell you that the shore power cord could be exposed to greater than 30A with nothing to interrupt it other than the campsite power pedestal breaker as incoming power appears to be split at the terminal block to allow powering the charger.
Maybe someone who owns one of those units could confirm if this is correct.
Some campsites only have a 50A receptacle at the pedestal. I spent 4 months on such a site once. Their website advises you to bring a 50A to 30A adapter if needed as they only have a limited supply of adapters to loan. I once chose to use the 50A receptacle at another campground because the 30A receptacle was melted.
I mention this to point out that some form of breaker or interrupt would be needed at the first incoming electrical point of contact to make sure that the shore power cord never sees more than 30A (assuming your rig only has a 30A rated cord).
In more RV traditional setups that 30A interrupt would occur at the RV main panel 30A breaker if the rig was plugged into a 50A receptacle.
I have a Samlex inverter/charger unit that lets the user set the incoming amp limit / protection. I can set it to 12A if using a 12A rated cord for example. I normally have it set at 30A so plugging into a 50A receptacle is not concern. The cord won't see more than 30A for more than 5 seconds.
It appears to me that there could be the potential for overloading the 30A rated shore power cord on the unit being discussed in this topic if connected to 50A shore power and if the charger is running at max output at the same time that heavy current usage is occurring at the downstream RV house panel. The instruction manual referred to in this topic (installation point 8 says to use a 40A breaker to allow for charger consumption in addition to allowing full use of the 30A pass through. That seems to tell you that the shore power cord could be exposed to greater than 30A with nothing to interrupt it other than the campsite power pedestal breaker as incoming power appears to be split at the terminal block to allow powering the charger.
Maybe someone who owns one of those units could confirm if this is correct.
