I'm in the midst of a neat project. Making my 50 amp service both summer and winter useful.
From the factory, my 50 amp service is really two separate 120v AC services. A 30 amp and a 20 amp feed. The 20 amps comes of the "primary" distribution panel (which consists of a 20 anp and a 30 amp ircuit breaker) and provides power (ONLY) to my 15000 BTU, primary air conditioner. The 30 amp feed is passed to a secondary breaker panel that feeds all other services.
This configuration is fine for summer, as it allows the 1500 BTU AC to operate on 50 amp service without affecting any other AC power requirements in the coach (such as the microwave, hot water heater, blow drier, etc.).
But in the winter, 50 amp service a waste of money because I will not be running my 15000 BTU AC! However, I do have other power needs in the winter that I don't have in the summer.
My rear 13,500 BTU air conditioner has a heat strip and I'd like to run that at the same time I am running the heater built into my fireplace. But both of them will not run on the 30 amp secondary circuit if anything else is running (such as a coffee pot or the water heater).
My solution is to provide a way to select which service is on the 20 amp primary AC circuit, the 15000 BTU AC or the 13,500 BTU AC (equipped with heat strip).
This post is long enough so I'll close on this for now. If anyone express an interest in how I am accomplishing this "improvement". I'll continue with Part II, "How I'm doing It"!
Craig
'01 Chevy K3500 Dually 8.1 Allison 4x4 4:10 CC
Towing a '02 Montana 3655FL 5th Wheel
Manassas, Virginia USA
http://users.erols.com/jcmccarter/index.html
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