50 amp pedestal for RV at home

[kingdaddy]

quote:Originally posted by NCFischers

If you run the wire in conduit (which I recommend) use 3 #6 and 1 #8 for the ground. Don't use 6-3 with ground as the outer sheath around the wire will hold in heat. The individual wires will be able to dissapate any heat. You can run 3 #12 wires also for your 120 volt GFCI protected outlet. This should be on a separate 20 amp circuit breaker. you might want to use 1 1/4 inch conduit as it will be easier to pull the wires. As i mentioned before, you won't have a significant voltage drop at that distance. If you have any questions, PM or e-mail me.

Thanks Jim!

[BB_TX]

quote:Originally posted by Dam Worker

......I have not found any 220 amp breakers or recepticles on my unit. I thought I had two 110v legs into my converter but it was never wired to be 220 v. .

Tom Marty

Tom - you should have a two pole 50 amp circuit breaker on your breaker panel. And the two poles will be linked together. It is not labeled 220 vac, or any thing else except maybe MAIN. If you measured across the two poles while hooked to 50 amp service, you would measure 220-240 vac. If you measured from one pole to neutral you would measure 120 vac. Same for the other pole. That is two 120 vac hot legs of a split phase AC source. Each hot leg goes to separate buses in the load center. Your single pole breakers connect to one or the other of those 120 vac buses giving 120 vac to your appliances, outlets, and 120 vac lights. The breakers probably alternate, breaker #1 to L1, breaker #2 to L2, breaker #3 to L1, etc.

When connected to 30 amp service with an adapter, if you measured across the two pole breaker you would measure zero volts since both hot legs are jumpered together in the adapter. However measuring from either pole to neutral you would still get 120 vac.

You could actually add a 220 vac clothes dryer, add a linked two pole breaker to the panel, and operate that dryer perfectly fine (as long as you were connected to 50 amp service.)

[Dam Worker]

Bill thanks for the explanation. When I put in a 100 amp panel in my pool house it had two hots a neutral and a ground if I remember correctly. Only the wall heaters and pool pump are 220 V. Easy enough to wire except the pump as I had three with a ground and I found out I only needed two with a ground. No neutral, just to hot lead. I guess I just think of the RV as 110 v because there is no 220 breakers, just 110 v and 12 v. I have not actually looked the panel over to see how the leads are hooked up. Isn't there something weird on the RV's like the neutral is not hooked to the ground du to no ground rods etc.

Tom Marty

[BB_TX]

Tom, you are correct that the neutral and ground are not bonded in the trailer. They are bonded somewhere at the campground source. The trailer gets grounded thru your power cord back to campground ground.

[kingdaddy]

I will post pictures and an explanation of what I did and how I did it (or had it done) once the job is finished in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks to all for the advice...

[rohrmann]

Once a circuit is established at normally a meter panel/Main, the neutral and ground are isolated. The reason for this is the neutral is the current carrying conductor, or the return of the circuit, while the ground is not intended to carry current, as it is only there to bond all downstream panels to the same ground, which is at the main panel. Our rigs are wired to supply only 120 volts on any circuit, whether that is from a 240 volt circuit or from a 208 volt circuit, which in both cases provide 120 volts on each hot leg. The following photo is attached next to the entrance plug on the rear of our rig.