Circuits on 3400RL

[trlrboy]

In my 3400RL I have 50 amp service. Is this on one circuit for the whole trailer or are there separate circuits. I am clueless about electric.

[iowaone]

Yup heave 2 50 amp legs or circuits

[Ozz]

What are you planning to do? or is it just a curious question?
The panel should do whatever you need on the trailer. Get a competent electrician to do any changes or additions, a RV service tech may not be the best option, they come with all levels of skills and experience in wiring, high and low.

[Tom S.]

Just like your house has two 120 v legs for a total of 240 volts, so does your trailer. The 4 prong plug has two hot prongs (120v each), one neutral prong and one ground. So half of the trailer is on one side of the plug and the other half is on the other side of the plug. And since you are self admittedly clueless about electricity, please don't mess with it until you ask here first!!!

[jlb27537]

What Tom said.

[Irlpguy]

quote:Originally posted by trlrboy

In my 3400RL I have 50 amp service. Is this on one circuit for the whole trailer or are there separate circuits. I am clueless about electric.

Your RV power distribution box with 50 amp service will use a double pole 50 amp breaker, each half of this breaker provides power to a separate Bus bar, these separate bus bars hold the 15 and 20 amp breakers that are used to protect all the RV's circuits.

Power entering the RV on the 4 wire conduit is 240V (if you were to measure the voltage across the two hot wires), that means there is 120V on each of the two hot wires coming into the RV. these are connected to the double 50amp breaker (one on each half) providing you with 120V and 50amps on each side of your breaker, one hot feeding one bus, the other hot the other bus.

So in effect you have 100 amps of usable power to power up all the circuits in the RV.

Here is a link that may explain it more, but if your question was, do you have one or more 50amp circuits, then yes you do, you have two 50amp circuits. I did not get the impression you were intending to perform work on your electrical, but would advise you to try to understand how it works but let a professional do any changes to any part of it.

LINK: http://nelageo.net/index.php?option=...4863&Itemid=54

[DQDick]

Just to further confuse you, you also have a 12v system. Your converter takes the 110 coming in and converts it to 12v to recharge your batteries and power the things the battery would power if you weren't connected to shore power. That would be most of your lighting, the controls for your frig, water heater and AC units as well as whatever type of leveling system you have and probably several things I've forgotten.

[WaltBennett]

quote:Originally posted by iowaone

Yup heave 2 50 amp legs or circuits

NO, you've got two separate 30 amp 120 volt circuits that come into your breaker box, to a two pole breaker with each going to separate sets of breakers. I absolutely know this as I rewired mine when installing solar and an inverter that feeds just one of these circuits with a transfer switch. The other is only fed by shore power. I had to swap a few inside circuits from one leg to the other to be certain I would be running on battery/inverter power on just the things I wanted.

Further, there's NO 240 volts anywhere, and if you hook your trailer up to a 240 volt source, you'll fry lots of things.

[Tom S.]

quote:Originally posted by WaltBennett

NO, you've got two separate 30 amp 120 volt circuits that come into your breaker box, to a two pole breaker with each going to separate sets of breakers. I absolutely know this as I rewired mine when installing solar and an inverter that feeds just one of these circuits with a transfer switch. The other is only fed by shore power. I had to swap a few inside circuits from one leg to the other to be certain I would be running on battery/inverter power on just the things I wanted.

Further, there's NO 240 volts anywhere, and if you hook your trailer up to a 240 volt source, you'll fry lots of things.

Sorry, but you are confused. The trailer is wired just like your house. Your house has two 120 lines and a neutral. So technically, there is no 240 in your house either - until you hook the two 120's together, not literally, but use them both to power a 240 appliance. The 50 amp plug at campgrounds is a 240 outlet with 120 on each of the power sides of the plug, along with 50 amps on each side. Don't take my word for it though, ask Jim Fischer or Ozz.

Maybe these will clear it up for you:
http://www.myrv.us/electric/pg/50amp_service.htm
http://www.rvpowerprotection.com/Lin...%20Service.pdf
http://www.ehow.com/how_7688362_wire...ervice-rv.html
http://www.rv-motorhome-answers.com/AC-Electricity.html

[BB_TX]

Tom is right. It is exactly like house wiring, 4 wire, hot 1, hot 2, neutral, and ground. It does have 240 vac coming in, but it is used internally as two 120 vac lines. Few 5ers use anything needing 240 vac, but some larger motor homes do sometimes have 240 vac devices. Although some people have installed 240 vac clothes dryers in their 5ers.

[Irlpguy]

Walt I am sorry but you are incorrect, if you measure the voltage across the two hot wires into a unit wired for 50amps you will have 240 volts.

Measuring from one side of the double 50amp breaker in your panel to neutral will give you 120V, the same as the other side. Although 240V is not used in our Montana's it is nonetheless there at the panel and "could" be used to power a 240V dryer for instance.

For simplicity sake for the OP and to answer his question as I did, he does indeed have two 50amp separate circuits in his trailer.

trlrboy is not going to become an electrician with the information learned here, keep it simple.

[Ozz]

Might help a little:

http://www.nojolt.com/Understanding_...circuits.shtml

[Phil P]

Iripguy

You don’t add the amps on the 2 legs.

Here is how it works

120 V X 50 amp = 6,000 watts.

Now just for this example you can add the 2 6,000 watt figures and come up with 12,000 watts.

Now you have a 240 v single phase system. You load it to 50 amps

240 X 50 amps = 12,000 watts.

If the load is equal inductance loads then the natural doesn’t carry any electricity.

So that means that if you load more than 50 amps in the trailer you will trip a 50 amp breaker.

You have only 50 amps available for use in the trailer.

Phil P

Disclaimer:

This example is a “class room” example there are several other factors involved to determine you “power factor” so for the electrical engineers here on the forum I know it is a simplification of a complex equation.

[jcurtis934]

If one only had 30 amps available...then the breakers in your internal panel, which is part of the converter assy, would be two 30 amp breakers instead of the two 50 amp breakers installed. I could believe that there are some rv parks that might have wired their pedestals to only have 30 amps on each leg. John

[BB_TX]

quote:Originally posted by Phil P

Iripguy

You don’t add the amps on the 2 legs.

Here is how it works

120 V X 50 amp = 6,000 watts.

Now just for this example you can add the 2 6,000 watt figures and come up with 12,000 watts.

Now you have a 240 v single phase system. You load it to 50 amps

240 X 50 amps = 12,000 watts.

If the load is equal inductance loads then the natural doesn’t carry any electricity.

So that means that if you load more than 50 amps in the trailer you will trip a 50 amp breaker.

You have only 50 amps available for use in the trailer.

Phil P

Disclaimer:

This example is a “class room” example there are several other factors involved to determine you “power factor” so for the electrical engineers here on the forum I know it is a simplification of a complex equation.

Actually you do add the two legs together. You can have up to 50 amps on hot leg 1. And you can have another 50 amps on hot leg 2. At the same time. So you could have up to 100 amps of 120 vac actually in service. But no more than 50 amps of 240 vac. You would never have more than 50 amps thru any individual circuit.

You are correct that if you have equal loads on both legs there is nothing flowing thru the neutral due to the phase difference. If you have 50 amps on one leg and none on the other, then you have 50 amps thru the neutral. As you add amps to the second leg while maintaining 50 amps thru the first leg, the amps thru the neutral diminish in equal amounts to the amps added thru the second leg.

If for some reason you ran two separate neutral wires back to the source, one for hot 1 and 1 for hot 2, you could have up to 50 amps flowing thru each neutral at the same time, but in opposite phases.

[trlrboy]

I'm not looking to change anything. I was planning to run my fireplace (1500W heater) and a separate heater, also 1500W. I just wanted to know if I plug the second heater into a plug in the same area as the fireplace... will I blow a circuit?

[bncinwv]

Worse case is you will trip a breaker. Then you will know that you had a bit much on that circuit.
Bingo

[BB_TX]

If anything at all you are more likely to trip one of the sub breakers in your breaker panel.

[Phil P]

Hi

Sorry it doesn’t work that way in the US.

We are talking about the standard 240v single phase power provided to a home or commercial operation in the US.

The 240v single phase 50 amp or 300 amp services uses a center tap transformer. It will not make any difference how many wires you run to the neutral you cannot exceed circuit amps on the neutral or in this discussion 50 amps total for the entire circuit.

Phil P

[Phil P]

Hi Bingo

You got it correct. When the breaker trips you have exceeded the capacity of the circuit. LOL

Phil P