plugging in at home

[Stephen Underhill]

Electrical area is not my expertise. Having a 50 amp RV, while at home could I plug into a 220 clothes dryer connection?

[H. John Kohl]

NO! Do not plug into 220 dryer connection.

They are wired different and you could damage lots of things and possibly have a fire.

[Bruce Lenhardt]

NO-NO-NO. As John said-You will most likely damage anything that is 110 volt. Nothing in your Montana uses 220 volts. The gentleman that bought my Montana did just that. Had to replace TV's, fireplace, microwave, and I believe the converter.

[Stephen Underhill]

That is what I thought, but was hoping to make it easy on myself. Thanks everyone.

[RickW]

If you just want to run the fridge, charge the battery and run a few lights just use a dogbone and 15A plug. I installed a 30A plug here at the house. It is enough to run 1 A/C. That is all we need to cool the trailer enough for the load/unload of the trailer.

[DQDick]

If you want to run it all and possibly use the Monty for a guest room, there is no substitute for having a 50amp wired in. I did it at our stick house and now at our "RV home base" I had the electricians do it. I didn't feel comfortable, nor did I have the equipment to safely wire directly from the power line coming in.

[Phil P]

Hi

The 220 50-amp service for you trailer is a 4-wire circuit. Have an electrician wire a receptacle for you it shouldn’t be too costly.

The horror stories you hear are commonly caused when some one looks at the 30-amp dog bone and just forces it into a range receptacle because it looks similar. That will fry your trailer big time.

The other way to fry your trailer is to lose the neutral connection. I go over my shore cord and the associated plugs and the panel in the trailer and tighten all the wire lugs annually. I also use one of the plug in protection units that will not let the power connect to the trailer if all circuits are not correct.

This has saved my bacon twice now and is well worth the $300 I paid for it.

They are also available in a unit that is hard wired to the trailer near you breaker box. I believe this one is even better than the one you use on the end of your shore cord.

I have 2 50-amp RV receptacles at my place one in the garage and one at an out building because I run the AC’s when the trailer is at home to keep the interior dry. I live in south Florida and we experience high humidity and that isn’t good for the interior of these units.

Phil P

[sreigle]

As Phil P said, a 110v 50amp outlet suitable for your RV can be wired from that same circuit that services the washer 220v. I don't have the expertise to tell you how to wire it but I do know it can be done. As recommended above, a qualified electrician could do this and it shouldn't be too expensive.

[mtheo]

You can use a 220 dryer circuit for you're RV
JUST DON'T use a 30 RV plug. That 30 amp RV plug is wired for 110 volt.
You will need to make an adapter for 30 amp 220 to 50 amp 220 female and then plug your 50 amp core into it.
Or just install a 50 amp 220 receptical in the wall

[Irlpguy]

I do not see how one would fit a 30 amp RV plug into a dryer 220 receptacle. however, as "mtheo" said, you just have to use the proper plug and you can use the 220V dryer connection.

When you use a 30A to 50A pigtail or "dog bone" as some call it, you are going from a 3 wire plug to a 4 wire plug. On the 3 wire 30A you have a hot terminal, a neutral and a ground, at the 50A end of that same pigtail the Neutral and ground remain the same but the single hot side of the 30A is fed to both hot sides of the 50A. If you measure the voltage across the two hot terminals at the 50A end of the plug you will have double the line voltage, ie: 115 = 230 or 110 = 220. If you measure across the neutral to either of the hot terminals you will have whatever your line voltage is.

If you were to try to plug the 30A pigtail into a dryer receptacle you would be energizing the Neutral which would create disastrous results.

The two "hot" wires from your plug feed into two separate 50A breakers in your RV breaker box, the breakers are on separate "buses" and give you 115V and 50A on each bus. You will have a separate neutral and ground bus as well. If you measure the voltage from bus to bus you will find you have 220V on a RV equipped with 50A service.

You could certainly wire a 220V receptacle to plug your 50A power cord into, this would be most desirable. Using the 30A 110V pigtail method creates an imbalance to the house circuit as it is creating a fairly heavy load on one half of the 220V house circuit, especially if you are running two AC's.

If unsure at all about wiring, have a qualified electrician do it for you, then you know it is right.

[Phil P]

Hi

What mtheo and Iripguy says is true but.

The 3-wire range receptacle doesn’t provide a ground. In order to make it work for your trailer you will have to provide a ground.

Combining the neutral and ground is an absolute “NO” that can become very dangerous.

I am glad to see that some of the people on this forum understand that the 50-amp service for the 50-amp RV’s is a 220 v 50 amp service.

Iripguy the end of a 30-amp dog bone can be pushed into the range receptacle but with much difficulty. This is why the government has created OSHA. LOL

Phil P

[Irlpguy]

quote:
Phil P wrote:
The 3-wire range receptacle doesn’t provide a ground. In order to make it work for your trailer you will have to provide a ground.

Combining the neutral and ground is an absolute “NO” that can become very dangerous.

Both my range and dryer plugs are 4 prong and the receptacles in both cases have a separate ground and neutral. The ground is at the receptacle, you just have to wire the plug appropriately.

As Phil says do NOT combine the ground and neutral.

[BB_TX]

Here is a very good site for RV electric and wiring information. If you (or anyone else) is going to wire up an outlet for your RV, get the proper information from this site.

myrv.us/electric

[Irlpguy]

quote:

BB TX wrote:
Here is a very good site for RV electric and wiring information. If you (or anyone else) is going to wire up an outlet for your RV, get the proper information from this site

The link posted by BB TX provides all the information you ever need for wiring plugs etc for your RV. There is a consistent warning about not trusting anyone including yourself and to always check. It is interesting when you read his article on his 50A tester when he mentions a "fake" 50A service, he does not also mention only one half of the service in your RV would be energized.

I have not seen or heard of a fake 50A service but they must be out there to be mentioned at all.

You will not learn to be an electrician from this link and I still would recommend using a electrician to do the wiring if you are at all concerned with your ability.

[BB_TX]

[quote]quote:Originally posted by Irlpguy

................. It is interesting when you read his article on his 50A tester when he mentions a "fake" 50A service, he does not also mention only one half of the service in your RV would be energized.

I have not seen or heard of a fake 50A service but they must be out there to be mentioned at all.
................

Actually it will energize both halves of the RV since both sides of the 50 amp connector is connected to either the L1 or L2 hot lines. There are two major differences though.
There is no 220 VAC available, typically not a problem as few of us have any 220 VAC appliances.
More of a problem is the neutral line. On a correct 50 amp hookup there can never be more than 50 amps on the neutral line since the L1 and L2 legs can offset each other in current flow with regard to neutral. Even if you are pulling the full 100 amps available (50 from each leg). But if both hot legs are connected to the same L1 or L2 then it would be possible to have in excess of 50 amps on the neutral wire. Even up to 100 amps if both sides were pulling the full 50 amps. And I doubt any neutral wire is that oversized.

[Phil P]

Hi

BB TX has it.

When L1 and L2 are equally loaded there is not any amperage flow thru the neutral.

When the neutral and the ground are combined at the receptacle you get excessive heating when the load is unbalanced.

We were in a park some where near St Louis when we were running 1 AC (they don’t always come on at the same time) and wife used the Microwave oven. The 110 went dead in the trailer. Out I go to reset a circuit breaker. No tripped breaker. Grabbed the power plug to remove it from the power box and all H#%l broke loose.

The neutral and ground had been combined in order to supply 220 to the 50-amp receptacle. Apparently the person that did this didn’t realize which pin was ground and witch one was neutral. They had used a smaller wire between the 2 pins. The smaller wire was the one supporting the neutral, which as explained can have a quite high amperage load.

Here are picture of my end of this experience. Fortunately my “Black Box” prevented any damage to the trailer.

Phil P