30A Just Isn't Enough

[Bob Landry]

Here's the latest project, an upgrade to a second 30A service. I didn't go to 50A because of cost. Replacing the EMS, the 50A inlet, converter, and shore power cord would have been cost prohibitive and I'm able to use some of the items I had left over from a Class B that I built several years ago.
The electrical panel is a Blue Sea marine panel that was in the van. it came with a dual 30A breaker because in marine applications, you are required to break both hot and neutral legs, not so for RVs. So, I modified this panel to accept 2 separate 30A breakers with a sliding lockout to allow only one source at a time to feed the panel. There will be two 30A inlets, one going through an EMS to the existing converter, and the second which will go directly to this panel. Since I'm getting the two 30A feeds using a breakout box(shown below) plugged into the 50A outlet, both legs can share the same neutral and ground and those will be tied to their respective buss bars. This allows me to have 60A of usable service running off the CG 50A service. One of the 30A breakers is fed directly from the second power cord and the other is fed from the primary power cord. The sliding lockout allows me to use either the second power cord input to the second panel or the primary and this lets me combine both panels in the event I go where there is only 30A service. By combining both panels, I'm back to the original configuration of running everything off the CG 30 outlet if necessary.
The panel has green LEDs to indicate when something is hot, a nice touch, and a red LED that originally was a reverse polarity indicator but can be rewired to show when both panels are in parallel. When I split up and separate the loads, I'll leave the inductive loads on the leg that is EMS protected.

I also have an additional 20A service that I use to run fans or space heaters when necessary so that I don't have to shut off appliances when I run them, thus, no tripped breaker. This is a total of 80A of available power, not as good as 50A, but with one AC it will work fine and I won't have the AC tripping off when DW uses hr hair dryer or runs the microwave.

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[GaryWT]

Very interesting but what are you running that requires all this power? You said you have one AC unit. At 2 campground out of many, I have popped the breaker on the post outside. Both times I was running AC and electric HW. I switch the water to propane and it solved the issue. Other than that the 30A has been just fine. Anyway, hope your new set up works for you.

[Bob Landry]

Air conditioner, water heater, fridge all run on CG power. Add coffee pot, microwave, hair dryer, overhead lights on converter. It adds up.

[GaryWT]

Oh it does, for us, like I said, will move water heater to propane if needed. Coffee maker is propane as well, rarely use our microwave. My wife dries her hair but that is only 1-2 minutes a day.

Anyway, system parts look good, hope it works for you.

[Bob Landry]

Everyone has different wants and needs. What works for you may not for someone else. I would just rather operate as many appliances as I can on the CG's nickel instead of my propane since I'm paying for it anyway. Good luck with your setup also.

[BigBearWV]

Everyone has different wants and needs. What works for you may not for someone else. I would just rather operate as many appliances as I can on the CG's nickel instead of my propane since I'm paying for it anyway. Good luck with your setup also.

Generally speaking sites that provide 50A cost more per night than sites that provide only 30A. SO who's dime is it again?

[GaryWT]

Bob, ain't that the truth, just like people take on projects that they can do and I know my limitations when it comes to electrical projects.

[theasphaltrv'er]

Bob, may I ask what you used as the white rectangle backing for the 2 electrical inlets. I'm going to replace the mouse hole with one like yours and I'm just waiting for the female plug to attach to the cord. Was sent a female receptacle plug instead and had to send it back.

Thanks
Milo

[Bob Landry]

Bob, may I ask what you used as the white rectangle backing for the 2 electrical inlets. I'm going to replace the mouse hole with one like yours and I'm just waiting for the female plug to attach to the cord. Was sent a female receptacle plug instead and had to send it back.

Thanks
Milo

It's a product called King Starboard. It's a polymer that was developed for the marine industry that is super tough, stain resistant, impervious to solvents and damage from UV. I really like it because it works easily with power tools and makes a nice finished project. It's fairly expensive, but if you shop around on line you can find places that will sell you the exact size you need. I recently ordered a piece for a trolling motor mount and as an example the piece measured 24"X8"X1/2" an I think it was around $25. If you are really in a bind, a piece of white plastic cutting board from Walmart will also work.

[Bob Landry]

Generally speaking sites that provide 50A cost more per night than sites that provide only 30A. SO who's dime is it again?

The places I camp, COE and State parks do not charge extra, maybe your area is different. But having said that, I think the key question here was "Whose dime it it?" and I think the correct answer would be, it's mine. A project like this isn't for everyone, but I saw a purpose for it, have the tools, materials, and knowledge to do it and it fills my need, either real or perceived, so I think the net effect of this on anyone else is probably zero.

[jsmith948]

Have to agree, Bob. I have added shelves to several cabinets while others have just used wire baskets or plastic tubs. I added an electronic DPDT switch for my inverter - expensive - but I didn't want to run an extension cord through the slide seal when using the inverter. Why not modify the steps if it is what I want, If you have the time, money, materials and skill why not? Besides, it makes me happy!:D

[Pmedic4]

Looking at what you've done, I would think it would depend on where we go.
Part of it is, that many of the places we go to have either 30A or 50A service on the post, about 80% usually with a 30A receptacle with a single 30A breaker on the post, the remainder with a 50A breaker/50A receptacle and a 30A receptacle. So, we can only plug in one 30A line, and I guess you retain that possibly which is good. Someone suggested using a separate extension cord to the post to run the space heater, but in our case found the duplex receptacle at the post was on the same circuit as the 30A feed, so it still tripped the breaker :confused:. Have to assume others may have separate circuits.

For us, I looked at making the 30A power cord removable, by putting the same type of covered receptacle at the output location, but found those approved receptacles were about $75-90 each, plus buying the new plug for $15. Figured I had too many other ways to spend $100, and my time so I just stuff the wire back into the little hole.

[Bob Landry]

A lot of it does depend on where you go. The CGs we go to almost without exception have a 50, a 30, and a 20amp outlet on the pedestal. I haven't seen any where there were two of the same kind. Even if I were to use only one 30A cord, I would still use the 50A outlet with an adapter. The reason is that the 30A outlets get a lot of use and are never replaced unless there is a failure of some toe. The result is a poor connection and overheating, In three years, I heve burned up the end on two power cords. It's not that hard to replace them, but I saw no need to keep asking to do it, after all, they are $15-20 a pop.
During the summer, it's not unusual to trip the 30A breaker either at the pedestal or in the trailer and in the time spent waiting for my AC's time delay to time out, the inside temp in the trailer will reach close to 100 degrees. This way, I have all the power I'll need, and if I have to do any energy management at all, it will be minimal.

[PARAPTOR]

Bob; Wanted to comment on your original post earlier but have been pre-occupied by chasing down other gremlins. :eek: I have read many of the recent posts questioning “WHY”. As far as I am concerned all modifications are based on need, material availability and the capability of the individual. Oh YA, then there is “I just want to see if I can do this” and Honey-Do lists.

I am not sure if I would have done this mod but with that said, I think you did an outstanding Job. I am one who appreciates seeing well thought out designs. I have read through your design concept a few times from the view point of ”what if” and safety considerations. It is obvious to me that you put a lot of thought into your design, in addition to using a lot of material that you had on hand.

Again, great design concept and a very neat implementation.

That said, I am looking forward to seeing how you are going to add and/or break up your existing loads to take advantage of this increased capability. Looked at you rig layout, where are you putting all of this? Why would you have to change out the converter going from 50 AMP to 30? Did you purchase the remote monitor with your EMS? I remember reading a post on potential theft of shore cable (double trouble) and lock boxes, not sure standard lock box for portable surge protectors will work on your pigtail. Then again another post made reference to a Mister Luger. :eek:

Keep them coming
(tx)

[Bob Landry]

Bob; Wanted to comment on your original post earlier but have been pre-occupied by chasing down other gremlins. :eek: I have read many of the recent posts questioning “WHY”. As far as I am concerned all modifications are based on need, material availability and the capability of the individual. Oh YA, then there is “I just want to see if I can do this” and Honey-Do lists.

I am not sure if I would have done this mod but with that said, I think you did an outstanding Job. I am one who appreciates seeing well thought out designs. I have read through your design concept a few times from the view point of ”what if” and safety considerations. It is obvious to me that you put a lot of thought into your design, in addition to using a lot of material that you had on hand.

Again, great design concept and a very neat implementation.

That said, I am looking forward to seeing how you are going to add and/or break up your existing loads to take advantage of this increased capability. Looked at you rig layout, where are you putting all of this? Why would you have to change out the converter going from 50 AMP to 30? Did you purchase the remote monitor with your EMS? I remember reading a post on potential theft of shore cable (double trouble) and lock boxes, not sure standard lock box for portable surge protectors will work on your pigtail. Then again another post made reference to a Mister Luger. :eek:

Keep them coming
(tx)

Thanks for the favorable response, and all reasonable questions, so I'll see if I can give logical answers to them.
I'm going to split the circuits up by load so that I'll have as even a distribution as I can get.
I'm keeping the original converter. Other than feeding the converter from one of the breakers, all it does is that of any AC breaker panel, it simply distributes and protects circuits. I have a Progressive Industries 30A EMS on that leg and not wanting to get rid of it and turn around and buy the 50A version was one of the reasons that I did not convert to 50A completely. My inductive loads which would be the AC and probably the microwave will stay on that power leg so that they get the low voltage protection from the EMS. The resistive loads(heating elements) are not as critical so they will go on the second leg. The second panel has two 30A breakers. The slide lockout requires that you turn one breaker off before the slide can be moved and the other breaker turned on. That absolutely eliminates any chance of the prongs on an unused shore power plug will not have voltage on them. The breaker on the second power cord feeds all of the circuits on that panel while the original power panel, fed by the first power cord feeds it's circuits and they are isolated in that mode with the neutrals and grounds tied together appropriately, neutral to neutral, ground to ground. In this mode it is two separate 30A circuits both protected by circuit breakers and fed by two separate 50A sources at the pedestal.

Now.. When I turn off the second 30A breaker and move the slide lock to keep it off, and turn on the other breaker, the second power cord is completely disconnected. The other breaker, when turned on, parallels the two power inputs and it becomes the OEM configuration with everything in the trailer being powered by a single 30A power cord.

I know that when I started writing about this, a flag went up for some of our members thinking that I was trying to add loads on an already full 30A system, but that's not the case at all. I'm simply moving loads around for better power distribution.

EMS.. I have the hard-wired version and it's mounted to the floor where my power comes into the trailer and in the bottom of the cabinet. It's installed with interlocking 30A plugs so it's easy to remove it if necessary, and it dos have the digital display mounted so I can see it wham I open the cabinet door.

All of this was pretty straight-forward to me because as part of my marine service business, I've install several shore power installations and upgrades, so I've got a pretty good knowledge of how all of this stuff works. If I don't do something right and something happens to a customer, my liability insurance agent would have a stroke. I apply the same stands to anything that I do for myself and no one gets hurt.

I almost forgot the other question. My Outback has a triangular pantry next to the door and my OEM converter is under that. Behind the wall next to the other pantry, I have about a 2" spec between walls, so I'll attach the new box to that wall and run the wires down the inside to wherever I need them to go.

If you have any questions let me know.

[PARAPTOR]

[QUOTE=Bob Landry;118955] ........................... I'm keeping the original converter. Other than feeding the converter from one of the breakers, all it does is that of any AC breaker panel, it simply distributes and protects circuits.

.....................................

I have a Progressive Industries 30A EMS on that leg and not wanting to get rid of it and turn around and buy the 50A version was one of the reasons that I did not convert to 50A completely. My inductive loads which would be the AC and probably the microwave will stay on that power leg so that they get the low voltage protection from the EMS.

..........................................

The slide lockout requires that you turn one breaker off before the slide can be moved and the other breaker turned on. That absolutely eliminates any chance of the prongs on an unused shore power plug will not have voltage on them.

.................................................. ...

EMS.. I have the hard-wired version and it's mounted to the floor where my power comes into the trailer and in the bottom of the cabinet. It's installed with interlocking 30A plugs so it's easy to remove it if necessary, and it dos have the digital display mounted so I can see it wham I open the cabinet door. .................

I apply the same stands to anything that I do for myself and no one gets hurt. ...............

QUOTE]

Thanks,

On the converter in your original post you stated you did not want to switch to 50AMP because you did not want to switch out the converter. Was asking why would you have to switch out your existing converter because you were going to a 50AMP service ?

The point that I was making about safety without stating it was reference to the lockout breaker arrangement. Others may have overlooked that as to "you should know better not to throw both at the same time" Another way to put it "attention to detail"

EMS protected line seems to be a good break point , ie AC, converter, microwave, possibly also use EMS branch to possibly protect high value appliances. After reading your response I remembered your post concerning your EMS installation think I even posted to it.

Your statement " .... Same standards .... " gives away your age sounds like the older generation. If I am wrong and you are younger I am really impressed and you are one of a very few!!!

I am planning a EMS install and other wiring mods on my Raptor but want to do a walk (crawl) through to see what I can get to easily. Really like the awning LED lighting but need to know what I can get to easily. Right now since too cold out, have been just brain storming without knowing how difficult it may be to run wires. :confused:
Never had played around inside a trailer.

The latest thing really bugging me is these fuel gauge issues I am trying to help others with. search "gauge" do not know if you have followed the thread?
If you have any suggestions let us know.

[Bob Landry]

On the converter, the 12V portion of it is the same, it's still fed by a 115V line, so there would be no difference there, but the AC portion of it would have inputs for both 50A sources, so that would have to be changed out to benefit from the 50A available at the CG pedestal. So, if I didn't replace the whole unit, I would still have to add a second panel. Also my 30A EMS would have to be replaced, which means selling mine at a loss and buying a new one, not a good option either.

My original shore power came in(and still does) at the rear of the trailer. It was wire-nutted to the 10-2 which then went down through the floor and under the frame to the converter. Yours is likely going to be routed the same way. So, it was easy to wire the EMS in right where the power came in. I don't know the relationship of the locations of your power input and your converter, but it's likely to be done the same way. The closer you can locate the EMS to where power enters, the better. Keystone runs all of their wiring from the converter up and through the ceiling so it's going to be next to impossible to run a fish tape through the ceiling to pull wires. Your best bet is probably going to go through the flooring and under the trailer. The interior walls are hollow, but you can't run anything through them because of the bracing between the studs. Keystone is going to give you zero information on how they did their wiring, citing customer safety, but it's more for CYA purposes.

I took a lot of stuff apart just exploring to see where I could run wiring and the only place accessible was behind the microwave and under the trailer. I just went through the floor for everything and sealed the holes with non-expanding foam.

Nope, I'm no spring chicken, turn 66 this year, but still kicking and have no plans to retire anytime soon. When you can go to work everyday by boat, wear old clothes, work the hours you want to work and charge the rates I charge, a guy has to be really dumb to give that up. Besides, DW is only 55, so me staying at home while she goes out to work would not work out well for very long.. LOL As long as I can take a day off to go fishing I'm good.

[Bob Landry]

Finished the enclosure for the circuit breaker panel. Since the converter is in the bottom of the triangular pantry by the door, I'll put this probably above the second shelf. If I put it in the bottom space and I ever need to pull the bottom shelf out to get to the converter, then the new panel would have to come out. It's pretty crowded on the bottom shelf. The wall behind the pantry is hollow with about a 2" space, so I'll fasten the enclosure to that wall with pocket screws from the inside and cut a hole to run the wiring down to the converter space. The box is made of plain pine, but I should be able to find some kind of reddish stain to get it close to the color inside the pantry. No one is going to see it so I'm not going to get too excited about the finish.

My intended project for tomorrow is to go out and install the dual power inlets, drop the coroplast and run some wiring up to the area where all of this is going to connect. I also need to break out the circuit tester and see if I can figure out just what Keystone did with all of this. I've so far found outlets on the microwave circuit breaker and the one that feeds the converter. This is the part that I'm almost scared to dig into because there's no telling what KS did at the factory. My understanding is that the code only allows five circuits on one 30A input, so a lot of stuff got doubled up on circuit breakers. I'll also turn on my appliances one at a time and see what the EMS is really seeing as far as real world current draw. It should be a busy day.


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[PARAPTOR]

Looks Good Bob

Good enough to be put any where. In a way ashamed it will be hidden where others can not see it. This I have to see "No one is going to see it so I'm not going to get too excited about the finish" :D :D

Nice Job, soon going to have to get another trailer to modify :eek:

Happy Camping
(tx)

[Bob Landry]

I didn't have any other place to put it without having to do a lot of wire pulling. I found some stain at Lowe's that I though was close in the store but turned out to be to brown. I'll have to see how it looks in the cabinet. I hope it's not so much of a mismatch that I'm going to want to sand it and redo the color. It depends on how tired of looking at it I am by the time I get finished.
I spent all of my day on it today scooting back to front, on my back, under the trailer pulling wire and cutting access holes and then taping coroplast to seal it up. BTW, if you ever have to cut access openings in coroplast for anything, they can be taped up with Gorilla Tape. That stuff is tough.

One thing to remember if you do have to cut an access opening in it. Cut it so the flap hangs dow towards the rear of the trailer so in the event the Gorilla tape does pull loose(very unlikely), the wind won't try to tear the coroplast out from under the trailer.

[Bob Landry]

The C/B enclosure is finished and ready to be installed and wired. There's a light place in the upper right corner where I didn't clean all the glue off, my bad, but you'll have to open the pantry and kneel down to see it, so, I'll live with it.
I lucked out on the labels. A Brother P-Touch label maker, white on black tape, Helvetica 12 pt font makes an identical label to the originals.

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[Festus2]

Bob -
Go to the front of the class! :thumbsup: You're making the rest of us look very, very bad. Please, no more photos of your professional handywork......:D

[Bob Landry]

Thanks, Festus.. I wish I were a professional. The sign of a good craftsman is how well he hides his mistakes. Some I can hide well, others not so much.

[PARAPTOR]

BOB

Nice ...:D

Think KS may need a few good craftsman :banghead: Then again all the trailers of the same year and model may look the same :cool:

(tx) for sharing pictures of your mods

[Bob Landry]

The best laid plans of mice and men.. Well, we all know the rest. , I While I was enlarging the opening in the back of the trailer to install the double inlet mount I severed the wiring to the tail light on the curb side. Not a disaster, just another job to add to the list. At least that back wall is hollow with no studs, so I can probably get to the wires by pulling the two wall outlets and splicing in some wire for the repair. What a PITA.

[Festus2]

Thanks, Festus.. I wish I were a professional. The sign of a good craftsman is how well he hides his mistakes. Some I can hide well, others not so much.

Good morning, Bob -
Just when you think things are going well. :eek: I guess we'll see just how good a craftsman you really are .........:D

[Bob Landry]

Good morning, Bob -
Just when you think things are going well. :eek: I guess we'll see just how good a craftsman you really are .........:D

This isn't a crisis, just a minor setback. A crisis is when you cut through an entire console wiring harness on some guy's boat. I've never done it, but I have seen someone else do it. Ever see a grown man cry? LOL

[Bob Landry]

Fixed my screw-up today. I had to remove the table that sits between the chairs and cut away some of the paneling to get to the wire ends, spliced in a piece of wire for some strain relief and put it all back together. I just have to go back with my brad nailer and put a piece of trim back. It was a PITA, but that's about a $200 job that the dealer won't get to do. Now I can get back to my shore power job. I'll pull all the wire for that and put the panel in tomorrow.

[Bob Landry]

The new panel is installed in the pantry. Wiring is complete between the 2nd power inlet and the new C/B panel. A flip of the switch combines both power legs in the event I only have a single 30A power source. The neutrals from both legs are tied together, as are the safety grounds. Since both legs are sharing a common neutral from the 50A outlet, it's OK to tie them together, otherwise, no. All that is left is to start moving circuits over to the new panel.

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One thing that I think is worthy of passing on. In the course of sorting out circuits and wires, I found that wall outlets are not always powered from where you think they would be. For example: The two outlets on the rear wall are fed off the microwave breaker. It ties in at the outlet the microwave plugs into. The outlet across from the triangular pantry by the door is on the GFI circuit and the bedroom outlets are connected to the breaker that feeds the 12V converter. Functionally, none of this makes any difference, and under normal use would not present a safety issue, the average owner probably would never know it. However, the danger comes from people doing their own electrical work, and many of us do that, and intending to work on an outlet that they think is turned off. I would encourage everyone, even if you are not a DIYer, to take one of the 3 light outlet testers(about $8 at Home Depot) and go around checking outlets and shutting off breakers so you know exactly what is running off. A hand drawn diagram of what does what, may come in handy at some point.

What I really find astonishing about all of this is that Keystone will not release any electrical information about their product under the guise of concern for customer safety(AKA liability lawsuits), but seem to find it perfectly acceptable to do throw-together 110V wiring and not include any of that in the owner information that a new buyer gets with the trailer.

[Bob Landry]

Finished the wiring today and got everything put back together. I wasn't able to break out the circuits that the all the outlets were on. Keystone really did some "creative" wiring in this (and others) trailer and while I could have probably sorted it out, I decided that it just wasn't a big enough deal to run a lot of new wiring just to put all the outlets on a single breaker, so I left well enough alone. The important thing is that I got the loads balanced between the two power legs, everything is protected, and that was the original intention. I left the Air conditioner, the refrigerator, and the converter on the original leg because those contain the components that are the most expensive to replace in the event of an electrical catastrophe. The water heater, microwave, and the GFCI went on the new panel as well as my air compressor. I still retained my extra 20A input for use during the colder weather to run space heaters and that little mini-panel only feeds two outlets in the living area. At any rate, I spent enough time on this project and it was just time to move on to the next one. I think the next one is going to be to replace the suspension components with the Dexter EZ-Flex and wet bolts, I'm just not sure when I'm going to do it. A man has to take a break every now and then and fish.