Mooch-docking and Tripping Breakers

[chemist308]

I've currently got my 5th wheel on 2 - 20 Amp shore power breakers. The way this works is with a dual phase 50 amp splitter that takes me down to 2 single phase 30 Amp plugs fitted with standard power cord adapters. It's worked well, running both ACs until the last time I pulled my slides for the 100 foot tow to dump my waste tanks.

What's recently started happening is that after that last time I pulled slides in, both lights over the bed (reading lights) stopped working. Also, the house the breaker feeding leg powering the bedroom AC has started tripping. Could these issues be related?

Also before you tell me to switch the water heater to gas, I tried switching the water heater to gas this afternoon, but that hasn't solved the house breaker problem. It seems to trip in the evenings when I step out.

[jkwilson]

A 20A breaker is going to be pushing it with anything else on. You probably need to know what equipment is on each leg to really track it down.

15A for an air conditioner means anything over 5A on that leg is going to trip a breaker. Converter is about 5A. Water heater 10A on AC. Refrigerator more than 5 on AC.

It’s more surprising that you weren’t always tripping a breaker before now. An air conditioner and water heater on AC is about 25A by itself.

[el Rojo]

You might have a weak battery. After you pulled the slides in the charger went into bulk charging drawing 13 amps or so. You could also have a weak breaker in the house.

[Walaby]

The bedroom reading lights could be totally unrelated. The wires for mine are under the bed platform. Had an issue previously where the wires pulled out of the connector, caused by a bind when the slide was retracted. Removed mattress, removed plywood platform and reconnected wires. Made sure they were properly secured after that.

If you are not having any other 12V problems, that's my bet.

Mike

[Kensoko]

I've currently got my 5th wheel on 2 - 20 Amp shore power breakers. The way this works is with a dual phase 50 amp splitter that takes me down to 2 single phase 30 Amp plugs fitted with standard power cord adapters. It's worked well, running both ACs until the last time I pulled my slides for the 100 foot tow to dump my waste tanks.

What's recently started happening is that after that last time I pulled slides in, both lights over the bed (reading lights) stopped working. Also, the house the breaker feeding leg powering the bedroom AC has started tripping. Could these issues be related?

Also before you tell me to switch the water heater to gas, I tried switching the water heater to gas this afternoon, but that hasn't solved the house breaker problem. It seems to trip in the evenings when I step out.

Are the 2 - 20 amp breakers GFCI breakers?

[chemist308]

Are the 2 - 20 amp breakers GFCI breakers?

No. We initially had the whole rig on a GFI breaker, but that would just trip the second one AC would kick on. So we installed 2 outlets and 2 standard 20 amp breakers in the garage sub-panel to feed this power hungry beast, and then got the cord to ensure each leg was properly fed electricity.

[traveldawg]

As someone earlier said, 20 amps gets used pretty quickly in a lot of cases.

If I am understanding this right, the 2 20amp breakers are in a sub panel in the garage at the house. Then you run cords to the RV and combine the 2 20amp circuits into one 50amp plug into the RV. Assuming that is the case, why not just put a 50amp breaker in the sub panel in the house?

[Kensoko]

No. We initially had the whole rig on a GFI breaker, but that would just trip the second one AC would kick on. So we installed 2 outlets and 2 standard 20 amp breakers in the garage sub-panel to feed this power hungry beast, and then got the cord to ensure each leg was properly fed electricity.

I have been thinking thinking about it and it’s hard to troubleshoot with out more info. Last week I wanted to test my rig on different power configurations. I am able to run both AC units on low with one 20amp 120v breaker. I then tried 15 amps and it didn’t like that.

By chance do you have an amp clamp to test how many amps your pulling? It could either be a short or over amps. You can see what amps your pulling with different items on I think it will help out a lot to understand what’s going on.

How long is your extension cord? What size is it awg? Depends on the length of the cord and the size of wire you could see a voltage drop in return increase your amp draw.

I don’t think your lights in the bedroom have anything to do with power issue since they are 12v DC.

[traveldawg]

I'm not at my RV so I can't do any testing. For sure the 50amp cord that came with your RV would be OK, and I've even run 2. One note tho - I have a Progressive Industries EMS so if voltage goes too low it will cut power off; but I don't recall ever having an issue using a 50amp RV cord extension. My "extension cords" are always either the RV type 50amp or 30amp cords sold all over - sorry, don't know the exact length or wire size.

I wouldn't run 2 A/Cs on one 30 amp connection, let alone a 20amp. While it might work I'd guess the voltage gets pretty low when the second one starts; that's not good for the compressors.

How far is from your garage to the RV? Once you tell us that others will give good advice on the wire size needed. My feeling is that if just storing you RV at the house you really can get by with one A/C running I would think.

[Kensoko]

I'm not at my RV so I can't do any testing. For sure the 50amp cord that came with your RV would be OK, and I've even run 2. One note tho - I have a Progressive Industries EMS so if voltage goes too low it will cut power off; but I don't recall ever having an issue using a 50amp RV cord extension. My "extension cords" are always either the RV type 50amp or 30amp cords sold all over - sorry, don't know the exact length or wire size.

I wouldn't run 2 A/Cs on one 30 amp connection, let alone a 20amp. While it might work I'd guess the voltage gets pretty low when the second one starts; that's not good for the compressors.

How far is from your garage to the RV? Once you tell us that others will give good advice on the wire size needed. My feeling is that if just storing you RV at the house you really can get by with one A/C running I would think.

Your completely right I wouldn’t run my 2 ac units with 20 amp. I just wanted to see what it would do.
Your cords are fine. I wasn’t sure if you had a DIY cord or what you were using.

I will keep thinking what else would cause it.

There is multiple voltage drop calculators online. Most are easy to use, I ran some quick numbers this is what I got.

Keep in mind the amps is not what’s available but what your using. It will be much less in most (all) cases. I used the available amps as a worse case.

110v 15 amps 14 Awg 41’ this is the cheap extension cords.

110v 20amps 12awg 47’

220v 30 amps 10awg 104’

220v 30 amps 6awg 248’

220v 50amps 6 awg 149’