adding another 30a plug in for shore power

[rmaly76]

Love my 21bhe sans a few pet peeves. The majority of my power and water hook ups come from the same location on campsite. On my 21bhe, they go to opposite ends of the trailer (water in the front, power in the rear). I would prefer to create a situation where I have a single utility run for power and water rather than a spider web that currently manafests. There is no issue with simply piggy backing another wire run for another plug in site into the back of the existing converter that I can think of. Am I missing anything?

 

[jkwilson]

Having two plugs wired in is not safe.

When one of them is plugged in, the exposed metal pins on the other will be energized. If a child or curious adult lifted the cover it could be tragic.

 

[Chewwi]

Love my 21bhe sans a few pet peeves. The majority of my power and water hook ups come from the same location on campsite. On my 21bhe, they go to opposite ends of the trailer (water in the front, power in the rear). I would prefer to create a situation where I have a single utility run for power and water rather than a spider web that currently manafests. There is no issue with simply piggy backing another wire run for another plug in site into the back of the existing converter that I can think of. Am I missing anything?

If you mean wiring a duplicate 30A recept like the located at the rear at a different location, I see no problem with it as long as they are not both plugged in at the same time. The alternate recept needs to be sufficiently separated from water connection to preclude the recept getting wet. Plugging in both to different outlets could result in parralleling sources that out of phase or on different legs of split phase source. You could disable the one located at the rear.


2020 2600RB,
2017 Silverado Crew Cab 1500, 6.2L

 

[triplethreat]

I agree with jkwilson.....it is NOT a good idea to have them simply paralleled because of what he stated. And if you stop and think about it, your reason for wanting to add another recept. for plugging in, is because the location of the original is not very handy. For that reason, simply take that recept. "out of service" by disconnecting the wires going to it (with shore power disconnected of course) and cap the wires off with some heavy wire nuts and then tape over them and isolate them out of the way and make sure that they cannot get wet.

 

[Johnp19]

This thread is a couple of years old but I thought I would add to it since I just added a second power receptacle to the front of my 2019 2600RB. I see mention of pins in the unused receptacle being hot. This is true and something I wanted to avoid. A simple three position rotary switch took care of this issue. With the rotary switch both circuits are never connected to each other. One is disconnected before the other is completed.

I used a switch rated at 32 amps. I typically am using far less than 32 amps and have a Micro-air EasyStart soft start system on the AC which reduced the total inrush current from over 50 amps to about 12 amps when measured at the main electrical panel. I believe the 32 amp current rating for the switch is only for when the contacts are closed. I do not turn the switch unless all power is off.

Regarding the Easystart, I can run the AC with a 20+ year old Honda 2000 watt generator and still have power to spare.

I like having the additional plug in location up front. I just gives me mor options. The rotary switch takes away any of the danger of a hot receptacle.