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Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Yahoo Message Number: 103759
Since we are new to this RV lifestyle, I am a little concerned with how to best use our electrical systems when traveling. Seems like we could do a lot of damage easily. So, I'm looking for some tips and tricks for our upcoming trip; we will be visiting our kids during the Holidays and all we can get for electricity is a 50' 12 gauge extension cord connected to a standard 110v 15amp circuit. I am assuming we should probably draw no more than 10 amps or we could overload their circuits.

We have a residential refrigerator, 3000w prosine inverter, 12,500 watt generator, Advantium oven, 1 solar panel on the roof, 6 - 8DL Lifeline house batteries.

I am curious if we should just charge the batteries and live off the inverter?

Can the system manage itself, can the inverter come on when needed and use house 110v otherwise and charge the batteries?

What happens when Denice plugs in her hair dryer?

Have any of you lived for a week with this sort of power set up? Any tips or guidance?

We did this for a night awhile back and the transfer switch seemed to be activating quite a bit early on then after about an hour, it only switched occasionally...

Thank you! 
Mike

Mike St. John

2005 Magna Matisse C13 #6501

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103760
I would not plug our coach into a 110V outlet using a 50' 12 gauge extension cord.  I believe that I read that over 25' you should use 10 gauge extension cord. Plus you will not be able to run any appliances on 110V.  It might keep the batteries charged but we prefer to use the generator for that.

We "dry camp" for a week at rallies and in boondock situations.

Make sure your fuel tank is full.

Use your generator to charge the batteries AND at other times when you want to use appliances like the AC, microwave, hair dryer, coffeemaker.

If you don't need the AC you should be able to use lights and watch TV at night without the generator. Our batteries would last all night even using the Hydro Hot (Aqua Hot) furnace.  We would start the generator in the morning while we made breakfast and then turn it off when we were finished and the batteries are fully charged.  During the day if we needed the microwave or the AC we would start the generator.
You should be able to set the automatic generator start function so that when the batteries get below a certain level the generator will start and charge them up.

We also park at our daughter's house when we visit them. We had an electrician put a 50 amp RV plug in their garage.  Well worth it.

Lonny & Diane Livingston
'04 Allure #31065

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103761
If you set your inverter to draw only 5 amps you should be able to use the shore power to run the inverter/charger and the fridge on 110v and perhaps your propane or aquahot heater, lights and TV on 12V.  If your 12V usage exceeds 5 amps it will draw down your batteries (as in boondocking) which will have to be monitored for state of charge. Do not go below 50% SOC on the batteries and when needed you will have to recharge the batteries using your generator. If you want to use a hair dryer or air conditioning you will have to crank up the generator, during which time your batteries will be charging. It is recommended that once you start the generator, leave it running for at least 30 minutes as short run times are not good for them.

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103762
Turning on a TV is likely to cause a spike in power demand for some number of seconds. There can be any number high demand events during dinner and TV watching; similarly at breakfast time. In our experience under your conditions, we turn on the generator before dinner and or TV time and run it until bedtime.

Lee (leozbrowski@...) President, CCI

2007 Country Coach Intrigue 12153
CAT C-13

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103765
At rallies we run our genset for about 1 1/2 hours in the morning to bring the batteries up to full charge  while making breakfast and taking care of morning chores and catching the morning news programs.  Then in the evening after Happy hour for dinner and a few hours of TV watching.    If we have 15 amps at the rally that allows us  to run electric floor at night in moderate weather.  If its cold its the diesel heat we use.  The refer doesn't use that much power.  If the 15 amps is adequate to top off the batteries during the day when you are out or in  the night when your asleep then use of the genset can be reduced to less than  an hour in the morning and evening.  The issue becomes can you use the genset in an urban area?  Usually not.  If that happens your in trouble.    With a coach that depends on a lot of electricity  you really need 20 amps  and preferably 30.  Make sure your batteries are up to full charge when you arrive.  And don't use your quartz ceiling lights.  Only use the Florescence panels.  TWI 2004 Intrigue 11731

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103769
One everyone has to keep in mind he is going to be in a neighborhood  so running the generator any time he wants may not be an option.
Second if they don't have parking rules about RV's on this village if he starts running the generator much while there there may be rules the next time he shows up.
 If your batteries are fully charged when you arrive and you pay attention the power you use and as someone else pointed out set the invertor charger to 10 amp you should be fine for a few days.
 Of course all this assumes that the power coming from the house is up to spec. Like running at least 115 VAC and your not on a far away plug that already has it's own drop or it is the last plug on a  long line of plugs with a draw.

Ray

They say wine improves with age! As I enter my golden years, I say age improves with wine! The Born Loser

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103771
You might consider spending @ $200 to have a 30a or 50a RV hookup installed on the circuit which should remove most concerns.

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103772
Thank you all for the shared wisdom!!! I am deeply grateful to have a place like this to come to... You've helped me understand that we can boondock on minimal electricity, and you've helped me to realize that we need to install either a 30 or 50 amp outlet at their house. One of the challenges is they live in an older home with only a 100 amp service. Since this may become a rental house for them in the near future I was hesitant to spend a lot, but I just got an estimate to update the service to 150 amps and do the outlet for about $550, which seems reasonable to get a 50 amp service and avoid my fears of doing damage to the RV.

Again, thank you! 
Mike

2005 Magna Matisse C13 #6501

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103775
A #12 should be good for 20 Amps and as long as your connected to a 20 A breaker you should be OK.  20 Amps will run most stuff 1 at a time.  Just make sure your batteries are charged because the battery charger pulls over 10 amps.  AC's could be a no no if you don't watch it.
 Here is another idea, this is what we do.  See if there is a spare breaker slot in their electrical panel.  Get a double 30 Amp single slot breaker and wire a 20 Amp female receptacle to each side.  Buy 2 # 10 extension cords and connect to a 50 amp/30 amp "cheater".  Now have the equivalent of 240 V 30 A to your coach.  You will actually have 2 ea 120 VAC 30 Amps in your coach.  Done this more than a dozen times.  We carry a macerator and connect it to their sewer clean-out and basically have full hooks at friends houses.

Judy n Joe

98 Intrigue 10578

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #9 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103788
Thanks Joe!

I like the 30/50 method; there's a single slot 240v 30 amp breaker that was installed when they had a plugin hybrid, they no longer have a plugin hybrid. If I split the legs to two outlets and run two cords to a 50/30 cheater it lowers the load on their existing system and if we're careful gives us enough to comfortably get by. We've plugged into an RV park 30amp and been ok before, and this seems that it would be twice the power of the RV park 30amp? All this for less than $100...

Am I missing anything here?

Thanks again!
Mike

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #10 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103793
Sounds like you have it nailed!  A suggestion, know which side of your electrical branch each devise is connected.  Makes it easier to manage using stuff.  I actually measured the current each devise consumed so we could more accurately control our consumption.  We had another issue that's probably been corrected in later model coaches.  All of our outlets went through our inverter which has a 15 Amp breaker in the inverter.  Running two things would pop the breaker.  I installed a sub-panel that does not go through the inverter and put 2 outlets in the kitchen, one in the front of the coach (run and electric heater) and several outside (for various reasons).  Works great.  Wife is happy can make coffee, run the induction cooker, and toaster all at the same time.  Good luck and happy travels.  BTW there are basically two types of breakers and we carry a set of both, fits most electrical panels.

Judy n Joe

98 Intrigue 10578

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #11 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103795
What might easier is just use the the 30 amp breaker to feed a new 50 amp plug no adapters required. You will only have 30 amp on each leg but that is twice what you have at a 30 amp campground.
 You can use bigger plug with smaller breaker just not other way around.

Ray

They say wine improves with age! As I enter my golden years, I say age improves with wine! The Born Loser

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #12 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103798
Just remember, it needs to be 4-wire (Black, Red, White & Green - Hot leg 1, Hot Leg 2, Neutral & Ground)
 Most if not all 240v plugs in the house such as the old hybrid plug will probably be 3-wire, Hot, Hot & Ground
 I'm not a fan of the cheater plugs and/or plugging into a miss-wired non neutral plug.
 If you can't get by on a 15amp plug because you need Air Conditioning then either add a correct plug or get a hybrid inverter. You could go to the hardware store  and get a couple feet of 6/4 SO cable, a 50amp receptacle & a 50amp double pole breaker. Then just hook it up into the load center while staying there with it hanging out of the box and at least it would be wired correctly.
 Or if this is something you'll be doing regularly I'd just upgrade my inverter to a 3000w Magnum Hybrid. The hybrid will make up the needed power as needed and  when not will charge the batteries. So if your plugged into a 15amp receptacle and you input that into the shore setting on the inverter remote, as the load increases the charger will decrease until none is available and if more is still needed it will then  pull from the batteries to make up amount needed until the load decreases, once extra amperage is available again it will then start re-charging.
 In other words, you're plugged into 15amps at your friend's house. Batteries are charging, TV's on, etc..(drawing around 10 amps let's say) then the A/C turns  on (Needing 17 amps to start, then cycle's down to 13) at that moment the charger shuts off and the inverter starts pulling from the batteries making up the difference (making up the 12amps at startup and the 8amps while running). Once the A/C shuts off and  the load cycle's back down to 10amps (assuming nothing changed) that then leaves 5amps to charge again.

Just an option.... 
Jim

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #13 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103800
Guess I should also add this....

Retail cost on a new Magnum Hybrid MSH3012M is $3200, looking around the net I found some as cheap as $2200 on amazon.
 We carry factory Re-Man units that come with a factory 1 year warranty and if installed by us carry a 2 year warranty, $1500
 We also carry pretty much all Magnum & Xantrex Re-Man units as well as being a authorized service center for repairs.

Jim

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #14 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103802
Jim,

Thank you for the insight! So, I had assumed that the current Prosine 3000w inverter functioned like the Magnum Hybrid does, hmmm, more to learn... If not, I may need to consider a Magnum Hybrid inverter... At this time of the year we don't need a/c, but we may need a little heat - we'll be between Sacramento and San Francisco... Also, I do like the idea of 30 amps set up with a 50 amp plug, seems like less chance for an error...

Mike

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #15 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103806
I've wondered about this wiring set-up myself.  Knowing that the neutral is bonded to the ground strip in the main box, couldn't the neutral be bonded to the ground in the 50 receptacle and use 10-2 Romex (3 wire)?  Black hot, white hot, bare neutral & ground.  I'd like to hear what any of you electricians think.

Britt

2004 Intrigue 11836

www.cojobluegrass.com

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #16 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103807
If I'm calculating this correctly, I'm thinking my 25' extension cord for this setup will need to be 6/3-8/1 STW cable?

Mike

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #17 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103809
Nuetral and ground should only be bonded at one point in the system which is the entry service panel.

Ray

They say wine improves with age! As I enter my golden years, I say age improves with wine! The Born Loser

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #18 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103811
I use 10/4 and 50 amp connectors male and female. Can do 25 amp/side and I've had no problem for years at 100 feet. Too much loss if you go over this distance.

Jon Baum

Magna 2k 5923
 

Re: Living Off 10 Amps While Visiting Relatives

Reply #19 –
Yahoo Message Number: 103812
We've done the same in several locations.  Run #10 4 wire, longest run underground was about 50"  But used 2 ea #10 extension cords connected to our 30' 50 A RV cord.

Judy n Joe

98 Intrigue 10578