Month: April 2013

Getting Power to Your RV: Understanding Adapters

/ GPHintz / Leave a comment

You would think that this stuff would be easy to discover… but it’s not! How on earth do you get power to your RV? Sure, you plug it in, but to what and how? If you’ve ever wondered this question, then this is a simple blog post to get you going in the right direction.

1. Figure out what kind of power your RV has. Is it 50 amp or 30 amp? (The easiest way to tell is that there are four posts and holes for the 50 amp and three for the 30 amp)

2. The biggest that I’m aware of is the 50 amp… so let’s start there. You will plug into your RV using a 50 amp cord that probably looks a lot like this one:

 

3. Take that plug’s female side and plug it into your RV. If you are at an RV site or a place that has 50 amp power, plug the male side in, turn up the radio and enjoy! However, you may only have 30 amp service (3 holes). In this case, you will need an adapter like this one:

 

4. When you plug the male 50 amp into the female 50 amp adapter, you will be left with a 30 amp male. This means that if you have a 30 amp connection, it’s time to plug in and rock out. But, what if you have neither? Well, this is time for the good old normal extension cord plugged into a normal house plug and dragged out to the RV. This final adapter will look something like this:

 

5. Now you have the 50 amp plugged into a 30 amp that is plugged into a normal 15 amp house plug and… you guessed it… it’s time to turn that radio up and rock it out!

A word of caution: The greater the power, the more stuff you can run. For example, I can run both of my AC units on 50 amp and one unit on 30 amp and simply roll down my windows when I’m plugged into the house. Use wisdom and caution and enjoy! These things are supposed to be fun… not a pain in the butt! 

GP