New 30Amp plug fixes Voltage irregularities

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Will

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Joined
Jul 30, 2006
Posts
202
Location
Mississippi
I'll go ahead and confess: My RV started out as a Talladega Warrior.  That was all it was used for was 2 races a year.  Since they don't have hookups at the racetracks, the Previous Owner cut off the last foot of the RV's power wire and added a Generator Plug to the end of the cord, and turned the last foot of the cord into a Dogbone adapter to plug the RV into a Campground plug.  This meant that when I bought the RV and plugged it into the RV power outlet, I was resigned to using a dogbone adapter.

This extra junction bothered me, and when I noticed drastic dips in the rig's voltage under even light loads, I decided it had to go.  Went to Home Depot and bought the proper 30Amp plug and put it in place of the Generator plug.  Got back in the RV and started testing things.

Normal voltage at the plug is 121V
Running the AC, water heater, refrigerator, 12V, AND the Microwave dipped it down to 108Volts (no I don't plan on doing this very often)

Using the old configuration I was spiking BELOW 107V without even running the Microwave.

Overall under normal load I gained 2 volts.

Moral of the story: eliminate unneccessary junctions.  One long cord is much better than a bunch of short ones.
 
You are certainly correct about eliminating unnecessary junctions, especially hand wired ones.  It doesn't take much to decrease voltage and increase heating (or overheating) at those points.
 

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