I am hooking up a 15amp A/C wall unit in a small camper trailer with a 30amp service…?
I just bought a 21′ 1977 trailblazer camper from my dad. I live in Phoenix, AZ. and this camper has no A/C. The wiring is exactly how I bought it so I will try to communicate as best as I can what I’m dealing with… Also I am a novice working with electrical as most of my trade work has been plumbing or excavating… The water heater stove and heater are gas so the service panel is small and only has 2/2pole breakers… 1/2pole 30amp/20amp and a strait 15amp 2pole, everything is 110volt. There is an unconnected 12/2 wire by the panel and a free 20amp breaker next to the 30amp. I think this loose wire must have gone to the water pump for distance camping which I plan not to use so I ran a new 12/2 line from the open 20amp circuit to a single outlet 20amp 110volt plug next to a 15amp 110volt wall A/C unit. Will it be ok to run this lower amp unit on the 20amp circuit? I am worried about my service cord bottle necking juice at the end where the plug is. The service is a thick rubber cord about 20′ long and 1” in diameter. The plug end has been spliced and appears to reduce to normal 3 prong plug 3/8” cord like you would see on an extension cord, from the large diameter cord the splice looks to be approx 1′ long. will this cause the unit to starve??? I have only tested the unit for a couple minutes and I noticed light dimming during the cycle, the service is plugged into a 30′ extention cord which plugs into one of my dads garage outlets which could explain the starvation although I looked at the garage service panel and all I see is 30amp breakers… My dad is a loon… I can’t believe that garage full of outlets is running on about 8 30amp circuits… Tomorrow I pull the trailer to the park I will be staying and hope the power is better, I’m still worried about the bottleneck at the end of the service cord and the way I hooked up the A/C service line… I would appreciate any advice and will be checking periodically for updates, I will also update the thread as to how it goes tomorrow…
BTW the park’s power hook up is a 30amp normal 3 prong outlet but I still don’t think my service cord is wired correctly…
The power cord should take the load of the A/C fine. But if it were mine, I would cut off the spliced section and go to the RV supply house and buy a replacement end for it to match the RV sites plug. They also make and sell adapters to go to regular wall sockets should you want to go back one day. This will be a heavy duty plug designed to withstand the loads. It wont be cheap, but it will be a sure thing. That 15 amp A/C will be a bit much though for that trailer. A 8,000 btu unit will only draw a little less than 10amps while running and keep it plenty chilly in the. I have a ’77 Dodge motor home and I only use a 5,000btu unit and freeze at night sometimes. You will have to start pinching them amps in that rv. After the microwave and tv and other little little necessities get put in there, you will be making several trips to the breaker box until you figure out how to run everything. Good Luck and Happy RVing!!!