30A Receptacle Melted Today

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by gator.bigfoot

If you have no load on in the trailer then plugging in or out shouldn't be an issue. Simply turn off the AC and the hot water heater and 90% of your loads are gone. Then you won't have to switch off the receptacle. I never switched off the receptacle and haven't had an issue from the that, just a worn out receptacle that causes a loose connection which in turn will melt your plug if you are drawing high amounts of current. If you want AC you are probably not going to care and are going to sacrifice the plug instead. What is the solution? Carry a spare? Complain to the park?

Good luck.

Hi

While that's true for a 30A setup, there is a gotcha with a 50A. If the neutral wire mates "last" as you hook things up, you have lord only knows what on each of the legs. If you have a large load only on one side, the "light" side may be pretty close to 240V. Even if it's only for a second or two .... not a good idea.

Bob

[TG Twinkie]

Plug the power cord into a live outlet is asking for trouble.
Unless you turn off the main breaker in the coach. There are devices such as the converter, water heater, and the refer or perhaps the air conditioner that may be energized the moment you make contact with the receptacle.
Each arc degrades both the male and female part of the electrical system.
Not only this stuff above.
You are putting your life at risk plugging into a hot receptacle.
You eliminate the risk and plug/receptacle damage by shutting the breaker off.
Ask yourself this.
Do I test the pedestal power prior to plugging in my expensive coach? Probably not.
If you don't. How do you know if the receptacle is wired correctly?
I have worked in the electrical field for over 50 years.
One of the first things I was taught is not to grasp an electrical cord plug like you would a baseball.
The 30 amp and 50 amp plugs should be inserted using the palm of your hand.
This way if you were to get shocked your hand can be removed quickly. If your fist is closed around the plug you may not be able to open your hand to release the plug.
Think safe, be safe!
The life you save could be your own.

[pteck]

Originally Posted by Oldtrapper

When possible, use a 50A by 30A dogbone and plug into the 50A receptacle, the 50A receptacles seem to have much less wear and tear and even if they do, you only have a dogbone at risk.

Novel, this is not really that great of an idea. While this may sidestep the small potential issue to the plug, due to receptacle wear, it now hugely increases other risks, namely the whole circuit in your camper!

You no longer have a 30amp circuit breaker protecting the 30amp rated distribution wiring in your trailer. Now you've enabled a full 50amps of supply to potentially fry that circuit in your trailer in the event of an issue. And potentially the whole trailer along with it!

Too much overthinking in this thread. Electrical systems are well thought out. It's by design that things work and fail the way they do - in a controlled and safe fashion. They can and do wear. Once worn to failure, it's a cheap and easy fix.

Reinventing a "smarter" way might just invite other failure modes that are not typical and potentially much more disastrous.

[SilverHouseDreams]

Originally Posted by pteck

Novel, this is not really that great of an idea. While this may sidestep the small potential issue to the plug, due to receptacle wear, it now hugely increases other risks, namely the whole circuit in your camper!

You no longer have a 30amp circuit breaker protecting the 30amp rated distribution wiring in your trailer. Now you've enabled a full 50amps of supply to potentially fry that circuit in your trailer in the event of an issue. And potentially the whole trailer along with it!

Too much overthinking in this thread. Electrical systems are well thought out. It's by design that things work and fail the way they do - in a controlled and safe fashion. They can and do wear. Once worn to failure, it's a cheap and easy fix.

Reinventing a "smarter" way might just invite other failure modes that are not typical and potentially much more disastrous.

I have mixed thoughts on this. If you look at the wiring to your house, there is no breaker upstream between the transformer and the meter on the side of your house. Your main breaker is sized to the feeder wire's capacity and prevents the downstream circuits from over-drawing the feeder. If we take that and apply it to your trailer, your trailer still has a 30-amp main that prevents the aggregate of loads in the trailer from loading beyond the 30-amp shore cord. Now if something was to happen between the pedestal receptacle and your main, then yes that is a risk that it takes a 50amp load to fail, but what scenario are we planning for?

[DKB_SATX]

Originally Posted by pteck

Novel, this is not really that great of an idea. While this may sidestep the small potential issue to the plug, due to receptacle wear, it now hugely increases other risks, namely the whole circuit in your camper!

You no longer have a 30amp circuit breaker protecting the 30amp rated distribution wiring in your trailer. Now you've enabled a full 50amps of supply to potentially fry that circuit in your trailer in the event of an issue. And potentially the whole trailer along with it!

Too much overthinking in this thread. Electrical systems are well thought out. It's by design that things work and fail the way they do - in a controlled and safe fashion. They can and do wear. Once worn to failure, it's a cheap and easy fix.

Reinventing a "smarter" way might just invite other failure modes that are not typical and potentially much more disastrous.

Well, you no longer have a 30A breaker protecting your shore-power cord. There's still the 30A main breaker in the Airstream, but a short between the pedestal and your Airstream panel could still slag the shore-power cord before the 50A pedestal breaker opened.

[wmb]

Originally Posted by AirstreamInc

Hi wmb,

Please send us a direct message with your contact information and the last 6 digits of your VIN so we can share it with our Customer Service and Technical Support team. We look forward to helping you get this resolved.

You can also reach Airstream Customer Service and Technical Support at customer_support@airstream.com

Thank you.

Thanks, I left a few PMs with my info. Please let me know if there's any advice you guys have. I did read about a recall on this model year but I don't know if the previous owners had the issue addressed under that. They certainly never mentioned it to us.

[pteck]

Originally Posted by DKB_SATX

Well, you no longer have a 30A breaker protecting your shore-power cord. There's still the 30A main breaker in the Airstream, but a short between the pedestal and your Airstream panel could still slag the shore-power cord before the 50A pedestal breaker opened.

Yup. The 30-amp cord. And the 30-amp plug and receptacle on the side of your airstream. And the 30-amp wire to the main breaker/breaker panel within your airstream. None of those are appropriately protected by that big 50-amp breaker.

Originally Posted by SilverHouseDreams

I have mixed thoughts on this. If you look at the wiring to your house, there is no breaker upstream between the transformer and the meter on the side of your house. Your main breaker is sized to the feeder wire's capacity and prevents the downstream circuits from over-drawing the feeder. If we take that and apply it to your trailer, your trailer still has a 30-amp main that prevents the aggregate of loads in the trailer from loading beyond the 30-amp shore cord. Now if something was to happen between the pedestal receptacle and your main, then yes that is a risk that it takes a 50amp load to fail, but what scenario are we planning for?

Shorts can happen anywhere in the chain, for unexpected reasons. User mistake, rodents, some act of murphy. The idea has always been that you want the breaker to trip. It's external, each to reach, easy to reset or fix. In the case of a trailer, along with the cord, there is an internal wire run from the side receptacle to the main panel. Why shouldn't that be appropriately protected? i surely don't ever want to risk that wire becoming the "breaker" in an unexpected situation.

[gklott]

pteck is right. The issue is the wiring from the park's pedestal to your trailer's circuit panel. Using a 50A-to-30A dogbone, the pedestal's OCPD is 50A.

A normal 30A RV power cord is 3-conductor 10 AWG Type SOW. According to NEC Table 400.5(A)(1), 30A is the allowable ampacity at 30C (86F). If laying in the sun, the cord's rating is even lower. You then have a power inlet rated at 30A and 10 AWG NM-B cable from the inlet to your trailer's circuit panel. Your circuit panel may be only rated for 30A.

I do not recommend using a 50A male to 30A female "dogbone" adapter as regular practice. We do not carry one.

73/gus

[SilverHouseDreams]

We are all discussing what is "allowed for continuous safe amperage", that doesn't mean that a 30-amp cord couldn't sustain 50-amps long enough to trip a breaker with a direct short.

[SteveSueMac]

Sounds like a million dollar industry to make a 50 to 30 dogbone with a breaker in the dogbone, no?

[J. Morgan]

Am I bad if I mention that I think this conversation has gone a little off the edge?

It’s all pretty simple, a melted plug or a melted power inlet is going to be caused by the contacts on one end or the other of the connection being faulty or corroded.

If one side of the connection got hot so did the other side. The best move is to replace both the plug and the socket.

Most of the time failures like these can be averted by keeping the plug pins clean and free of corrosion.

[mbubbaca]

So I read this and went out to the trailer with 2 small pieces of sandpaper and cleaned. It took all of 10 minutes. Peace of mind.

[rmkrum]

Blow out the dust and abrasive and conductive particles as well.

[wmb]

I took some pictures

[wmb]

Originally Posted by Mollysdad

If I read the OP correctly the failure was at the inlet of the Airstream not the power pedestal.
I've never seen anyone break the connection by pulling the cord out of the RV before disconnecting from the pedestal, regardless of the breaker.
Sounds to me like something was loose in the receptacle and constant arcing caused it to burn up. I've had it happen at home, replaced the outlet and all was fine.

We do in fact turn off the breaker in the pedestal before connecting and disconnecting, and I always check the power with the SurgeGuard before connecting the cord.

[GCinSC2]

Ouch.

I messed with one of those trailer receptacle ONE time so far. On the 2008 it had a big glob of sealant on the inside that was part of the sealing job I think. Dealing with that stuff was the nastiest part of the job.

Food for thought for carrying a spare. But my rig is gen prepped so I have two connection points.

Get 'er done!

[wmb]

Originally Posted by 369goose

Yes, when our Airstream was new we had a similar experience. Found out there indeed was a recall and Airstream took very good care of the repairs.

Would I still be able to get a repair under the recall if it's out of warranty and I'm the second owner?

Now that I know about the recall I'm concerned about using the second inlet on the front of the trailer, if that has the same problem. But we're in Utah and it's 100 F so we don't really have much of a choice.

[wmb]

By the way, I guess they come in fours, not threes, because we just found out yesterday that our truck has a head gasket problem and needs two weeks in the shop...

[J. Morgan]

Originally Posted by wmb

By the way, I guess they come in fours, not threes, because we just found out yesterday that our truck has a head gasket problem and needs two weeks in the shop...

Bummer. Diesel?

[mythbuster88]

Originally Posted by wmb

By the way, I guess they come in fours, not threes, because we just found out yesterday that our truck has a head gasket problem and needs two weeks in the shop...

A vacation to remember forever!