How to make a Smart Plug 30amp to 50amp

[s1000pre]

As many of you know, the new 2021's are coming standard with SmartPlugs. Since purchasing the 2021, I have visited only one site out of five with 50amp available. I am now heading to a music festival requiring my EU220i for power, no hookups. My following two destinations are a music fest (boondocking) and a campsite with only 30amp available. To make life easier utilizing a lighter power cord, I ordered a 25' 30amp Camco cord and a 50amp SmartPlug connector. I cut the female end off of the cable and connected the SmartPlug adapter. If you choose to do this, you will need to jumper the Black and Red connections.
When stripping the wire and inserting it into the SmartPlug, I recommend coating the wire ends with solder. While doing this, you will twist a 3" piece of wire (jumper wire with 3/4" stripped off each end) onto the black wire, then solder the two together. You will insert this combined soldered end into the black female receptacle on the SmartPlug. Then the other end into the red receptacle. I didn't initially do this causing me to scratch my head for the next two hours attempting to diagnose why my Converter wasn't working. Some of the appliances in our Airstreams are powered off of different legs from the 50amp connection. Being I originally only had one hot leg (black). My AC would power-up, though the Converter did not. This is why you want to jumper the red and black together. Suppose any of you choose to do this. Keep in mind. You only have 30 amps at your disposal, 20ish if using a generator like a 2200i. I have to say, picking up a coiled cord with one hand is a game-changer.

[Dennis C]

Why wouldn’t you use a simple dog bone connector? Would this not work?

[BT2513]

Originally Posted by Dennis C

Why wouldn’t you use a simple dog bone connector? Would this not work?

I did close to the same thing as OP. To answer your question, my 50A unit has a really heavy and difficult to maneuver power cord. Getting it in and out of the small storage spaces of airstreams is a real pain - especially if all I'm doing is charging batteries. I'm also not a huge fan of chaining my 50->30 dogbone to my 30->15 dogbone and then to an extension cord. Currently, Smart Plug doesn't sell a "ponytail" adapter for their plugs as they are unique - they are apparently still awaiting UL certification on a new design.

My take on it below:
* I bought a medium duty 100ft 15A extension cord from Lowe's.
* Cut the female end of the cord off - leaving about 6-8" of cord attached to it.
* Connect white-white, black-black, ground-green
* Cut off a 3-4" piece of black wire from the piece still attached to the female end.
* Connect this piece between the black and red connectors (solder the two black wires together if you can)
* Assemble the plug per the instructions...

To counteract water intrusion (since the 15A cord is much thinner than the 50A cord the plug and shroud was designed for), I cut a wine cork in half lengthwise and cut a small channel down the middle of each half. I wrapped the 15A cord with some electrical tape where the shroud would normally seal around it (but it won't because the shroud is too big) and I hot glued the two pieces of cork around the 15A cord in that spot. Rubbed some soap around the inside of the shroud and slid it into place when I assembled everything. Now its pretty much water tight.

[oreillychris]

Thanks for posting this. I modified the 30A extension cord I had with a 50A female smart plug end. Everything seems to be powered in the trailer, most importantly, the batteries are being charged. Now I am trying to get better info about the batteries through the VE app. Only to find out the 100K+ 2023 International has a BlueSolar controller and not a SmartSolar controller with Bluetooth capabilities. I have the dongle on order