1981 Sunline 15.5 SB Electrical Service

[SSF156]

Hello:

I have a 1981 Sunline SB 15.5 that I recently purchased. I found out that it has a Federal Pacific breaker and I understand they were recalled due to fire risks. Since I am going to have this replaced and to anticipate the proper power supply (generator) how do I determine what amperage my Sunline has? I attached a photo of my breaker panel for reference.

Thanks!

[JohnB]

A travel trailer's standard size power feed was 30 amp 120 volts AC. You can tell this by the shoreline cord plug. The RV plug prongs look like this replacement plug. The shoreline cable should be no. 10 AWG minimum.

One hot wire, one neutral wire, and one ground wire.




Note: That plug is NOT a 230 VAC plug that used to go on home dryers years ago. It has been a common mistake to wire it at 230 volts. It is a 120 VAC plug explicitly made for the RV industry. The plug is a NEMA TT-30P plug

If your does not look like that plug prong configuration, please post a picture of yours.

John

[SSF156]

John:

Pleas see my plug and the inside of my panel attached.

[JohnB]

Hi SSF156,

Your shoreline cord is a no. 10 AWG wire so you could change the plug to a 30 amp, 125 AC volt plug NEMA no. TT-30P if you want to. The power post you plug into at the campground, or an added one at home, would have a 30 amp breaker to a Nema TT-30R receptacle, which limits you to a combined load of 30 amps. Your breaker box, being rated for 40 amps, is big enough to handle the 30 amp service. It sounds like you were going to change that anyway. The new power centers with a built-in 3-stage power converter/charger have a 30-amp main breaker inside the camper that feeds a breaker bus with several 15-amp circuits and a 20-amp AC unit for the roof AC unit. Your smaller camper may not need many circuits; when campers evolved to have a roof AC unit, microwave, galley dedicated GFIC-protected outlet, and general appliance outlets came along, they created more branch circuits. But still, all are limited to a 30 amp main supply.

A prior owner changed the original plug from the Sunline setup to a standard home 15-amp plug. Technically, they should have had a 20-amp plug if they wanted to supply the 20-amp breaker, but a true 20-amp outlet has a prong turned. However, they may have plugged into a 20-amp breaker circuit with multiple outlets with 15-amp receptacles. I sense/speculate they may not have wanted to deal with installing a dedicated 30 amp outlet at home and may not have realized that they sell 30 amp to 15 amp adapters to do that, so they changed the plug. Most campgrounds at least have a 15 amp or 20 amp outlet at the power post, so they never cared much, but they were limited in power.

You can leave what you have if you want to; the plug rating limits it to 15 amps.

I hope this helps.

John