Electrical Questions

[iowacamper]

Hello,

I am looking to purchase a school bus and work on converting it.. I am stuck on one thing.. I am looking into the best way to hook up the electrical. I would like to have it so I can use shore power and generator power. I am not looking to have a converter set up in the bus..

I need direction on doing this, I am a computer programmer as a day job so this is a little bit out of my league but I have always wanted to do this..

Can someone tlel me the best way of doing this and what parts people have had the best luck with?

[lornaschinske]

You need to read the topic RV Electrical Safety and all the little articles linked to within the thread. Mike Sokol has been kind enough to keep up with the thread and keeps posting more info. BE SAFE!!!!

The easiest way is to run your interior wiring to a small panel box. Plug into the power pole OR plug into the generator. No switches.


http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-...0FCP/100148341
Ours is a Square D brand Load Center QO6-12l100S with 6 useable spaces (2 are voided for wiring unlike the one shown and linked to) filled with 6 double space 20 amp breakers. Could have used the super skinny breakers and put two in each slot but that would have been very pricey and wasn't needed. Our panel box has been discontinued but looks like the one above. We had thought about using Progressive Dynamics all in one panel box (combines 12VDC and 110AC in a single box) but we wanted/needed more circuits that the PD allowed. The Progressive Dynamics Smart Charger w/ Charge wizard is powered by a dedicated 20 amp breaker in the box. The cable runs from the power load box to the 30 amp receptacle power pole in the campground OR it can be plugged into the 30 amp receptacle on a generator. We do not have our generator yet. But we will wire a receptacle in the electrical bay that will be fed by the generator. The Bus will the plug into that for generator power. It's an "either/or" idiot moment proof set up. This way allows us to not a have a stupid moment and plug the bus into shore power WHILE being plugged in the the generator (or vice versa). That would cause a lot of damage.

Get a panel box that uses breakers that you can buy anywhere (and carry a couple extra with you). I had a friend in CA who had to order his breakers for his vintage RV online. Whereas I had the same GE panel box in an RV manufactured by a totally different manufacturer within the same decade. I bought my breakers locally, not online. I don't think it's as big a deal as it used to be since I know that I can buy many of the same breakers here in the Southwest that I could in the Southeast (GE, Square D, Siemans). But it's something to keep in mind. Always test your breakers, they should not be "silent" when they trip/reset. A silent breaker may be a bad breaker. Yes you can buy a shiny unused bad breaker straight from the factory.

We have only three 12vDC items and that is the water pump (Shurflo 2088 Classic) and the 12vDC fans on the rear heat exchanger plus the hot fluid pump also on the rear heat exchanger. A dedicated inverter (currently only the one) powers the 110vAC LP Gas range lights/electronics, 110vAC thru-the-wall-mobile-home exhaust fan over the range (our version of a better working hood vent) and all the 110vAC fluorescent lights. The smart charger charges our "house" battery bank (currently our one and only cranking battery) while on shore power or while on generator (when we get one). Once we are ready to buy a house bank, it will be two to four 12vDC deep cycle marine batteries. It will be set up to crank the bus via a switch or run all four batteries as a house bank with the smart charger keeping them up as needed. I might put the TV on a dedicated inverter. Not sure. We have wired to where we can easily make the change. We like to watch a movie when Freedom Parking. And we could do that with the battery bank we have planned without running the generator.


This set up took a bit of thought on our part. Our setup is not like others on here. We are working fulltimers (I have a job at Home Depot). Our bus is our Residential Vehicle, not Recreational, and is set up as such. I have a 30" LP gas range, 8.8 cf AC refrigerators, 12 cf AC upright freezer, 10 gallon AC water heater on board... the 24" wide standard dishwasher, top loading washer and LP gas dryer have not been bought and installed yet but they have been planned for and space allotted to them. This is our only home, not a weekend play toy. It does not move until we are ready to leave. We have been in our current location since December 2011. We will move to Texas in September 2015 where I will get another job plus start another shoestring business of our own (I don't like working for others). We need to be self contained on our moves since we tend to stay in parking lots when we travel, only pulling into a campground every 3 to 4 nights to dump and refill tanks (my fresh auto fills). This is how we live and travel. Not everyone does. It's a large part of the reason we converted a skoolie. Before you run the first wire, build the first wall or cabinet, you need to figure out HOW you will use your bus both now and in future years. This will save you a great deal of headaches if you have a good plan and are armed with knowledge (or speculation)

[iowacamper]

I went and purchased one of those today, Now I am looking to only hook up to 30 amp I believe. I am only really wanting to be able to power a air conditioner right now and a stove. So correct me if I am wrong but 30 amp should be fine correct?

When I go to wiring this up, Do I just get a male 30 amp plug, mount it and hook up to a breaker in the box correct?

[lornaschinske]

You can't power an electric stove off 30 amp.

We run...
5050 btu window air condition plugged into the 20 amp outlet at the power pole and will keep that set up. Adding a 20 amp outlet from the generator in addition to the main 30 amp outlet from the generator

30 amp outlet handles...
desktop computer and monitor
all in one printer scanner
2000 watt electric heater that we plug in 15 minutes before we need it and then unplug after the 15 minutes
12 cf upright freezer
4.4 cf refrigerator
4.4 cf refrigerator (yes, we have two refrigerators)
30" lp gas range that requires 120vac to run the electronic display and burner ignitor
Thru the wall exhaust fan
Microwave/grill oven
25" tv/dvd player
6000 btu window air conditioner that we turn off overnight
Plus the flourescent lights

We will add a washer, lp dryer and dishwasher later this year

The rear air conditioner has not shut off since we put it in. Our past month power bill showed up yesterday afternoon. $98.88 6/12 - 7/12 855 kwh we have $60 allowed for electric and when we go over we pay the differance.

[bansil]

what kind of stove?

We run a couple of the 700w electric burners (small stove eyes) they are about 6/7 amps each so they both run off a single 20amp breaker fed by 12ga wire(good for 20 amps of 120v)
another 20 amp breaker feeds the front air conditioner/heater and couple outlets for lights and chargers etc.(in the winter we plug in our heaters to the circuit that ran AC's in the summer)
since we went 50 amp hook up

we have an extra 120 leg coming in, so we divided the Bus into two zones

what we have to have (ac/heater in bedroom, fridge and cooking is on one leg basically 30 amp circuit)

and the other leg supplies "extra's" the front ac/heater extra outlets for cooking (we can use rotisserie and both burners and have both ac's running with everything else

when plugged into 30 amp the adapter plug will supply 30 amps total to all the circuits, so we are just careful in what we choose to use and when we use it

we can still run both ac's (both small 5000btu) and fridge and coffee pot, I normally just turn off front ac to use the microwave (or if I remember to, we can plug in a 25amp extension cord to the pedestal like Lorna does

Decide what you want to run and then add extra for the future (I have 4 more receptacles to put in...we keep saying wouldn't it be nice to have one here?)

[lornaschinske]

Something to keep in mind...

Most public campgrounds are still 30/20/15 amp. Some have some 50 amp sites. These are generally the more expensive sites.

Private campground tends to charge quite a bit more for 50 amp sites. We have personally run into price differences of $10 to $100 per month higher than 30 amp. Our current campground will boot you out if they catch you using any adapters. We carry an adapter that allows us to plug our 30 amp plug into a 50 amp service (needed in TX for 50 amp only service in Rockport-Fulton campground and Corpus Christi mobile home/RV park).


We are cheap. We know we can live on a 30 amp service if we spread the loads out.

[iowacamper]

So,

I am going to seperate the AC from everything else and run it on its own... Then I am going to use a 30amp for a fridge and other things in the bus...

Now.. The biggest thing I need help with and I haven't really seen anything on.. Is HOW I go about hooking up the Male 30 AMP Plug to the Breaker Box?

Can you please give me some insight on this? Does it just get hooked up via a breaker?

[lornaschinske]

I told you. The stranded black positive on your power cable is screwed to the positive bar (black), the stranded white negative goes to negative bar (white) and the stranded green ground is screwed to the ground screw or ground strip in the panel box. Crimp on ring terminals or tin the stranded wire first before making the connections.

If the AC wiring is freaking you out, then go to a bookstore and pick up the NEC book on house wiring or a basic book on wiring up lights, switches and receptacles along with panel boxes
(DIY remodeling books). The NEC is a bit more technical. You may prefer a DIY book. Flip thru the book to make sure that what you need is covered.

Edited because I am dyslexic when it comes to remember my + & -! Thanks Chuck!

And I really am slightly dyslexic. Getting worse since I cleared 50!

[lornaschinske]

You do not need a main breaker. The load distribution panel box is all you need.

[family wagon]

Yep, just like Lorna said: a plug, a cord, a breaker panel (a "subpanel" type, rather than the "meter main" or "main" type which, appropriately enough, include a main breaker and possible a socket for a meter). Your shore power cord will plug into a receptacle somewhere, and upstream from that receptacle will be a breaker. You could think of that as your "main breaker." Inside the subpanel box you'll see a pair of silvery "bus bars" with screw lugs. With a 30-amp shore connection you're probably doing just one hot leg, so you could connect the hot wire from your cord to one of the bus bars. Then you can install breakers in the slots that connect with that bus bar, or you can connect a jumper wire between the bus bar lugs and then put breakers in any/all of the slots.

Though it's not necessary, you could have a "main" breaker in your panel if you wanted to. You could do this by selecting a panel that already has a main in it, or one that has an option for it (plus buying the corresponding breaker), or POSSIBLY by using a normal breaker in one of the slots and reverse-feeding it. Before reverse-feeding you'd want to verify that your intended breaker is rated for that usage. For example, Eaton has a document listing which of theirs are suitable for reverse feed. Also would be a good idea to tag the wires in some way so it's obvious to anybody who comes along later that those are the conductor(s) supplying power to the box.

So far as the cord itself is concerned, there are several options. You could buy something that already has the TT-30 plug end molded on it and lop off whatever might be on the other end, or you could buy a replacement cord end plus a length of cord. Personally I'm quite partial to the SOOW type cord because it's so durable/rugged. Yeah there are cheaper options, but IMHO it's worth the one-time investment to use the good stuff.

[cschlessman]

One thing folks do is potentially dangerous, they mix up color code. Ac code says on 3 wire single phase black is hot, white is neutral and green is ground. On DC circuits red is hot, black is ground for all feeder circuits on DC just keep black as ground you can use any color for hot. More then once I have gone to help someone with a problem on a generator, solar system or home addition to find hot white wires on AC circuits and the one time I was shocked was on a circuit wire green hot, ouch

Just my 2 sense worth, do as you want

Chuck

[family wagon]

I'm familiar with at least one "exception" to the color code: a Jayco 5th-wheel trailer I rebuilt used black and white (instead of red) for its DC wiring. Even worse: as I recall, black was the +12 and white was the body/battery ground. I can think of a few reasons why they might have done it that way, but IMHO they're all pretty weak compared with the down sides of such a scheme. Surely this wasn't their only unit built this way; also I don't have any idea whether other RV manufacturers might use a similar scheme.

I'm with you: red and black for 12-volt on my rig. Jury's still out on it, but with the proliferation of USB-powered gadgets, I may decide to install a 5-volt system too. I'll have to think through the voltage drop vs wire gauge tradeoff more thoroughly before I bite into that though.

[lornaschinske]

The Class C that Das Mel is currently living in has blue (+) and white (-) DC wires as factory original. I used to post with a bunch of other folks on IRV2 that were all remodeling vintage RV of various brands and many were orphans (like the Class C.... Midas by Frolic). Often white was the ground, but you could never count on it. Always had to test. It was interesting to say the least. From what I can gather, the current manufacturers still tend to use their own "colours" for ground and hot. We've got grey (-) and yellow (+) to our 12vDC water pump. No other 12vDC has been run yet. We have enough grey/yellow Eagle cable to run to the back of the bus to wire up the heat exchanger fans or we will change out the yellow to another colour. We have very little 12vDC. I figure what ever colours you choose to use then you should keep your DC grounds the same colour. That way you can colour code the DC hot (+) to each appliance if you choose. Except I would not use white, black or green as those are pretty much accepted AC colours.

[Redbear]

Originally Posted by family wagon

I'm familiar with at least one "exception" to the color code: a Jayco 5th-wheel trailer I rebuilt used black and white (instead of red) for its DC wiring. Even worse: as I recall, black was the +12 and white was the body/battery ground. . . .

You will find that white is more or less the "standard" for ground on trailer chassis, and black is the standard for the hot, duplicating the look of AC house wiring. Blue chassis wires are for electric brakes, and yellow, green, and brown are the DC running and signal lights.

Apparently, the RVIA folks continue the black/white color scheme for DC circuits in the living quarters as well. Maybe they want to make it easy for out-of-work electricians to hook up appliances for them.

Also remember, red is the second hot leg in AC 120/240 single-phase wiring, and black, red and blue are all hot legs in AC 120/208 three-phase wiring. Red is not reserved for low-voltage DC.

[Henukaw]

Where can one information regarding what everything is? Power pole, bus bar, hot legs... I'm finding a lack of information regarding definitions and simple photo directions. I, for one, can only follow along so long until I'm beyond confused.

I've picked up books on electrical wiring, looked at a plethora of sites, and it seems to me the information available is limited and doesn't cover anything for those like me.

I've picked up parts after speaking with others (electricians, other bus converter folks, etc) and still lack the basic information I'm looking for. I've searched this site up and down and can't find info for us "dummies". I cannot find anything in books, either.

Here's what I have as far as panels, etc:

[Henukaw]

[Henukaw]

[Henukaw]

I'm desiring to power my bus as if it were a house. I'm only running AC appliances ( TV, coffee maker, stereo, lights, fridge, heater, etc). I plan to be able to hook up via 50, 30, or 15 amp service. I want to plug my bus in and be done. No generator, but eventually will include solar. I understand a great deal of what's being said, however, I don't know where to start. I've got my wiring done, I just need to hook it up to my servive panel. Right now I'm plugged into two 15 amp extension cords, of which I have ran into commercial grade serge protectors that I plug everything into.

I need photo directions and definitions.I'm trying to find out how to install my service panel, how to install my wiring to it, and how to install my receptacles to supply my power. I've found all the pertinent information regarding the logistics of electrical systems, I just don't know what some things are in order to put it all together. I'm smart enough to figure things out once I can "see" what's going on. Any help would be grand...

Cheers,
Beau

[bansil]

Originally Posted by Henukaw

Where can one information regarding what everything is? Power pole, bus bar, hot legs... I'm finding a lack of information regarding definitions and simple photo directions. I, for one, can only follow along so long until I'm beyond confused.

I've picked up books on electrical wiring, looked at a plethora of sites, and it seems to me the information available is limited and doesn't cover anything for those like me.

I've picked up parts after speaking with others (electricians, other bus converter folks, etc) and still lack the basic information I'm looking for. I've searched this site up and down and can't find info for us "dummies". I cannot find anything in books, either.

Here's what I have as far as panels, etc:

You will have 4 wires from the 50 plug BLACK and RED are the "hots" and then WHITE which is Neutral and then green which is ground

the bar w/green screws attached to the box is where your grounds all connect

see the other bar this is for all your neutrals (make sure it is separated/isolated from the box no bonding in the bus)

now look at the breakers (see the small screws? these go to the receptacles etc) notice how the one end slips onto the "blade"?

you have 1/2 the blades on one side and the others on other side

I put RED to one side and BLACK to the other side (so the circuits on the "black" side use black as the hot to appliances

the red side has "reds" as hots

I can't tell in your box if you have 2 big lugs for the incoming power (what size is it?)

here's mine before I straightened it up

[bansil]

better picture








and don't forget!!!!! mark it for future use