30 amp breaker panel ?s

[jpatt]

hi all, i am ready to wire my bus for electric. i will be powering 1 roof top air conditioner and a couple of recepticles in the bus. can i buy a breaker panel to do this at lowes or home depot or do i need a rv breaker panel. i think ineed a single pole 30 amp main with a couple of 15 amp breakers ??
will a 15 amp breaker handle a roof top A/C ?? any help with this will be apreciated.

thanks jesse

[Steve]

Yes a home circuit breaker box will be just fine. My ac unit is a 5200BTU and is rated for a 15 amp breaker, it should say on your unit or in your manual what breaker size you should use.

One thing to keep in mind is that your bus will see a lot of vibration and it would be best to do your wiring with stranded cable (extention cord type) rather than solid wire which will break after time.

[lornaschinske]

Actually pre-tinned boat wiring (Anchor brand best) is the best wiring but pricey. When using stranded wire that hasn't been tinned (most that you buy won't be tinned), tin the connection ends. Tinning is just dipping the wire in a bit of flux cleaner and melting a bit of solder so that the wire sucks it up just a bit. This will make it easier for you to keep the stranded wire connected to the connections when tightening them down. You need to have a hot soldering iron and try not to get the wire too hot. Use a light hand with the solder as you want to just a enough to keep the exposed wire from splaying out as the connections are tightened.

[lapeer20m]

This is not necessarily the correct way to do things. Electrical wiring in a skoolie seems to be a subject of great debate. There are lots of ways to set up the electrical on a skoolie, some are good ideas, some are not. Here is how i do things in my bus.

Breaker boxes seem unecessarily costly, and I hate to spend money. I decided that i could make my skoolie just as safe, without the expense.

One 15 amp circuit is plenty to run all the 110 volt stuff in my bus. I simply run all the electricty (inverter, shore power, or generator) through a GFI. The GFI will trip much easier than a standard breaker, and they only cost about $7.00 at Home Depot.

Care must be taken when choosing the connections to ensure that all of the outlets "downstream" from the GFI are also protected.

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by lapeer20m

Breaker boxes seem unecessarily costly...

Wow, I think I only spent about $20 for the breaker panel that I used in my Apache pop-up (holds 8 breakers but no main, I think its called a service box or auxilary box for things that run off the main house panel and therefore don't need a main... I needed to use the pop-up while still remodeling it so I have several circuits each with own breaker and I buy the breakers as I add the components). And it's a handy place for all my wiring to come together at. You really don't need a main switch if you are only running from the power pole connection in parks. I ran my box because I need to be able to shut down part of the camper at times like the exposed plug that connects to the ceiling to run the lights & exhaust fan (design flaw to me because you can never plug in while popped down but they made all the Apaches that way and I get flack because I reworked my exterior electrical hook-up on the same principal ). I flip the breaker so no power runs to it (dedicated circuit) this way I can leave the pop-up plugged in to run the refrigerator until it's time to leave. If you have anything that you want "switched off" then this is a good way to do it. Otherwise you can use a regular switch (which I don't like to do). But it is your bus and you can do exactly what you want with it.