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30A adapter

Raife
Explorer
Explorer
Good afternoon. We are looking to purchase a multi-use generator (emergency home and maybe boondocking). The unit we are looking at has a L5-30R plug, but I believe the male end of my Grand Design TT cord is a TT-30P...can I get something like this so I can use my generator with my TT?

https://www.amazon.com/NEMA-TT-30R-L5-30P-RV-Adapter/dp/B076BHP37W
21 REPLIES 21

wa8yxm
Explorer III
Explorer III
valhalla360 wrote:
Most of the portable inverter generators that have the 30amp outlet are the TT-30 design..


Not that I've seen most are the round Twist Lock (NOT Marinco) kind Nema something or another.
Home was where I park it. but alas the.
2005 Damon Intruder 377 Alas declared a total loss
after a semi "nicked" it. Still have the radios
Kenwood TS-2000, ICOM ID-5100, ID-51A+2, ID-880 REF030C most times

NRALIFR
Explorer
Explorer
Raife, since you donโ€™t have a gas furnace, you might want to consider installing a freestanding stove that uses either NG or wood pellets for fuel. Until recently, I had a wood burning stove, and one of the circuits I made sure the standby generator energized was the one that the stove uses for the blower fan.

After over 30 years of dealing with firewood, though (actually itโ€™s the firewood dealers I was sick of dealing with) I replaced the woodstove with a Harmon XXV-TC pellet stove. I canโ€™t say enough good things about that stove. It is totally automated in its operation, and the maintenance of it is so much easier than than a wood burner. Building a fire in the pellet stove involves touching the โ€œOnโ€ icon on the touchscreen panel on top. It lights itself and controls the burn rate to maintain the room temperature with a wireless temperature sensor. The fuel is so much easier and cleaner to store, too.

We never lost power during that winter storm we just had, but the igniter in my main gas furnace decided to fail the day it started snowing so I couldnโ€™t use it. The pellet stove was providing most of the heat in my house for several days. The burn rate got as high as 70 lbs/24 hrs, or almost two bags a day. I would have been hurting without it.

I know there are also freestanding NG fueled stoves that look similar to a pellet stove, and their power requirements would be about the same. Probably less maintenance than a pellet stove though.

:):)
2001 Lance 1121 on a 2016 F450 โ€˜Scuse me while I whinge.
And for all you Scooby-Doo and Yosemite Sam typesโ€ฆโ€ฆโ€ฆ..Letโ€™s Go Brandon!!!

Grit_dog
Nomad III
Nomad III
Raife, man I was down in the Texas mess at our boys hockey tournament!
It was a 5 alarm madhouse down there.
Finally ended up ditching the hotel with no power for 2 + days and hijacking our rental car to Albuquerque to get a flight home.
Buy that genny and a pallet of space heaters and then you can guarantee that weather will never happen again!
Actually told my buddy in Albuquerque he should pull out every penny he had in the bank and fill his race trailer with generators, space heaters and gas cans and hump it down there. He would have made a fortune!
That said, you donโ€™t need near that big of generator to wait out a little power outage. With the odds against what happened this year happening again. If your camper doesnโ€™t have a genny Iโ€™d think about getting a smaller dual purpose unit.

We have a 7k generator for power outages. Pretty common occurrence here in the coastal PNW. I plug it in and we just keep going like the power was on.
But for even more occasional use and versatility, Iโ€™d be thinking smaller honestly. JMO.
2016 Ram 2500, MotorOps.ca EFIlive tuned, 5โ€ turbo back, 6" lift on 37s
2017 Heartland Torque T29 - Sold.
Couple of Arctic Fox TCs - Sold

Raife
Explorer
Explorer
We have a heat pump system, so I will have to look into if we are able to run it. I plan on buying a couple electric heaters now while demand is low. When we lived in CO, we had a 2 zone system, 2 dedicated furnaces and 2 dedicated AC units...it was awesome.

NRALIFR
Explorer
Explorer
Thatโ€™s why I mentioned that the generator could be used to run a gas furnace. Furnace fan motors are typically 120 volts, and will require much less wattage than electric heaters, so if at all possible you should make it possible to use your gas furnace in a power outage. Letting your house freeze up is not a good idea at all.

That kind of cold doesnโ€™t happen often in TX, but as we just saw, when it does happen, itโ€™s bad. Iโ€™m โ€œnext doorโ€ in AR, and it got cold enough here that I was having to pay very close attention to how cold the vulnerable water pipes in my house were getting. Some of my neighbors didnโ€™t pay attention and had frozen/broken water lines.

:):)
2001 Lance 1121 on a 2016 F450 โ€˜Scuse me while I whinge.
And for all you Scooby-Doo and Yosemite Sam typesโ€ฆโ€ฆโ€ฆ..Letโ€™s Go Brandon!!!

pianotuna
Nomad II
Nomad II
valhalla360,

A house without a furnace never occurred to me--so thanks for pointing that out.

If you wished to run electric heaters, where I live 8000 watts would not be enough--and would barely do my RV where my peak load is 7300 watts, and continuous load is 5400.
Regards, Don
My ride is a 28 foot Class C, 256 watts solar, 556 amp-hours of Telcom jars, 3000 watt Magnum hybrid inverter, Sola Basic Autoformer, Microair Easy Start.

Raife
Explorer
Explorer
Thank you for the last couple of posts/responses...very helpful. I will amend my earlier statement regarding boondocking and requalify the trailer use as "to live in during an extended power outage while the trailer is parked in our driveway."

It is true that my primary at this point is for home emergency use.

I was actually looking at the Westinghouse first, but they were NOWHERE in stock...I am on alerts from several retailers and even Westinghouse themselves. However, I see that Amazon has them in stock now.

The natural gas is still very appealing as I can use it for an extended time without needing to refuel and it is a minimal cost (thank you NRALIFR for your perspective).

If we ever decide to actually boondock (which is likely rare) I will look into getting a quiet generator.

Thank you for everyone's perspectives.

valhalla360
Nomad
Nomad
pianotuna wrote:
For what you plan to run 8000 watts is overkill.


We got caught in that same storm in Texas one of the big problems was down south, a lot of the houses didn't have furnaces, so there was a run on electric space heaters (of course ours crapped out the day before temps dropped but at least we still had the furnace in the RV, so only a minor hassle of keeping up on propane).

8k watts isn't overkill to run 3-4 1500w space heaters in the house.

That said, it's a pretty poor choice to take camping.
Tammy & Mike
Ford F250 V10
2021 Gray Wolf
Gemini Catamaran 34'
Full Time spliting time between boat and RV

wanderingaimles
Explorer
Explorer
I have used a construction type genny for years as a home backup and a couple times to power my camper. If the op is somewhere that his home has a well instead of city water, he likely has to have a 240 connection to power the well. I made a cord and cutoff for that purpose with the old Honda, and then used a 15 amp extension cord to power the fridge and a couple lights along with it.
If that is not the case and he wants a larger genny for dual use the 4500 watt from Westinghouse may be a great compromise although IF the natural gas connection was a major attraction, this may not meet your wishes.

Bobbo
Explorer II
Explorer II
wa8yxm wrote:
NOTE.. You may need to do somethign "illegal".....That something is connect green and white together to teh white screw on the generator end of the adapter . Green is often Not Connected in the Generator,

It's not "illegal" on a generator. It is only "illegal" in a subpanel connected to the grid.
Bobbo and Lin
2017 F-150 XLT 4x4 SuperCab w/Max Tow Package 3.5l EcoBoost V6
2017 Airstream Flying Cloud 23FB

NRALIFR
Explorer
Explorer
You anti-generator bigots need to slow down and read what the OP posted......TWICE.

The OP said he is wanting this generator โ€œfor emergency home use and maybe boondockingโ€. In his second post (which Iโ€™m not going to quote because itโ€™s already been quoted and ignored once), heโ€™s described usage that is totally home emergency use. So I would say that his intended usage is PRIMARILY home use.

Neither situation will bother you or any other campers. The OP is from Texas, and Iโ€™m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt that โ€œboondockingโ€ means nobody else will be around that will give a shyte.

As for home emergency use, he said he will be running it on NG, which is a good plan for obvious reasons. Using NG as the fuel source will de-rate the generator output to about 7KW though, so that should be kept in mind. I donโ€™t consider it to be over-kill for a unit that is primarily for home standby use.

It has 240 volt circuits, so it could be used for a small central air system, but youโ€™ll have very little capacity left of you do. Since the OP has NG available at home though, if he has gas furnaces, the generator can be used to run those. Iโ€™m sure heโ€™s very well aware of this now after the power problems Texas just experienced, staying warm can be critical in a winter power outage. If he experienced a long outage in the summertime, it has enough excess capacity that it could be used to run a portable or window mounted AC.

Itโ€™s also large enough to run all of the critical loads in a typical house, and allow you to live more or less normally during an extended outage. You need to consider powering things like refrigerators, freezers, pumps, fans, garage door openers, hair dryers, microwaves, washers and dryers, and probably a few things Iโ€™m forgetting during an extended power outage.

Raife, just for comparison sake, I have a 10KW home standby generator installed at my house. It uses NG for the fuel, so its de-rated to 9KW. It has the ability to provide 240 volts, but Iโ€™m not using it for any 240 circuits because that reduces the number of 120 volt circuits the transfer switch panel can support. Itโ€™s powered us through several extended outages over the years, most of them in the wintertime. Weโ€™ve had a couple of long summertime outages though, and Iโ€™ve had to use a portable AC to give us a cool place to sleep, and cool the room the boss uses as a home office. Itโ€™s run for as long as a week continuously, and will add about $100 to our gas bill after running that long. I remember one of those summertime outages that the daytime temperature was getting over 100* every day, which also de-rates its output, and the generator was running very close to overload for several hours each day.

Now having said all that, for strictly RV use I prefer the quieter inverter based units, even if nobody else is around to hear it. My TC has a 3600 LP generator built in that is an inverter type, but itโ€™s used so seldom that at 20 years old it has less than 150 hours on it. I also carry a Yamaha 1000 thatโ€™s much quieter than the built-in, and I use the snot out of it. It has no hour meter on it, but I use it all the time both at home and camping.

:):)
2001 Lance 1121 on a 2016 F450 โ€˜Scuse me while I whinge.
And for all you Scooby-Doo and Yosemite Sam typesโ€ฆโ€ฆโ€ฆ..Letโ€™s Go Brandon!!!

wa8yxm
Explorer III
Explorer III
Most Generator stores and larger RV stores have the needed adapter

Any electrician or electrical shop can make one.

You can as well if you know what the Bleep you are doing

NOTE.. You may need to do somethign "illegal" if you have a hard wired surge guard in your RV.. and you should have one (One of the top end ones that monitor voltage and turn you off if it's not right)(

That something is connect green and white together to teh white screw on the generator end of the adapter . Green is often Not Connected in the Generator,
Home was where I park it. but alas the.
2005 Damon Intruder 377 Alas declared a total loss
after a semi "nicked" it. Still have the radios
Kenwood TS-2000, ICOM ID-5100, ID-51A+2, ID-880 REF030C most times

pianotuna
Nomad II
Nomad II
Hi,

For what you plan to run 8000 watts is overkill.

I found I could run my fridge, freezer, furnace, computer, and many lights on the house from a 2800 watt inverter generator by Kipor.

The wave form on the 8k may not be particularly "clean".

For emergency home use be sure to have a proper transfer switch with a lockout. You really don't want to back-feed the grid and hurt a linesman.
Regards, Don
My ride is a 28 foot Class C, 256 watts solar, 556 amp-hours of Telcom jars, 3000 watt Magnum hybrid inverter, Sola Basic Autoformer, Microair Easy Start.

KD4UPL
Explorer
Explorer
Yes, you can use an adapter.
That generator will be really loud and suck down fuel like crazy.