Welder outlet diagram

Don’t plug your RV into one, even with a dogbone adapter!

Everyone,

Last week I published an article about not plugging your RV into welder outlets. Read it again HERE.

Someone in the comments asked for a diagram of how these 2-pole receptacles are wired, so here goes.

As you can see, these 240-volt outlets have 2 hot legs and a ground conductor, but no neutral. So there’s no way to split the incoming 240-volt phase into 120/120 volts. It’s 240 volts only!

Plugging your RV into one of these 3-wire, 240-volt outlets using any kind of dogbone adapter will burn up your RV electrical system.

Avoid using EV adapters for your RV

So why are these kind of adapters even made? Well, Electric Vehicles can be charged using a Level-2 charger with 240 volts, so they don’t need a neutral conductor at all. And since you can buy a Level-2 EV Charger with a 50-amp RV 14-50 plug, you can plug your Tesla or ID.4 EV charger into a 3-wire welder outlet using an adapter like this one.

Not for your RV!

But NEVER plug your RV into a 50-amp NEMA 14-50R outlet that was wired for a Level-2 EV charger. Even though it looks like a 50-amp pedestal outlet, it probably doesn’t have a neutral. So plugging your 50-amp RV shore power cord into it can cause a lot of electrical damage.

More on dangerous dogbone adapters later…

Let’s play safe out there… Mike