FlasherZ are you sure? Many NEMA 14-50 circuits will use the neutral to split in not two 120v circuits. If you do not have a neutral the 120v will not work. It is not unsafe it just will not work.
Yes, I am 100% sure and have seen it many times. It is EXTREMELY unsafe and power companies will come screaming to your door to fix it if it happens to your service loop, because many fires have been started by a loose or disconnected neutral.
Remember that we have a split phase service:
Code:
| | |
|---------|----------|
L1 N L2
Half the 120V appliances are connected from L1 to N, while half the appliances (usually the A/C unit) are connected from N-L2.
At first glance, you might say that disconnecting the neutral means that nothing works. However, remember that one leg of each appliance circuit is still connected to the "N" bus in the RV, and they're tied together. This creates a 240V series circuit from L1-appliance1-Nbus-appliance2-L2 (for appliances that complete the circuit by offering a completed circuit).
When neutral is tied to the center tap on the transformer feeding it, it provides a reference point for L1 and L2 versus ground - keeping them both at 120V (and the unbalanced current returns on the neutral). When neutral back to the transformer is disconnected and "floats" (e.g., in the case where a 14-50 doesn't have a neutral), then the 240V voltage drop between L1/L2 is proportionally divided based on the resistance of the loads. If the resistance (load) of L1-N is 2x that of N-L2, then the voltage from L1-N will be 160V and the voltage from N-L2 will be 80V. Both are far out of spec for 120V appliances.
Watch this video for an explanation:
In this video - one light bulb is 2x the wattage (lower resistance) than the other.
This is why a power company will come racing out to your home to fix a broken neutral from the transformer. Just saw it happen about 3 weeks ago in a home near me - blew a lot of light bulbs and destroyed a good number of appliances.
Trust me: if it weren't an issue and it just "didn't work", I wouldn't have dire warnings plastered all over the place about labeling your adapter cords 6 ways to Sunday...