RV TT-30 to EV 14-50 Adapter

[dogsx]

I bought the following to be able to plug into an RV 30 amp outlet to charge our X when visiting a friend:
RV TT-30 Plug male to EV 14-50 Receptacle female.
The first adapter would not work with our X. The company sent us a second one which would also not work. They refunded our money. The company stated that the second adapter was tested on a S before it was sent to us and it worked correctly.
I don't know what might be different between an S and our 2017 X but I have these two adapters (which may or may not work) for anyone that wants one. Just pay postage.

 

[Darmie]

You have links to the plugs you refer to? New at this myself. I picked up the nema 14-30 from tesla

I think you will need this to connect to your UMC to start.

If the home is new then the dryer plug will be of a 14-30. My home built 1964 is of a 14-30. If home is of the older plug aka 10-30 see picture, then you need to create a conversion.

Difference is 3 plug or 4 plug type.
You could wire up a 3 to 4 prong by purchasing these
Leviton 30 Amp Single Surface Mounted Single Outlet, Black-R60-55054-000 - The Home Depot

HDX 6 ft. 10/3 3-Wire Dryer Cord-HD#627-833 - The Home Depot

One more thing I'll share with you. If your dryer plug is far from the car, you could look into an extention.

Conntek RU1430PR NEMA 14-30 Dryer / Range Extension Cords

Hope this helps.

 

[yeahsci]

You cannot use an RV TT-30 adapter with your Tesla. It is not wired correctly. See discussion here.

Also TT-30 is different than NEMA 10-30. Tesla does not sell a TT-30 adapter.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Normal TT-30 to 14-50 adapters are meant for RV shore power and are wired incorrectly for charging a Tesla. There are companies, like EvSEAdpaters.com that sell properly wired adapters that can be used for charging.

 

[dogsx]

You have links to the plugs you refer to? New at this myself. I picked up the nema 14-30 from teslaView attachment 241590

I think you will need this to connect to your UMC to start.

If the home is new then the dryer plug will be of a 14-30. My home built 1964 is of a 14-30. If home is of the older plug aka 10-30 see picture, then you need to create a conversion.

View attachment 241591

Difference is 3 plug or 4 plug type.
You could wire up a 3 to 4 prong by purchasing these
Leviton 30 Amp Single Surface Mounted Single Outlet, Black-R60-55054-000 - The Home Depot

HDX 6 ft. 10/3 3-Wire Dryer Cord-HD#627-833 - The Home Depot

One more thing I'll share with you. If your dryer plug is far from the car, you could look into an extention.

Conntek RU1430PR NEMA 14-30 Dryer / Range Extension Cords

Hope this helps.

Thanks but this is to plug into a RV 30 amp outlet not a dryer outlet. I personally have a dedicated outlet for our X so have no problems charging at home.

 

[dogsx]

Normal TT-30 to 14-50 adapters are meant for RV shore power and are wired incorrectly for charging a Tesla. There are companies, like EvSEAdpaters.com that sell properly wired adapters that can be used for charging.

These are supposedly not "normal" adapters and were sold as "for use with Tesla". Same as EvSEadapters but different company. They still don't work with our X (nor do they work for our RV) but have supposedly been tested on an S and work correctly. Thus why I posted here to see if anyone wanted them.

 

[GSP]

To use a TT-30 outlet, I recommend buying Tesla's 14-30 adapter, which will limit current to the maximum safe value of 24 Amps. If you use the 14-50 adapter that comes with the car, it could draw too much current if there is a software glitch, or you forget to manually set the charging current down to 24 Amps.

Amazon sells TT-30 plugs and cable, and surface mount 14-30 outlets to adapt to Tesla's 14-30 UMC plug. Or you could have one made for you by EVSEAdapters.com.

GSP

 

[Cosmacelf]

I'll grab one just to test it. What's the postage, what's your PayPal account? Also, what company made them for you?

Btw the other possibility is that the adapters work fine, but your friend's TT-30 isn't wired correctly. If the hot and neutral is swapped on the TT-30 outlet, then the car/UMC won't like it and it won't charge. Note that the TT-30 neutral and hot are reversed from the orientation that household plugs are, so it wouldn't surprise me that the fault lies with the receptacle.

If you have a volt/ohm meter, it is easy to test whether or not the TT-30 is wired correctly (both the live receptacle and the adapter). Let me know if you want info on how to do that.

 

[Cosmacelf]

OK, dogsx, I got your adapter in the mail today and I tested it. Sure enough it wasn't built/wired correctly. If you look on page nine of this document, it explains how to wire a TT-30 to 14-50 adapter (http://cosmacelf.net/Home Made Adapters.pdf). The adapter you sent me did in fact reverse the hot and neutral pins.

For whatever reason, the Tesla UMC, when it is supplied with 120V, wants to see neutral and hot on the correct pins - if they are reversed, the UMC will blink red and not work. Obviously when the UMC is presented with 240V, this isn't an issue, since both pins are hot.

Note that the adapter manufacturer tried their best, in that this IS an adapter that is wired differently from a typical RV 10-30 to 14-50 adapter. A typical RV 10-30 to 14-50 adapter will put the 10-30 hot onto BOTH the 14-50's hot pins which, of course, wouldn't work for the Tesla either since the UMC would then see 0 volts across the two power pins.

So if you want to help out that clueless manufacturer, send them a link to my document and tell them that they need to understand AND TEST things a bit better if they want to stay in business. I am guessing they built one adapter with the correct Hot/Neutral pairing and then they thought they knew what they were doing, not realizing that swapping the hot/neutral would make it fail.

 

[Rocky_H]

Note that the adapter manufacturer tried their best, in that this IS an adapter that is wired differently from a typical RV 10-30 to 14-50 adapter. A typical RV 10-30 to 14-50 adapter will put the 10-30 hot onto BOTH the 14-50's hot pins which, of course, wouldn't work for the Tesla either since the UMC would then see 0 volts across the two power pins.

Repeated typo. That should be TT-30, not 10-30 in all of those instances.

 

[scottm]

Listen to the @Cosmacelf ... dude knows his adapters.

I built my own TT-30 to 14-50, worked fine. I must have got lucky getting neutral and hot on the right pins! And the adapter setup DOES allow the car to dial up Amps beyond what TT-30 can safely deliver.

It's worth pointing out that TT-30 is a 120VAC plug system and the 14-50 is normally considered a 240VAC system, but the UMC "reads" the 120VAC just fine when using the 14-50 plug head on the UMC.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Repeated typo. That should be TT-30, not 10-30 in all of those instances.

Ah crap. And I had read that post a couple of times too. Yes, you're right, replace all 10-30 with TT-30.

 

[Rocky_H]

Ah crap. And I had read that post a couple of times too. Yes, you're right, replace all 10-30 with TT-30.

Well, your electrical knowledge and my proofreading skills: "Wonder Twin powers, activate!"
On a related note, I sure wish some of these places would switch to making them with a 10-30 or 14-30 outlet so the current level is matched correctly.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Well, your electrical knowledge and my proofreading skills: "Wonder Twin powers, activate!"
On a related note, I sure wish some of these places would switch to making them with a 10-30 or 14-30 outlet so the current level is matched correctly.

You mean places that have TT-30 outlets? AFAIK, TT-30 outlets are ONLY used in places where you might find camping trailers. Older and smaller trailers natively plug into TT-30 outlets, while newer and bigger ones like to plug into 14-50 outlets. While it might seem easy to upgrade a single TT-30 outlet to a 240V outlet, it isn't that easy. The TT-30 doesn't have enough wires for a 14-30 outlet, and you cannot install a new 10-30 outlet anymore (isn't up to code). Making it even worse, many RV parks have very funky and weird electrical distribution systems making upgrading problematic to say the least.

But yeah, new RV parks could just install 14-50 outlets and be done with it. Adapting a 14-50 to a TT-30 is easy and safe.

I gotta say, though, that this whole TT-30 thing is blown way out of proportion. Very, very few people have ever charged their Tesla using a TT-30. Most people will look for RV parks that have the 50A 14-50 connections. I'm not saying using the TT-30 doesn't happen, just that it doesn't happen very often.

 

[dogsx]

Thanks Cosmacelf.

 

[Rocky_H]

You mean places that have TT-30 outlets?

No, none of that is what I am talking about at all. I said "so the current level would be matched correctly". I'm talking about these places online that are still making pigtail adapters from a TT-30 plug to a 14-50 outlet. Why are they still adapting 30 amp to 50 amp now that Tesla does sell real 30 amp adapter types again? It's not right or necessary anymore, and they need to stop that.

 

[Cosmacelf]

No, none of that is what I am talking about at all. I said "so the current level would be matched correctly". I'm talking about these places online that are still making pigtail adapters from a TT-30 plug to a 14-50 outlet. Why are they still adapting 30 amp to 50 amp now that Tesla does sell real 30 amp adapter types again? It's not right or necessary anymore, and they need to stop that.

Oh. One problem with charging in the wild is that electrical plugs are often not within 20 feet of where you can back your Tesla to. So, you need an extension cord. Ideally it would be about 30 feet long. So, to cover all the bases, you'd need a 20A (12 gauge) extension cord, a 30A (10 gauge) extension cord, and a 50A (6 gauge) extension cord, with appropriate plugs.

Or you could adapt everything to a 14-50, and just carry around one extension cord and dial the amperage to the right level.

So that's why people make pigtails to adapt to a 14-50.

Probably the best alternative I've found is to lengthen your UMC cable itself from 20 feet to 50 feet or more. The folks at Quick Charge Power will modify your UMC in this way (Tesla UMC extension). If you did that, then you would have your nirvana of making or buying pigtails that adapt to the correct Amperage Tesla adapter.

 

[rhumbliner]

I gotta say, though, that this whole TT-30 thing is blown way out of proportion. Very, very few people have ever charged their Tesla using a TT-30. Most people will look for RV parks that have the 50A 14-50 connections. I'm not saying using the TT-30 doesn't happen, just that it doesn't happen very often

Last spring, before we began our summer-long tour, I studied your guide and made nearly every adapter you listed. About a week before our trip, while I was waiting to get my windows tinted, I was bored and decided to make a TT-30 adapter just for the fun of it. Sure enough, that was the first adapter in my collection that I needed -- at a little campground near Mendocino.

 

[thecloud]

Oh. One problem with charging in the wild is that electrical plugs are often not within 20 feet of where you can back your Tesla to. So, you need an extension cord.

Can confirm. Each time I've actually charged from a 30A dryer outlet at a destination, the UMC was not long enough to reach on its own. Fortunately, I had the 50A Camco extension cord and had built several adapters based on your guide, so just needed to dial down the amps in the car. Tesla wasn't selling 30A adapters at the time, so there weren't many alternatives. Since then I've picked up most of the Tesla adapters, but in practice, the pigtails get used because of the need for the extension cord.

For safety, it would be better to use the Tesla 14-30 adapter on the UMC end, to eliminate the possibility of ever drawing more than 24 amps. That would mean doing one of the following:
1) cutting the neutral (L-shaped) pin off the Tesla 14-30 adapter, as has been suggested elsewhere, to let it plug directly into the 14-50 extension cord.
2) making a 14-50P to 14-30R pigtail for the UMC end of the extension cord. That would avoid any destructive adapter modification, but would likely increase resistance/loss by adding another segment with connections on each end.

Anyone have experience using either of these methods with the Tesla 14-30 adapter?

 

[supratachophobia]

I bought the following to be able to plug into an RV 30 amp outlet to charge our X when visiting a friend:
RV TT-30 Plug male to EV 14-50 Receptacle female.
The first adapter would not work with our X. The company sent us a second one which would also not work. They refunded our money. The company stated that the second adapter was tested on a S before it was sent to us and it worked correctly.
I don't know what might be different between an S and our 2017 X but I have these two adapters (which may or may not work) for anyone that wants one. Just pay postage.

Wait, you should be doing a tt-30 to 14-30 adapter, right? I have one that I made.