It’s not surprising that @campingtrailsrv on TikTok has, without fail, defended our honor as RV technicians, but what IS surprising is just how thoroughly he smacked down those nasty electricians with this video:
Let’s run through some of the excellent points he made in this video.
If you don’t see the expected value on your meter, that means your meter probably just isn’t set up to measure amperage properly. The breaker WILL see whatever value you expect it to, and that’s what you should rely on. Just because your meter sees zero amps when you clamp both sides of the split phase at the same time, does not mean that the load is balanced evenly over each leg of the 240v. It means that you must assume there is 120v and 100a.
It’s true that jumping one leg of a split phase system to another one in a panel means that you can run more than 50a through the 2-pole 50a breaker. This unequivocally proves that running 2 legs of split-phase 240v into that same breaker is no different, and hooking it up properly will result in 100 amps of current being run through the breaker, at max capacity.
It also means that jumping one leg across both sides of the breaker will NOT cause the wire attached to said breaker melt down before the breaker trips from 100amps of load, because the amperage is the exact same kind of thing as the typical 240v setup. This enables a bunch of cool electrical techniques, for instance, you can take the other leg and install it in an identical panel and run, in essence a 120v, 200a total system from wires that typically would be rated 240v 50a. This is a trick your electric company definitely doesn’t want you to know.
Keep up the good fight, RV technicians of the world!