Capebuild wrote:Thank you. I don’t plan on air conditioning, microwave
or other high draw appliances, so maybe 15 or 20 amp will
work.
RV parks offering electric will at least have a 20amp receptacle in the power pedestal that is protected in the pedestal with a GFCI breaker of 20amp. The 20a receptacle can accept 15a or 20a extension cords.
If you are not running appliances drawing over 15 or 20 amps all you need is a 120v, 15a or 20a extension cord plugged into the standard outlet on your camper (commonly referred to as an "inlet" in RV lingo). By standard outlet I mean just like you plug an extension cord into at your home or office. Make sure you use an extension cord of 14/3 gauge or better, 12/3 gauge. Ignoring cord length for our purposes a 14awg cord will be fine for up to 15amps. 12awg will be good for up to 20amps.
You can run a number of appliances, one at a time, in a teardrop with a 12 gauge extension cord plugged into the 20a receptacle on the power pedestal. A battery charger, coffee pot, blender, small toaster or toaster oven, etc. Almost anything you can run in your home kitchen. A microwave is a maybe if it is rated under 20 amp. Run ONLY one appliance at a time. So a small microwave that uses under 20amps is OK if you are not running any other appliance. A battery charger pulling 5 to 7 amps can be run with a low draw appliance. Just know the amperage draw of each appliance and make sure any you use together don't add up to more than 20 amp.
From the "inlet" through the camper make sure you size the wire to receptacles to handle the amperage you intend to draw. I would suggest using 12awg throughout your build going to all receptacles. If you drop down in gauge anywhere it should be accompanied with the appropriate fuse of breaker to protect that gauge wire.
The big box RVs use 30a or 50amp mostly because they want to run everything without having to think about all the above. It's a matter of convenience for the average Home on wheels RV enthusiast.
Tim