Camco 55245 30-Amp TT-30P Replacement Plug

A shore power cord doesn't usually fail in the middle. It fails at the ends. The plug that goes into the pedestal or the boat inlet takes the abuse. It gets yanked, it gets stepped on, and over time the prongs pit and the body cracks. When that happens on a Camco Power Grip 30-amp cord, you don't have to replace the whole cord. You replace the plug. That's exactly what this is: the yellow molded TT-30P male plug end with the built-in Plug Head Handle, packaged on a clamshell card.

The reason we like the PowerGrip design is that handle. Anybody who's fought a tight power pedestal at a crowded marina knows the problem. You grab the cord, you pull, and you're really pulling on the wire and the strain relief instead of the plug. Do that enough times and you loosen the terminals inside. The molded handle gives you a real grip, so you pull the plug straight out, the way you're supposed to. It's a small thing, but it saves the connection over a lot of plug-and-unplug cycles.

TT-30P is the standard 30-amp configuration you'll find on RV cords and on a lot of dockside 30-amp setups. It's a 125-volt, three-prong plug: one hot, one neutral, one ground. If your cord ends in a 30-amp travel-trailer style plug and drops into a 30-amp pedestal, this is the end you want. It isn't a 50-amp connection and it isn't a locking plug, so match it to a standard 30-amp inlet or the right adapter.

Rewiring a plug end is straightforward if you're comfortable with hand tools and you kill the power first. Cut the old plug off, strip back the outer jacket, and strip the three conductors. Land them under the terminal screws, hot and neutral on their sides and the green ground where it belongs, and snug everything down. Then tighten the strain-relief clamp on the jacket so the pull load goes to the clamp and not to the copper. Give each screw a second check before you close it up. A loose terminal is what heats up and burns a plug in the first place.

If this is going on a boat, treat the connection like everything else in a salt environment. A little dielectric grease on the prongs keeps corrosion off the contact surfaces and makes the next unplug easier. Keep the connection out of standing water, and rinse the plug with fresh water when you rinse the boat. On a dock you'll cycle this connection a lot more than most people cycle an outlet at home, so a clean, tight, greased connection pays off.

One honest note: replace the plug when the plug is the problem. If the cord jacket is cut, cracked, or the copper is showing anywhere along its length, that's a cord problem, and you should replace the cord, not just the end. And don't ask a 30-amp plug to carry more than 30 amps. If your prongs are showing heat discoloration, that's usually a sign something downstream was pulling too hard or a terminal was loose. Fix the cause, not just the plug.

For a first-time owner, this is one of the easier repairs on the boat or the rig, and it's a lot cheaper than a new cord. For anyone who's done it before, you already know the drill. Either way, keep one in the dock box next to the spare fuses. A good yellow plug is easy to see when you're connecting at dusk, and it's the kind of low-cost part you're glad you kept around the night you actually need it.