generator in an old rv

A lot of companies have posted the owners/installation manuals on line at the website. Check the Onan website (usually under "Customer Support") for a list of manuals.

As Bear said most manuals are available on the Onan site. As far as wiring the quickest easiest is to put a jbox with a female socket in it that feeds the motorhome. Then put a matching male plug on you power cord and anther matching plug on the cord from the genset. This solves transfer switch issues and is the simplest connection, and how manufacturer's used to wire the units.

tahiti16 wrote:
As Bear said most manuals are available on the Onan site. As far as wiring the quickest easiest is to put a jbox with a female socket in it that feeds the motorhome. Then put a matching male plug on you power cord and anther matching plug on the cord from the genset. This solves transfer switch issues and is the simplest connection, and how manufacturer's used to wire the units.

X2

Aawesome thanks, so by setting up the plugs straight from the generator to the jbox that rules out the transfer switch, but does the battery that is in the rv that powers the lights and everything get charged while the rv is on, or does that connection pretty much override the battery connection? Sorry if my questions are ignorant but I have very little experience and mechanics are jerking me around so i'd prefer to DIM(do it myself). Thanks a lot!

you should have a converter/charger and may even have a converter/charger/inverter installed. The purpose is to supply 12 volts when plugged in and charge the batteries. If your batteries charge now when plugged in they should charge with generator installed and wired as described above.

There is a very simple way to install your generator.
Just install the generator. Run the AC power from the generator directly to the shorepower compartment. Plug your shorepower cord into the AC power from the generator in the compartment when needed. Unplug and plug into shorepower when available. Simple and no transfer switches needed.

Here is a typical 30AMP Electrical block diagram of a RV trailer setup..
Might give some ideas what to expect...



My generator is PORTABLE so I like the idea of just plugging the 30AMP Shore Power cable directly into the generator 120VAC receptacle using the proper RV30A-15A long adapter for my 2KW Honda type generator. Can't get no simpler than this...

Of course my only requirement for the generator is to re-charge my battery bank only. I run all of my 120VAC items we want to use from an inverter and all of the 12VDC items direct connected to the battery bank. The generator just re-charges the battery bank back up each morning when allowed in a three hour generator run time using smart-mode technology charging so we can do all of this all over again for the next day/night run off the batteries.

We found out real quick we could only run our generator just a few hours aday so had to come with alternate quiet way of camping off the power grid to meet the generator run time restrictions that seem to be everywhere...

We can stay out a good couple of weeks doing the 50% to 90% battery charge cycles before we have to run our generator for a full 12-hours to recharge back to a full 100% charge state so that we won't do any harm to the batteries.. This is usually when we come back home and recharge the battery bank for 12-hours and more at the CAMP BACKYARD.

Always got to have PLAN Bs
Roy Ken

Jgar,

Maybe I read it wrong, but if I didn't, then what Tahiti suggested is dangerous. You should never have power to open pins (like a male plug).

My coach had a built in shore power cable and in the same box it lives in is a receptacle (female) that is fed by the APU (genset). So, the coach cable gets plugged in one of two places, either a shore power post or there in the box.

Matt

Matt_Colie wrote:
Jgar,

Maybe I read it wrong, but if I didn't, then what Tahiti suggested is dangerous. You should never have power to open pins (like a male plug).

My coach had a built in shore power cable and in the same box it lives in is a receptacle (female) that is fed by the APU (genset). So, the coach cable gets plugged in one of two places, either a shore power post or there in the box.

Matt

Best way to do it.

Sweet, thanks a lot everyone. So I'm gonna tee off of my main gas tank to feed the generator and put a jbox in the compartment that will feed from the generator and connect the shore power line to it. If that isn't right let me know but I think that's it. Thanks for the help again and I'll post back up here when I have it running for a final thanks... if I don't blow myself up in the process!