Inverter to Panel Wiring

Hi,

I simply wired a 30 amp plug and power that from the inverter. Set the fridge to gas and turn off the electric water heater.

Overhead from the inverter will take about 100 watts of the panel output per day. (28.8 amp-hours per 24 hours in my case). Mine has a load sense setting but I can't live with it flashing various and sundry items (such as the microwave) ever 5 seconds.

What inverter do you have?

Would a house 3 way switch work for what you want to do? I used one to power plug for water heater or plug for portable heater not both at once.

The output from the inverter should not feed all 120 vac outlets in the RV. Better to have a dedicated outlet or two to prevent problems, like hair dryer, microwave, or hair dryer, space heater or another pair of high wattage items on at the same time.

The easy way: wire it to a socket you can plug your shore power cord into.

The harder but possibly more convenient way: obtain a transfer switch of some sort and install it such that it switches the main power input to the electric panel between the inverter and the shore power cord.

The inverter may have some sort of a transfer switch built into it already, in which case it could also be wired so that (typically) one or two branch circuits go through it and are switched between shore power and inverter power that way. Using the built-in transfer switch you're typically not able to switch the entire electric service, as it usually doesn't have sufficiently high ratings.

Do not simply connect the inverter and the RV power directly without some sort of a transfer switching arrangement. Doing so is dangerous: it leaves the exposed male end of the shore power cord/connector energized when the inverter is on, and plugging into a shore power connection or a generator will damage the inverter (at least if the inverter is on, and quite possibly just if its connected in, depending on the design).