Can't find way to turn off converter in Kodiak

Sheesh, screw the Keurig, buy a $20 glass french press coffee maker. Measure it full with water, dump into a kettle, and heat the kettle up on the cook top stove with propane. Add favorite grounds, pour boiling hot water when it whistles, and if you want it quick, run the press portion up and down a couple of times to homogenize all the coffee. Using electricity to heat on such a small scale is only practical if you are getting tons of solar free to make your electricity recharge your batteries. It's a huge waste burning gasoline to make electricity via a generator to heat up water to make coffee.

If you just want something small to run the tv and charge small items then use a transfer switch to power the single circuit AFTER the converter. This is how mine is set up with 300 watt inverter.

http://www.donrowe.com/KISAE-TS20A-Automatic-Transfer-Switch-p/ts20a.htm

Inverter power never hits the converter.

What model is your power distribution center? Most hae a circuit breaker in them marked CONV. and that is your answer.

However some RV's the CONV circuit also powers the Fridge or the _____ (varies RV to RV) of course on inverter power you do not want the FRIDGE on A/C anyway so that is not a problem, all you loose is the ice maker.

The problem with plugging your shore power into an inverter is that anything that is plugged in will begin to draw power unless you turn it off first. That includes fridge, water heater, cell phone chargers, laptops, lamps, you name it. We ended up with an inverter for the front tv and sat receiver and we heated water on the stove for coffee in the morning, pouring it through the coffee maker ourselves.

We did this AFTER we had installed 420 watts of solar and had 320AH of battery because while 320 amp hours sounds like a lot, it goes fast. If you are using batteries all evening, there won't be enough left to power a keurig; the AMP draw will take the inverter below its safety margin and set off alarm bells. Really unpleasant before morning coffee.

I have two CONVERTERs on my OFF-ROAD POPUP. The original WF8945 Converter/charger is located in the bottom compartment of the WFCO Series 8900 Power Distribution Panel where all of my 120VAC Circuit breakers and 12VDC Fuses are located and is run from the SECOND DOWN 120VAC BREAKER in that panel. The FIRST BREAKER being my 30AMP SHORE POWER MAIN BREAKER.

To 'TURN-OFF' this converter/charger unit I just flip the Circuit Breaker labeled CONV to its 'OFF' position.

My SECOND CONVERTER/CHARGER is a PD9260C 60AMP model that I installed as close to the BATTERY BANK as I could. I also installed a separate 120VAC Circuit from a empty 120VAC Circuit Breaker Slot in the Power Distribution Panel. I simply flip this 120VAC 20AMP Circuit Breaker to 'TURN OFF' this smart mode PD9260C 60AMP Converter/charger unit...

If you want to run your whole trailer from an INVERTER direct connected to your BATTERY BANK please NOTE it will want to draw a whole lot of DC CURRENT. My 1500WATTS PSW AIM Inverter is fused at 175AMPS fed by the battery bank. A 2000WATT Inverter should be fused around 200AMPS. This is alot of DC POWER being drained from a BATTERY BANK. You can look up your battery specs and see how long they produce 12VDC at 25AMP and go by those numbers. This spec is based on the battery going to a full discharge state state so you don't want to do that and have to use HALF of the number listed in minutes which will be around the 50% discharge state of the battery. i.e. two 6VDC Golf Cart Batteries are speced at around 440minutes (appx 7 hours time) of producing 12VDC @ 25AMP... You can only use this setup for half that number or around three hours to keep these two 6VDC Batteries wired in SERIES only discharged to their 50% charge state.

My 255AH BATTERY BANK will produce 25AMPs of 12.3VDC power for around 4-5 hours before draining me down to the 50% charge state. A single 12VDC battery would probably only last around 15 minutes or so pulling a 175AMP DC Load...

Much to consider here to make this work out for you...

In my case my three standard issue GP24 85AH Interstate Batteries will operate my roughly 20-22AMP Battery load from 6PM to 11PM including my 1AMP or so of parasitic drain that is always there for 24 hours before dropping my battery bank to its 50% Charge state. I have this planned out to happen around 8AM each morning so that I can run my smart mode converter/charger from my 2KW Generator connection for a quick return to the 90% charge state in as little as three hours time. Then I am good again for the next day/night run off my batteries when camping off the power grid. This of course does not include running the air conditioner or high powered microwave unit etc. When the Propane Heater 6AMP 12VDC blower is required to run OFF and ON all night the picture changes drastically. We usually don't get in the situation where we have to use the PROPANE HEATER setup...

My 20-22AMP DC LOAD is representative to only around 270WATTS or so of battery drain. I make my COFFEE for the day when I am running my generator starting around 8AM each morning...

What you are wanting to do can be done just realize it will take a VERY BIG battery bank and will require some big time planning on what you can live with DC POWER WISE during the ONE DAY/ONE NIGHT run off the batteries...

My thoughts on being SUCCESSFUL camping off the power grid... We found out real quick you just can't show up with a couple of batteries and make it work. Alarms start going off around 10PM (and earlier) and then it gets dark on you...

Thats no fun for the wife hehe...

Roy Ken

treeofliberty

By law, all manufacturers MUST protect their converters with a circuit breaker. This is not an option. One of your breakers on your rig's AC panel shuts your converter off. Try it. Shut off your breakers, one by one, you will find the one that shuts off the converter - guaranteed.

treeofliberty wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
I believe Tim wants to run an inverter so he can have 120 volt power, where there is no shore power with restricted hours for generator use.

Yes, this is exactly what I want to do, mainly to drive the coffee pot in the morning before generator hours and the TV and audio at night.

I dug a little deeper in the manuals and found our converter model, WFCO 8955. So it looks like can add a switch on the DC output side to break the loop when I have the inverter running, like a manual transfer switch.

No, you have to switch off its 120v input or you will have the converter drawing power you would rather save. If it is a plug in you can yank the plug, if not, you can use the circuit breaker the converter is on as its switch. Except-

If the receptacles are on that same breaker that you want to use while on inverter. If so you can swap the converter or receptacles to share with a different breaker, or you can insert your own switch in the converter's black wire before it reaches the CB, so you can leave that breaker on for the receptacles to work while turning off the converter.

Don't forget to put the fridge on gas, not auto, so it won't go to 120v when it sees that from the inverter. Also water heater on gas. No air conditioner.

Of course the inverter has to have enough wattage (continuous rating, lower than its named rating) to run whatever, and be on sufficient battery. Main hazard is making morning coffee off inverter when batts are at their lowest in the morning, so the loaded voltage gets down to 11v inverter alarm. That beeping will wake everybody in the park up! :) That's why you would like four batts instead of two so the loaded voltage doesn't get that low.

I have 2 6v golf cart batteries, and the pot is a Keurig mini, pulling 1200w. The run time will only be a couple minutes, long enough to make a couple cups. I am looking at the Go Power 1500w pure sine wave for this purpose.

Circuit breaker.

Coffee pots take a lot of energy. How many batteries do you have and are you going to add more?