inverter

AN inverter is usually a stand alone piece of equipment. You wire the input of the inverter to a 12V battery and the inverter will supply 120 volts to run small appliances (computers, MiFi,telephone chargers, TV, etc)

Moved from Forum Technical Support

But the inverter can also be a permanent install with a transfer switch. It depends on your rig...

Inverters usually come with two 120VAC receptacles on their front panel. Alot of folks myself included run a couple of extension cords from these two front panel receptacles into the trailer with one going to the home entertainment area and the other going to the bedroom area. I hid my extension cords using wire managers from LOWES or run behind cabinets etc.. Nothing is visible except the multi-tap end of the extension cords where I plug in 120VAC items.

I started out with a 150WATT MSM Inverter, immediately went to a 300WATT PSW Inverter and finally ended up with a 600WATT PSW Inverter. It seems once you start using them you will find more and more "must have items" connected to the emergency power grid when camping off the power grid. MSW Inverters are not all that expensive these days and with one you don't have to ever worry about what someone is going to plug in to one. I guess I burned a transformer powered Fan, a electric blanket controller, noticed anythig that uses a transformer supply always got almost too hot to touch, no clocks ever worked again after being plugged into MSW Inverter etc. It was wise for me to go with the Pure Sine wave models. I still use my MSW Inverters usually for outside lights when camping off the power grid.

You can also spend some monies and have a lot of headaches and install a manual or auto transfer switch and have some of your existing 120VAC Receptacles around your trailer to be fed by the standard 120VAC Power Distribution Panel or by the Inverter. This could automatic as well and when not on Shore Power it will autoswitch these dedicated 120VAC trailer receptacles to your Inverter.

I only use my Inverter to run most of the Home entertainment items and have several must have 'ON' items available to use when camping off the power grid. Using the two dedicated 120VAC multi-head extension cords works great for me... I have mine installed on the back of the cabinet table top and all you see is the multi-tap 120VAC power head. My multi-head tap has a built-in ON-OFF switch as well.

Inverters are inherently power hungry meaning you will need a beefed up battery setup if you plan to use the inverters. Inverters will draw some serious AMPS from your battery setup. Inverters also generate RADIO NOISE which may interfere with your radio operations - tears up my Ham Radio operations real bad.

Roy Ken

It depends on the inverter. Some have automatic pass through when connected to shore power.
What is make and model of your inverter?

Yes - the inverter takes the battery voltage up to 120Vac

Your 2nd question
If the Auto Transfer Switch inside the inverter is defective then maybe the GFI could trip. It all depends on the failure mode.

My MS 300watt Sure Sine is hardwired to a ATS which is in series on the second AC breaker driving several receptacles. So if the ATS goes bad only those outlets would be affected. The inverters powers a 12Vdc dc brick which drives the ATS relay.

Hi,

We need to know the make and model of the inverter before any meaningful answer can be made.

coljhoss wrote:
if inverter is bad but im plugged into shore power will it trip gfi or not allow outlets to work.

How bad is bad? Yes if the fault is correct it may trip the GFI. Not likely though.

You need to start eliminating items to determine what is causing the GFI to trip. Could also be the GFI itself. More common for the fridge to cause the issue.

OP:
Are you talking about a GFCI receptacle in the rig or one the rig's shore power is plugged into?

motorhomes are generally the only ones that come with an inverter.
it's rare to find a towable with an inverter, from the factory.

it's always helps if you post year/brand/model of RV you have. that's why many of us have it listed in our sig line.