How to wire an inverter?

Boatycall wrote:
I've got two parts to this for you--advice on product, and advice on wiring.

Advice--
I've had a couple Xantrex products, Prosine 1800 and a Prosine 2.0. I would advise against them only because of service. They don't carry a spare parts inventory very long, meaning, you could have something go amiss in a few years and they won't be able to fix it. In my case, the Prosine 2.0's were becoming known for bad control panels. I called, they didn't stock them any more--it was only 3 years old. I was basically told find one on Ebay or toss into the trash a $1000 inverter. That is not acceptable for any product costing that much. I now have a Magnum Technologies Inverter/Charger, MADE IN THE USA, right here in Everett WA. I've talked to the guys personally at RV shows, they're great.

Wiring--
It's actually a LOT simpler than the diagram you posted. Do you have an onboard gen?
* You simply disconnect the incoming pigtail to the 110v panel (After then gen xfer switch if you have one--you want the gen to trigger the charger to charge)
* Route it to go to the inverter input, then the inverter output goes to the 110v panel mains.
* Connect batteries as instructed.
* Disconnect/remove the existing 12v charger converter permanently.

Done.

I would agree with both of these points, with a couple of caveats.

Magnum equipment is much better, in my opinion than Xantrex. Magnum has a number of different inverter and inverter/charger options. My only additional comment on this part is go with a pure sine wave inverter. Stay away from modified sine wave models. I like to buy my Magnum stuff from imarineusa.com. They usually have the best prices on Magnum products.

As to the wiring of the inverter, as long as your RV is a 30 amp unit then you can wire it in line as described. The one draw back to doing this is that everything in your power panel will be energized by the inverter. In other words the air conditioner, the 120 volt side of the refrigerator, the 120 volt side of the water heater, etc will all be able to be powered by your batteries through the inverter. You do not want this, so you need to be diligent about turning off these high draw power consumers before turning on your inverter. I personally like to use a sub panel to "automate" this process, but it is not necessary on a 30 amp RV if you are diligent about turning off the high draw items. Finally, I would not remove the converter. I always leave the converter in place on the installs I do. It is a good back up in case something happens to the charger portion of the inverter/charger. Simply disable it by either unplugging it or turning off the breaker supplying power to it. This way it is easy to put it back into service if necessary. If you go with a straight inverter instead of an inverter/charger, the converter will be used as it always was and so needs to stay in the system without modification.

Just for background, I have done a number of inverter and solar installations on my RV's and a number of friends' RV's. I also give presentations on the subject at rallies. I have an electrical background and enjoy doing this type of work and trying to educate others how to do it as well. It is not rocket science and if you are a decent DIYer, it should be a pretty straight forward project for you.

Any of you know how to pull the charger/converter from a Progressive dynamics PD4045KA Power converter/distribution panel without unwiring everything in the distribution panel?

Freep wrote:

Boatycall wrote:
But then again, the OP didn't mention his battery bank either-- I surely wouldn't recommend doing this on a single batt, two is extremely minimal for microwave use. I have five 140Ah batts, and I am extremely un-conservative in my use of them. I can get 4 days of making coffee, microwave, TV on Dish, and even an electric blanket all night before the inverter starts complaining of low voltage while running my coffee maker or nuker.

Ah sorry. I have ordered two Lifeline GPL-31XT 125 ah batteries.

These are my 5-10 year stop gap batteries before LiFePo or something better.

Those should work fine to run the microwave briefly. Wire your inverter as close as possibly to the battery bank using proper size cables. The bigger the better. You have a lot more resistance and loss in the wires on the 12v side of the inverter.

Boatycall wrote:
But then again, the OP didn't mention his battery bank either-- I surely wouldn't recommend doing this on a single batt, two is extremely minimal for microwave use. I have five 140Ah batts, and I am extremely un-conservative in my use of them. I can get 4 days of making coffee, microwave, TV on Dish, and even an electric blanket all night before the inverter starts complaining of low voltage while running my coffee maker or nuker.

Ah sorry. I have ordered two Lifeline GPL-31XT 125 ah batteries.

These are my 5-10 year stop gap batteries before LiFePo or something better.

Boatycall wrote:

work2much wrote:

donn0128 wrote:
OK, before you get started have you thought this thru thoroughly?
A 1000 watt microwave will consume 8.3 A@ 120VAC or approx 83DC amps. Not counting losses, that means a 200 AH battery draining to approx 50% discharge gives you about 10 minutes run time by my calculations.

I think your calculations aren't correct. If the microwave consumes 83 Ah it means it uses 83 amps per hour. You would use up approximately 14 Ah in ten minutes.

You guys posted this while I was typing.. :-)

I chime in a lot on electrical stuff, I'm an Electrical Engineer by day. Work2much has it right. 200ah is a lot of battery juice, you won't kill it in 10 minutes with just about anything.

But then again, the OP didn't mention his battery bank either-- I surely wouldn't recommend doing this on a single batt, two is extremely minimal for microwave use. I have five 140Ah batts, and I am extremely un-conservative in my use of them. I can get 4 days of making coffee, microwave, TV on Dish, and even an electric blanket all night before the inverter starts complaining of low voltage while running my coffee maker or nuker.

Smaller banks may have issues with large draws like this as well. Most microwaves are larger draw than 1000 watt. Always good to check with the manufacturer on maximum and recommended discharge rates and how they will affect battery health over the long run.

work2much wrote:

donn0128 wrote:
OK, before you get started have you thought this thru thoroughly?
A 1000 watt microwave will consume 8.3 A@ 120VAC or approx 83DC amps. Not counting losses, that means a 200 AH battery draining to approx 50% discharge gives you about 10 minutes run time by my calculations.

I think your calculations aren't correct. If the microwave consumes 83 Ah it means it uses 83 amps per hour. You would use up approximately 14 Ah in ten minutes.

You guys posted this while I was typing.. :-)

I chime in a lot on electrical stuff, I'm an Electrical Engineer by day. Work2much has it right. 200ah is a lot of battery juice, you won't kill it in 10 minutes with just about anything.

But then again, the OP didn't mention his battery bank either-- I surely wouldn't recommend doing this on a single batt, two is extremely minimal for microwave use. I have five 140Ah batts, and I am extremely un-conservative in my use of them. I can get 4 days of making coffee, microwave, TV on Dish, and even an electric blanket all night before the inverter starts complaining of low voltage while running my coffee maker or nuker.

donn0128 wrote:
OK, before you get started have you thought this thru thoroughly?
A 1000 watt microwave will consume 8.3 A@ 120VAC or approx 83DC amps. Not counting losses, that means a 200 AH battery draining to approx 50% discharge gives you about 10 minutes run time by my calculations.

10 minutes is about 8 minutes more than I would use it.

I've got two parts to this for you--advice on product, and advice on wiring.

Advice--
I've had a couple Xantrex products, Prosine 1800 and a Prosine 2.0. I would advise against them only because of service. They don't carry a spare parts inventory very long, meaning, you could have something go amiss in a few years and they won't be able to fix it. In my case, the Prosine 2.0's were becoming known for bad control panels. I called, they didn't stock them any more--it was only 3 years old. I was basically told find one on Ebay or toss into the trash a $1000 inverter. That is not acceptable for any product costing that much. I now have a Magnum Technologies Inverter/Charger, MADE IN THE USA, right here in Everett WA. I've talked to the guys personally at RV shows, they're great.

Wiring--
It's actually a LOT simpler than the diagram you posted. Do you have an onboard gen?
* You simply disconnect the incoming pigtail to the 110v panel (After then gen xfer switch if you have one--you want the gen to trigger the charger to charge)
* Route it to go to the inverter input, then the inverter output goes to the 110v panel mains.
* Connect batteries as instructed.
* Disconnect/remove the existing 12v charger converter permanently.

Done.

donn0128 wrote:
OK, before you get started have you thought this thru thoroughly?
A 1000 watt microwave will consume 8.3 A@ 120VAC or approx 83DC amps. Not counting losses, that means a 200 AH battery draining to approx 50% discharge gives you about 10 minutes run time by my calculations.

I think your calculations aren't correct. If the microwave consumes 83 Ah it means it uses 83 amps per hour. You would use up approximately 14 Ah in ten minutes.

I did the math too. Don seems right on.