Review/critique of planned battery/inverter system?

Your bank is not balanced.

Have a look here:

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

I use method #3

All this and still not charging by solar? Interesting.

How far is the inverter from the battery bank? That will dictate the gauge you should use. For reference, my 2000w inverter is about 3 feet from my bank, and I use 0000. I use 00 to interconnect everything else.
Pianotuna, maybe I'm missing something, but his wiring diagram for the batteries lines up with method 3 on that website?

pianotuna wrote:
Your bank is not balanced.

Diagram shows equal length wire to a bus bar. Looks balanced to me.

pianotuna wrote:
Your bank is not balanced.

Have a look here:

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

I use method #3

Don, thanks for sharing that link. I had seen it before but couldn't find it when I went to make this diagram. That said, I tried to reproduce method #3 from memory and looking again, seems like I did.

Would you mind taking a closer look? Is there something specific in my diagram that you think I've missed?

phemens wrote:
How far is the inverter from the battery bank? That will dictate the gauge you should use. For reference, my 2000w inverter is about 3 feet from my bank, and I use 0000. I use 00 to interconnect everything else.

Should be about 3'. Same with the converter/charger.

ependydad wrote:
get rid of the hokey extension cord + backfeeding of camper

That is not back feeding. Back feeding generally involves a cord with a male plug at each end. aka dead man's cord or suicide cord.

Plan looks generally good.

I agree on larger inverter, say 2000 watts, to run any large item that plugs into a normal outlet. (one at a time) Microwave can draw 170 amps BTW. Maybe a little less amps on lithium as voltage sag should be less.

Your transfer switches may need some work. You need switches rated for the full generator power. As shown the generator power goes through a 15 amp switch. Are there two breakers on the generator? What is the rating(s)?

Also the inverter needs to be wired so it does not feed the converter. You can put the 15 amp transfer switches on the branch circuits (outlets only) or do the subpanel to break out inverter vs non-inverter circuits.

time2roll wrote:

ependydad wrote:
get rid of the hokey extension cord + backfeeding of camper

That is not back feeding. Back feeding generally involves a cord with a male plug at each end. aka dead man's cord or suicide cord.

Plan looks generally good.

I agree on larger inverter, say 2000 watts, to run any large item that plugs into a normal outlet. (one at a time) Microwave can draw 170 amps BTW. Maybe a little less amps on lithium as voltage sag should be less.

Your transfer switches may need some work. You need switches rated for the full generator power. As shown the generator power goes through a 15 amp switch. Are there two breakers on the generator? What is the rating(s)?

Also the inverter needs to be wired so it does not feed the converter. You can put the 15 amp transfer switches on the branch circuits (outlets only) or do the subpanel to break out inverter vs non-inverter circuits.

Thanks for the clarification on backfeeding. That's what I get for using terms that I don't entirely understand. :B

I ran with this 1000W inverter for a while and understand its limitations. I wouldn't mind a 2000 or 3000W inverter, but I'm thinking about a major upgrade down the road. But, I'm really thinking about one of the Victron solar charger/inverter/charger combo units. We'll see, though.

The transfer switches are misleading on this document. The Xantrex or KISAE 15amp switches are designed to control just a single breaker.

The generator and shore power ATS is already there and is rated for the 50amp service (split phase, blah, blah, terms I don't wholly understand :) ) that the rig already wired for. Nothing changes between that and the camper's distribution box/circuit breakers.

What will change is that each of the breakers (up to 2) that I want supported by the inverter will be wired to the little mini automatic transfer switches.

The subpanel is a future plan, but I'm not ready to go down that road yet. When I get the bigger inverter, I'll definitely do it.

Balance batteries.....I thought you would connect positive to positive and negative to negative and then take positive from top battery and negative from bottom battery

Rbertalotto wrote:
Balance batteries.....I thought you would connect positive to positive and negative to negative and then take positive from top battery and negative from bottom battery

That is the common way of doing it. But, there is another way of tackling it- positive to a bussbar and negative to a bussbar and then the load goes to the bussbars (so it's split across all of the batteries equally).

If you read the link that pianotuna post, it explains it much better than I can.