Why don't all electrical plugs work on inverter only??

My understanding is that outlets by the bed are not wired into the inverter for safety reasons. If you have necessary medical equipment plugged into a bedside outlet and the battery runs down then you lose the use of the equipment. To insure an uninterrupted power supply you must have your generator running or plugged into shore power for those outlets to work.

I just ran an extension cord from an inverter supplied outlet to bedside.

I wish that I had some not going through my inverter. Every available plug inside the RV goes through my inverter. The inverter has a 30amp breaker on it so if I run a space heater or hair dryer, the microwave and coffee maker at the same time in the morning I trip the breaker. I would like to have at least one outlet that does not go through that circuit.

Dutch_12078 wrote:
Brett & MrWizard, yes, as you both point out, there's a lot more to consider than just connecting all the outlets to the inverter.

Boy, that's for sure. First of all, thanks so much to all for responding; there's a lot of good information in your replies.

As I suspected, it's not going to be as straightforward as it first appears. If I add a couple of outlets to the inverter, I'll need to be sure that only a certain amount of power (less than what would cause the inverter breakers to shut down) is being drawn in total. I've had the inverter breakers go off before only to find out that, unbeknownst to me, the DW had turned on an electric blanket for one of the dogs to curl up in on a cool night or something like that.

There's also the danger of wiring an outlet or two to the inverter, only to find out that the modified sine wave inverter damaged a phone or ipad or something similar that was plugged into one of the outlets. I'll have to do some more thinking to decide if it's worth doing the rewiring or not. Thanks again to all!!

Brett & MrWizard, yes, as you both point out, there's a lot more to consider than just connecting all the outlets to the inverter.

Dutch,

TOTALLY AGREE. But we have generations of Americans (and possibly other first world countries) with the mantra of "if I want it, I will have it". Physics-- don't care about physics-- if I want it-- make it happen.

RV manufactures are and have to be in the "defensive mode" of "they don't know what they are doing-- it is my job to keep them from totally screwing it up".

i remember posts by several members, where they had problems, the electric heater quit working while on shore power

yes..they had plugged it into an outlet from the inverter, the inverter had pass thru..so it was powered by shore power..until the circuit breaker on the inverter tripped

IIRC .. it seems there was one, who lost shore power during the night, the heater stayed on running on inverter
the electric heater depleted the batteries running on inverter, and he awoke to a cold RV, and had No electric heat, and no battery power for the LP furnace blower and controls

wolfe10 wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:
Does the inverter have enough capacity to support all of the outlets?

The answer is maybe. Remember the load has nothing to do with how many outlets you have. As long as you do not have an appliance plugged into it and turned on, there is zero power consumed.

But, I will say, it is very common to only have certain outlets powered by the inverter, on the assumption that not everyone is "electric savvy".

Of course the number of outlets does not determine the load, but putting ALL outlets on the inverter means the microwave, the fridge, the TV and associated equipment, possibly the water heater, now all have access to inverter power along with what ever else the OP wants to plug in. Can the inverter sustain the various combinations of those loads? Will the OP be aware enough to insure he doesn't overload the inverter, even inadvertently? If the added bedroom load is something like a CPAP machine for example, would he want to risk having it shut off in the middle of the night when an uncontrolled load like the fridge heater kicked on? Since the bedroom outlet seems to be the only one of concern lacking power, I think it would make more sense to only add that one to the existing inverter loads.

bluebarry1964b wrote:
My Holiday Rambler Neptune is wired in such a way that I must be either on generator or shore power to get all of my electrical outlets to work. One outlet that closest to the bed won't work unless we either have the generator running or we're plugged into shore power. That means that if we want to plug something in when only the inverter is on, we have to run an extension cord to one of the other outlets that works without needing to be on generator or shore power. To make dry camping a little easier in the future, I'm thinking of rewiring the outlets so all of them will work without needing to have the generator on or being plugged into shore power. However, before I start rewiring I thought I'd better find out from all of you as to why you think the RV manufacturer didn't want all of the outlets running off the house batteries via the inverter without generator or shore power. The only justification that I can think of is if the RV manufacturer didn't want you draining the house batteries too low. Any other reason??

Probably because most people are so oblivious to electrical properties, that if all the outlets were hot on the inverter, they would be plugging anything and everything into these outlets. Examples would be toasters, hair dryers, electric fry pans....etc.
Even with some of the super inverters, some might have on board, that might run some of this equipment, it would deplete the batteries in short order, but most would just knock out the inverter. Like you and some others, I would like having the convenience of these different locations and using good common sense for their use.

If you have an Auto Gen Start Remote unit, you need a non-inverter powered outlet. If the remote were to be plugged into an inverter powered outlet, it would not sense the loss of shore power.

It does NOT mean how large the Inverter is. It is the amount of Receptacles and appliances connected thru the Inverter. Most have 50 amp RV's that have large Inverters. The downstream receptacles and appliances are run thru 15 and 20 amp breakers from the Main 50 amp Breaker panel. If you have an Inverter, the power FROM the 50 amp breaker panel will have a 30 amp breaker going TO the Input of the Inverter. Large Inverters will have 2- 30 amp feed circuits. The limitation of the circuits is the output Breaker/s AT the Inverter. So, if you ran ALL wall plugs and the Microwave AND the Residential refer thru the Inverter and then plugged in a Coffee maker and a Skillet and also ran some ceramic 120 heaters in cold weather, you would easily overload the Breakers at the Inverter and trip them, OR the branch breakers (15/20) back at the Main Breaker panel. So, the OEM's wisely decided to power just certain wall receptacles. IF the Inverter is 2500 or larger, they will have a Bedroom/bath/kitchen receptacles powered by the Inverter and also have receptacles in those areas supplied directly from the Main 50 amp breaker panel, so you can run higher amp appliances without overloading the Inverter and Inverter breakers. The plain fact is--- most RV'ers are just plain Ignorant of power usage and draws on their RV's. So, the OEM's have to do that work for them. They design the limitations to prevent problems in use that could burn or overload circuits. They install EMS systems and branch circuit Inverters and such. It is a shame that OEM's do not label receptacles that are Inverter powered. Some do, but most do not. Doug