Energy Management System

[pianotuna]

Hi all,

The magic blue smoke has escaped from the lovely Magnum 3012 inverter/charger.

I can live without load support.

But I do want to be able to limit how many amps I draw as I'm often in locations where there is only 15 amps. I've been "dialing down" to 12.

Any one know of a stand alone device that would allow me to do that?

[MrWizard]

He used it for load share on shore power with a 15a duplex receptacle
Idk that he used it for load share with the Yamaha generator

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Inverter/inverter coupling. Something is afoot.

If that Magnum had every power FET fry then the case for conflict intensifies. If the inverter faulted then saw mis synchronized AC it could fault in this manner. Fail the finals so fast neither the AC nor DC protection could react fast enough.

Just musing. The lab boys at the inverter werks are privvy to design weaknessnes and failure history.

[MrWizard]

this Nov will mark 6yrs use for the PVR1250
while i don't use inverter for MW everyday, it has enough use that i trust this device implicitly
it has been powering the fridge for this whole time period 24/7 except for the three times the Rv was in the shop

[time2roll]

My GoPower 2000w easily runs the full size Dometic MW.
So did the Prosine 1800 for that matter.... until it quit of course.
Neither one complained of overload.

[MrWizard]

Microwave and Nuwave at the same time ?
if not then you don't need 3000
my 1250 tripplite will power my 1685 input watt MW
of course it doesn't use quite that much closer to 1350w, but i don't have the PSW version
mine will do 1800w for 60 minutes
i did 1500w of electric heater for 45min, and killed the wfco converter NOT the tripplite inverter

their 2000 will do 3000 for 60 minutes, IF you need it ?

it worth lookng into

but i'll drop the subject and say no more

[pianotuna]

Hi MrWizard,

Yes they are Nuwave and I do have two.

What pushes me over 2000 watts is the Microwave. It would barely start on my Cobra 2500 MSW.

I think 3000 was a good fit. I rarely pushed 3000 watts--in fact only by accident once.

[MrWizard]

Don are your induction cookers nuWave? so large that they cant be run on 2000w?
do you run (2) or more at the same time while using high power cooking settings

is it absolutely necessary to have 3000w continuous

tripplite 2000w will do 3000w for 60 minutes, 4000w for 10 seconds

victron might be the Roll Royce of inverters
Magnum the follow up
but tripplite is the Land rover mercedes excursion vehicle version
practically bullet proof at its power rating
and they do make a 2000w PSW combo version

[pianotuna]

Hi Mex,

I don't know the answer, but I can say that the Yamaha was not being pushed close to its rated output and that voltage was never lower than 117 which is a 5 volt drop from unloaded voltage of 122.

The Magnum remote was "dialed down" to 22 amps which is the rated output of the Yamaha.

Load support was enabled so any extra demands beyond the 22 amp level ought to have been taken care of by the Magnum. So far as I am aware, I saw none.

The Magnum is power factor corrected on the charging side, so it gets a 1.

The Magnum also lowers the charge rate when other RV loads come "on line".

The power available is 2800 VA continuous with a 500 watt 10 second boost on top of that. When I was about to head out I thought about leaving things running. I did check wattage and it was less than 2300.

When I was speaking to the Magnum tech about the charging anomaly issue, he asked what generator I had. He did not like Honda 2k units at all, but said the Yamaha was a great choice.

So I think a distorted wave form, while possible, is not too high in likelihood.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I must pose this as a question rather than a statement. When any inverter crosses a load threshhold it used to lose it's stepped pseudo or true sine wave emission and defaulted to square wave ouput.

How would an inverter respond to having it's power source in this case a motor driven generator inverter, deliver square wave AC to it's input i.e. AC to be reverted to DC?

Would then this be the "fault" of the inverter or the supply?

I would keep it in mind...

[time2roll]

MrWizard wrote:
Converter chargers are not meant/designed to run full load constant mode (whether it is 15min or 45, therload always tapers when charging batteries)
On heavy double conversion the load doesn't tapper
For that to work without failure, the ac to DC conversion
You need a power supply some thing designed to carry a rated load continuously with out over heating and enough cooling space air flow

Maybe WFCO is a bit weak. I believe PD or IOTA could go the distance.
Yes cooling should be a top concern.

[pianotuna]

It does not appear that I'll have any success with retrofitting an energy management system that is more sophisticated than a 10 amp auto reset circuit breaker.

I'm locked in to pure sine wave because I love induction cookers.

It may be that my attempts to force load support to do voltage support were more than the Magnum could handle. One day I was using 64 amps from the battery bank to keep the voltage in the campground at 106.x That went on for several hours. Of course when the air was turned off the Magnum then "went to town" on charging the battery bank.

My best case scenario is that Magnum will replace the unit.

Next best case is having it refurbished.

I wonder if there is a way to find out mean time between failure of the various quality inverters, Magnum, Victron, and Outback?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I must pose this as a question rather than a statement. When any inverter crosses a load threshhold it used to lose it's stepped pseudo or true sine wave emission and defaulted to square wave ouput.

How would an inverter respond to having it's power source in this case a motor driven generator inverter, deliver square wave AC to it's input i.e. AC to be reverted to DC?

Would then this be the "fault" of the inverter or the supply?

I would keep it in mind...

[pianotuna]

MrWizard,

Anytime a thread offers interesting information I find it useful.

With the Cobra 2500 watt and the PD 40 amp I could do double conversion all day long. With the Magnum I tried it just once and the reverse polarity fuses popped immediately.

I looked for a tripp lite in the 3000 watt class--but they don't offer a 12 to 120 in pure sine wave.

[MrWizard]

My electrical bay compartment is outside access
I do leave it open during the day while charging in hot weather
But not in cold weather, not normally needed in early March at night
I like I said, the inverter was the load that killed the wfco
Running the heater did not hurt the inverter
Both in the same compartment (and that compartment housed the OEM Freedom 10 combo unit for many years)
Not all converters or inverters are the same quality

Of course this is PT's thread
I was only making a comment regarding my inadvertent double conversion of power

I have 'so far' avoided making that mistake a second time

Double conversion can done using two devices
But a combo unit only does one or the other
And Don did say it was charging the batteries before the failure

This conversion conversation is regarding possibilities of future use

[BFL13]

pianotuna wrote:
Hi BFL13,

And what brand name is that converter?

BFL13 wrote:
My 100 amp converter/charger will run at constant 103 amps for at least an hour with no tapering of the amps.

It is a PowerMax PM3-100 that I have had for a few years now. I have set it to 14.8v using the internal pot, which killed the 3-stage profile, so I have to manually turn off the 100 when the batts are done, and use a different converter at 13.6v after that.

Actually, I find that if I leave them at 14.8 overnight , my 6v batts are up to baseline SG next day, and I don't need to do the 15.7 volt thing with my Vector to get them there like I have been doing.

Very interesting, but late in the day for me to learn that! (The 6s are five years old now and at 90% original capacity by actual measurement recently) 🙂

I also could use my external pot knob adjustable voltage PM3-100 unit to do it all, but I don't need to with my trailer set-up as is.

I am having trouble deciding what to install in the slide in camper and what to keep in the trailer among all my toys! My "Profile" needs an update someday 🙂