Magnum inverter.

BFL13 wrote:
If you ever get this sorted out, you should get the Nobel Prize for RV Trouble-shooting :) The guy has been living with this for years and years? Amazing. Makes you wonder what else is going on out there that never reaches us on this forum. :(

Oh I bet. I have been out walking or riding my bike and often start talking to people. It often leads into stuff like them saying do you run your gen to watch tv or what kind of batteries do I have etc.

I met a guy who was working on his gen because it was surging. Generac in a mh. I have an air compressor so we blew out the carb and helped it. Main jet tube was stripped so we couldn't begin to remove it for proper cleaning. From there it went into him saying how the batteries won't charge. I dipped the 4 six volts and the gravity was so low that the pendulum barely moved. He had old solar panels that were probably 150 watts with Romex spliced all over along with an old inverter charger that put out 13.5 to the battery. I reset the inverter and it started to charge so I told him to run it all day and the next day too.

I stopped by a few times and checked it. By evening it had moved up just under the blue zone. That night I told him to run it tomorrow too. He said its fine and that my hydrometer is broke. Ah OK.

I was talking to another guy about off road buggies and of course it went into asking me about my panels. He said he had solar but it didn't seem to work. I looked at it and it was 15 watts with alligator clips. He was charging with that and an automotive type charger. The generator was about 100 ft away on extension cords. He had a new group 24 that had gravity down in the blue zone. It was parallel with an agm. I told him run the gen all day and tomorrow too. He ran it about another hour and shut it off. I asked if they ran the furnace. His DW said NO its freezing in there at night.

I'd be divorced.

It's not easy to be your own energy company. This guy with the magnum just recently started looking at the ah down each morning. Now that the solar is working I told him to step on the throttle and run it down to minus 80ah or so and then watch how his solar performs the next day. I said after awhile you will have a feel of the whole thing. His batteries are approaching 5 yr and probably haven't had complete charges all the time. He's contemplating new ones but thats another post.

If you ever get this sorted out, you should get the Nobel Prize for RV Trouble-shooting :) The guy has been living with this for years and years? Amazing. Makes you wonder what else is going on out there that never reaches us on this forum. :(

I removed all the in and out 120 wires and the battery negative from the magnum then went back to the control panel. I think I have it narrowed down to one of the 120 volt circuits. It was a short day today so I didn't continue on. Volt meter from hot to frame reads 126 volts on generator. He also says any time he gets a shock the magnum monitor panel goes black screen and needs to be reset by removing the data cable. It then has to see a complete charge to reset the ah counting and battery percent full gauge.

Shocks even without a 120v source?....I'd take the inverter out of the loop, I suppose it's possible to have a leaky capacitor as the source of shocking (??), but even at that I'd confirm continuity of all grounds.

3 tons

3 tons wrote:
I'm getting confused, So he experiences a shock at the microwave even with the inverter, generator and shore power off??

Yes, with no 120 volt sources. I walked him through his whole history of ownership and it has been doing it for 4.5 years. I know it seems impossible but???? If you told me this same problem I would just about swear it sounds like you have a static problem. He says the only place it is happening is at this trailer.

At one point where I had just about everything disconnected, all the breakers off and I was removing the inverter neutral from the sub panel i got a very slight shock in the stomach as I was laying in the basement opening. BUT, yes of course that was with a 120 v source ON but even that should not happen. It's crazy. He mentioned it several weeks ago but I just thought static, then I thought oh no this is that RV hot skin issue that can kill people so I started digging. His outside plug read 116.4 v hot to frame.

One other thing he said is that the magnum gets very hot when on shore power. I told him that's probably because it's charging. He said even when it should be charged up. ????

Now that the inverter auto bond relay green wire is disconnected I'm going to ask if he has been shocked since yesterday. I'm removing the inverter negative today and check for a clean frame and run it on gen.

I'm getting confused, So he experiences a shock at the microwave even with the inverter, generator and shore power off??

He has 2 problems that may be related. You're tracking down the shock problem with no obvious AC. The second problem is the GFCI which is usually caused by moisture near water areas or outside plug or refer or HW. Anything that uses AC is suspect including chargers and inverters.

BFL13 wrote:
Did you undo the DC input to the inverter to confirm it is off? It may not be off just because the switch is to "off" There might be confusion between the on/off and the remote on/off as to which turns if really off or at the internal switch.

No not yet. Tomorrow. He turns it off at the monitor and 120 drops out. I'm also looking at how they wired hot 1 and hot 2 in the diagram pages of the manual.

Did you undo the DC input to the inverter to confirm it is off? It may not be off just because the switch is to "off" There might be confusion between the on/off and the remote on/off as to which turns if really off or at the internal switch.

I can see getting a reading from a hot to the frame when plugged into shore because the bond is at the pedestal. I run my gen as is with out bond. I keep telling him the hardest problems often end up being the dumbest problems. It's just a matter of finding that one dumb little thing. He's getting it with no 120 volt sources running. At one point when we were seeing the 48 or 70 volts I got a poke in my stomach as I was leaning into the basement. I think the inverter was on at the time though.