What to do about voltage drop?

[pianotuna]

What to do about voltage drop?

This is a continuation of testing of a Sola Basic autoformer.

Yesterday I tested on a 30 amp RV outlet at a private home in rural Saskatchewan which is fed by a 200 amp service. The panel is 2 years old.

Today, I tested on a 15 amp circuit with 60 feet of #10 cord and a 15 to 30 amp dog bone adapter. I used the Magnum hybrid inverter/charger to limit input to 15 amps to prevent overloading the circuit.

The results are:

Without autoformer

Shore power voltage in the RV 114.5 volts (fridge running drawing 331 watts)

Turning on the roof air voltage drop inside the RV was to 108.7 volts
demand was 1239 watts

With autoformer

Shore power voltage in the RV 114.6 volts

Turning on the roof air voltage jumped up to 119.3 volts inside the RV

The Sola Basic did not trip the GFCI, however the Magnum inverter does. The RV by itself does not trip a GFCI circuit.

I attempted to test a 50 amp outlet but could not get sufficient voltage drop to trigger the autoformer. I may try again with the water heater and toaster in the circuit.

My answer to low voltage is the autoformer. In an RV park a cheaper answer for a 30 amp RV may be to use a 50 to 30 dog bone adapter.

The previous part of this thread is at: Voltage report using a Sola Basic autoformer

[pianotuna]

Greenrvgreen,

Yes I have the 3012.

So far as I am aware the problem may be related to only my installation. The folks at Magnum were no help at all, which is unusual. Fortunately I can remove it from the circuit easily and go back to the OEM converter.

It maddening, because it works just fine with SOME gfci outlets, and instantly trips others.

In your shoes, I'd look at the Victron and Outback hybrid units, as well as Magnum. I would still use male and female plugs so I could "patch" around any difficulties. If I had not done so there would be times where I would not be able to use shore power at all.

One other minor issue is that with the 3012 I can not do "double conversion" It kills the reverse polarity fuses on my PD 40 amp converter more or less instantly. I have a work around for that, too (yes, a set of male and female plus). With my old Cobra 2500 watt MSW inverter that was not an issue.

[greenrvgreen]

Tuna, I know this is OT, but can you explain more about the Magnum tripping you GFCI? I'm looking at the 4024, I believe you have the 3012, right?