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Old 04-28-2020, 06:28 AM   #21
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Hello. I don't want to hijack the thread but I have a specific question related to this comment. I have a 2004 Adventurer 35U. I'm planning on (over a little bit of time and in steps) putting together a Solar system, beefing up the batteries, and installing an inverter and I was planning to do the same thing regarding plugging the shore power cord into the inverter. I know you need to flip the breaker for the converter when you do this. Problem is, on my rig, the converter and the fridge are on the same breaker.

How difficult is it to separate them onto two separate breakers? Is that the way to go or is there another solution? I'm in the planning stages now so I can shift gears if need be.

Thank you,

Bruce
You might think about putting the converter on a switch, like a regular household light switch. If you've got a place where you can get to the wiring and there is a place to mount a box to hold the switch, it wouldn't be hard to do.
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Old 04-28-2020, 07:16 AM   #22
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Another alternative is to install an inverter/charger and disconnect the converter entirely. I installed a Xantrex Freedom 2000 XC PSW and then disconnected the converter.
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Old 04-28-2020, 10:26 AM   #23
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An alternative... ?

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Originally Posted by TWolf View Post

How difficult is it to separate them onto two separate breakers? Is that the way to go or is there another solution? I'm in the planning stages now so I can shift gears if need be.

Thank you,

Bruce
You may want to look into using an auto-bypass inverter. The one I chose was a 2kW Ames auto bypass inverter with no charger capability. This way I have a separate charge device and not have all of my "power eggs" in one basket. My shore power cable either plugs into a 30 amp outlet from the generator or the shore power outlet, which is a manual buss transfer process that prevents simultaneous power from both. The other end of the shore power cable originally connected to an electrical junction box that feeds power to the RV WFCO power center.

Now the 30 amp shore power cable goes to a junction box then into the inverter. The junction box has a 15 amp pop-out mini breaker installed which now powers only the WFCO DC power converter/charger, preventing the inverter from powering the battery charger, a potentially bad situation. The inverter output connects to the house electrical. This way, the generator or shore power will hit the inverter and bypass it, no inverter power is required for this. When there is no external power the inverter can supply AC power to the RV's AC electrical system, except the battery charger.

The solar panels, through the PWM controller, connect directly to the battery bank with a 25 amp in-line fuse and an isolation switch. I do have an original Amp-L-Start charger for the starter battery. It is not optimized for lithium batteries, so I switch it off when not needed, like not on shore power. This keeps from draining the lithium batteries as its auto shut off is around the 20% SOC level on the lithium battery bank.

As you can see, what started out as a relatively simple RV electrical system, became quite complex when modifications and add-ons were introduced into the system. Be sure you really think through your design modifications and review them with an electrical engineer to ensure the components will play well together and loads are appropriately cabled. Happy camping.
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Old 04-28-2020, 12:07 PM   #24
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You might think about putting the converter on a switch, like a regular household light switch. If you've got a place where you can get to the wiring and there is a place to mount a box to hold the switch, it wouldn't be hard to do.
X2 - just wire an on-off switch in series with the converter charger, putting the fridge outlet on a separate breaker wouild be soooo much harder.
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Old 05-05-2020, 05:11 PM   #25
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How difficult is it to separate them onto two separate breakers? Is that the way to go or is there another solution? I'm in the planning stages now so I can shift gears if need be.

Thank you,

Bruce
If you do what I did, you won't need to split the breaker, just run a power cable from the power junction box pop-up breaker (buy online) directly to the DC power supply (converter). That way it will never run off the house AC and potentially the inverter, which would cause an infinite power loop. But you will need an auto-bypass inverter, preferably a pure sine wave version. Check out Aims Power inverters.

The reason for this choice is to have my battery charger separated from the inverter where I am more flexible in making my power choices and not having everything in one box, a single point of failure. There are lots of ways to skin this cat. I hope this helps. Happy camping.
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