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Old 08-31-2009, 12:36 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by Ron & Dee View Post
Why would that be unsafe as long as the polarity is correct?

I think the entertainment center is also on the same circuit as the TV, but I could switch the entertainment center off

Thanks,

Ron
NO!
you would have hot prongs available to shock whoever or whatever they came in contact with on the end that is not plugged in, it would be a fire hazard also.
you would get feedback into the inverter when shore or generator ac was plugged in.
there are probably more reasons but these 2 come readily to mind.
you could use a power strip to plug your tv and entertainment equipment into and use an extension cord from the inverter to the power strip. when you are plugged into ac or your genny, plug your power strip into the outlet that you mentioned.
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Old 08-31-2009, 03:23 AM   #22
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NO!
Dan,

Well you at least got me to snooping around and trying to think this thing through

I do have a breaker for my converter but it is on the same breaker with the frig, so shutting all the breakers off except the one I need to run the TV & entertainment center is out. I would be sitting there enjoying my TV with no refrigerator running

Getting to the TV cord and entertainment center is more than I want to tackle, so I'm still looking for an easy and safe alternative.

In snooping around I found the source of the arc whenever I plug into shore power, and that must be coming from the converter.

I am going to call the company that makes the converter and my inverter to see if they are compatable. The information that came with my converter-charger says it's 400 watts plus and my inverter is 1000 watts.

Thanks,

Ron
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Old 08-31-2009, 05:51 AM   #23
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Ron:

Having you're fridge plugged into the same circuit as your converter shouldn't be a problem if you're talking about the AC breaker, you don't want to feed AC from your inverter into your fridge. As long as the fridge has DC power and gas it will run fine with no AC.

You should not run your inverter into your converter as the converter will try to charge your battery, draining the portable inverter's battery quickly (or trying to charge the same battery you are running the inverter off of, if I misunderstood what "portable inverter" meant...

BTW the cord with two male ends is also known as a "Suicide Cord"

Good luck,
Stewart
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Old 08-31-2009, 08:17 AM   #24
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Stewart,

You are right, the frig does work on gas with the Conv/refrig breaker off. When I tried it yesterday I had the battery switch turned off which killed all of the DC power from the battery.

Now I think I can go back to my original plan with plugging my shore line into the inverter and only supplying power to the receptacle I need to run my TV and entertainment center.

I hope.

Thanks for all of the help, and you guys have made me do a little rethinking and snooping into what might work.

Ron
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Old 08-31-2009, 10:14 AM   #25
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Stewart,

You are right, the frig does work on gas with the Conv/refrig breaker off. When I tried it yesterday I had the battery switch turned off which killed all of the DC power from the battery.

Now I think I can go back to my original plan with plugging my shore line into the inverter and only supplying power to the receptacle I need to run my TV and entertainment center.

I hope.

Thanks for all of the help, and you guys have made me do a little rethinking and snooping into what might work.

Ron
That should work fine. It is an almost fool proof way of doing it.
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Old 08-31-2009, 10:31 AM   #26
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A BIG Thanks,

I'm so glad I ask the question on this forum

I could have blown something up , started a fire, fried my converter and my inverter

I will check it out tomorrow or this evening and see how it works.

Oh, one other question?

I now think I have a choice of either using my spare deep cycle battery, or the house battery, or the starting batery?

The inverter is supposed to have a cut off point so you don't deplete the battery completely.

Thanks,

Ron
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Old 08-31-2009, 10:54 AM   #27
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A BIG Thanks,

I'm so glad I ask the question on this forum

I could have blown something up , started a fire, fried my converter and my inverter

I will check it out tomorrow or this evening and see how it works.

Oh, one other question?

I now think I have a choice of either using my spare deep cycle battery, or the house battery, or the starting batery?

The inverter is supposed to have a cut off point so you don't deplete the battery completely.

Thanks,

Ron
You have a couple of things to consider. If you use the spare battery you won't have to worry about whether or not your refrigerator will continue working or your water pump if you run the battery down, but how will it get recharged? If you run it off the chassis battery or house battery you risk running down to the point where the vehicle won't start or your refrigerator, water pump and 12 volt smoke and LP alarms beep and quit working. You may be able to set the cut-off voltage, but I doubt it. You don't want to discharge your battery past 50%, so if you are using 120 watts of power, you would have 5 to 6 hours of use on a 125 amp/hr battery.
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Old 08-31-2009, 11:28 AM   #28
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Ron:

To amplify a bit on what John said (he posted a little faster than I did):

Your inverter can drain your batteries very fast, for every amp the inverter produces at 120V the inverter pulls about 10 from your battery. If you have a TV that draws 2A you'll draw 20AH from your battery for every hour you run it (AH = Amps * Hours).

An average 12V deep cycle battery (group 28, 31, etc) has 100AH capacity, and you are not supposed to discharge over 50% (to get the most life out of it), meaning you can run the TV for less than 2 1/2 hours before recharging.

I agree that using the spare battery will be much safer. To recharge it, you can buy a 3 stage charger (available from Vector and others, this one, for example would charge your typical battery in a few hours: Black & Decker Power Tools).

I would never use the chassis battery, not only do you run the risk of your coach not starting but starting batteries are not designed for deep discharge. Deeply discharging them will ruin them in very few cycles.

Using your coach batteries would be OK. If you do use your coach batteries, I'd make sure that your converter is a 3 stage one, otherwise it will not do a good job of recharging your coach batteries (you can even use the one in the link above to charge them, too (I used one similar to that until I replaced my converter with an Inverter/Charger in my last coach).

One other caution., if you do completely discharge the battery (by letting the TV run until the inverter turns off by itself, for example) you should recharge your battery relatively soon (i.e. the next morning). Letting a discharged lead acid battery sit around will kill it very quickly. Sulfation occurs very quickly in a discharged battery. I've done this to a couple trolling motor batteries before I learned not to.

Stewart
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Old 08-31-2009, 04:08 PM   #29
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Thanks John and Stewart for that valuable information.

Ron
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Old 08-31-2009, 05:45 PM   #30
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power inverters

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Donator,

I couldn't get your Power Inverter link to work.
Sorry about that. I think I screwed it up.

Click here for power inverters.

Sorry for the slow response...
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