inverter wire gauge question

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by Mustang65

You need to get the TT's battery controller out of the circuit. The battery controller sees the voltage dropping and figures it needs to send more voltage /amps to the batteries, which puts more drain on the batteries because they are trying to charge themselves with their own power.

The only solution is to disconnect the controller's AC power source, turn its AC breaker off, and see which AC items are affected.
Or run everything off the inverter with an extension cord.

Don

Don...The converter breaker was tuned off....As far as the extension cord, it would be a pia because the things I want to run are spread out all over the trailer........Oh and just to clarify, I dont think the battery power is any problem. After using them quite a bit, they were only at 12.6

[Ela1948]

Originally Posted by rick danger

Don...The converter breaker was tuned off....As far as the extension cord, it would be a pia because the things I want to run are spread out all over the trailer........Oh and just to clarify, I dont think the battery power is any problem. After using them quite a bit, they were only at 12.6

I run everything off of a 6 ft. extension cord. Fortunately it works well for us. I tried a couple of ways to get power into my outlets. ( non of them the correct way) Determined that what we had with the extension cord worked just fine.

[hoppers4]

Turning the converter breaker off should disable any attempt to charge the battery from the inverter. Sure hope your intermittent draw is from a DC source as it gets a bit more challenging to determine which leg of the AC outlet circuit is the problem.

[Mustang65]

What gauge wire did you use for the 110AC leg? 12 or 10AWG is what should be used. Do you plug in the inverter's output into the TT's shore power connector on the side of the TT?

Don

[Subaru297]

The fact that when you plug in directly to the inverter and it works fine should tell you something. Your batteries and inverter wiring are all fine and the inverter is capable of handling that load.

Your 650 watt coffee maker for example draws your battery down to 11.9 volts while under load.
650 / 11.9 = 54.6 amps.......
If you ran your coffee maker for 1 hour it would consume 54.6 amp-hours from your battery. The seven minutes or so that you actually run it for uses 6.4 amp-hours. This is hardly stressing your batteries as you have seen. Voltage drop under load is normal and won't cause any damage to your batteries unless you are asking too much amp draw from them.

Your problem lies somewhere downstream of your inverter and how it is connected into your 110v outlets.

Is there a combined load on the inverter from multiple appliances? You mentioned it has a watt meter on the inverter I think. What is the normal draw while hooked up with no apparent loads running?

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by Mustang65

What gauge wire did you use for the 110AC leg? 12 or 10AWG is what should be used. Do you plug in the inverter's output into the TT's shore power connector on the side of the TT?

Don

I used some direct burial 10-3 I had laying around. Of course no need for three wire ,but its what I had and it has a tough skin. I eliminated any problem with my plug installs by just running an extension cord from the inverter to shore power plug. Still does the same thing. Yes I ran the romex to a plug I mounted in the side of the trailer right next to the shore power cord. Same thing I did with my gen. So I figure I can just plug the shore power cord into either the gen. power or the inverter power. I'm not a genius with this stuff so I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by Subaru297

The fact that when you plug in directly to the inverter and it works fine should tell you something. Your batteries and inverter wiring are all fine and the inverter is capable of handling that load.

Your 650 watt coffee maker for example draws your battery down to 11.9 volts while under load.
650 / 11.9 = 54.6 amps.......
If you ran your coffee maker for 1 hour it would consume 54.6 amp-hours from your battery. The seven minutes or so that you actually run it for uses 6.4 amp-hours. This is hardly stressing your batteries as you have seen. Voltage drop under load is normal and won't cause any damage to your batteries unless you are asking too much amp draw from them.

Your problem lies somewhere downstream of your inverter and how it is connected into your 110v outlets.

Is there a combined load on the inverter from multiple appliances? You mentioned it has a watt meter on the inverter I think. What is the normal draw while hooked up with no apparent loads running?

With no apparent loads the very last led just flickers. But there is the clock, and the microwave leds. so some slight draw. I pulled all the dc fuses out this morning and same thing. The microwave manual says it draws 1500 watts. And when its on, thats just what the inverter leds say. Its pinned. So maybe the microwave is a little more than the inverter can handle. Which is fine. No big deal not using it. But the coffee maker at 650 watts shouldnt be giving a problem. And it doesnt, plugged directly into the inverter. I'm ready to just use it as is and the hell with it. It beeped only two times this morning. I used a hair dryer on med. setting as a test subject. My amprobe says it draws 6.5 amps. Similar to the coffee maker. I just dont want it to beep all night. its in the basement right under my pillow BTW...I found 1500 watts to be 12.5 amps.

[Ela1948]

Obviously, you have the inverter in the basement I take it which would be the pia that you mentioned. Just for kicks, have you tried a 15' extension cord with at least #14 wire in it?? Just to see what happens. It would be interesting to find just where the problem is. Did you run a dedicated wire using dedicated outlets or tie into the existing outlets?? Cant help but think that the unit is sensing a ground fault or something like that.

[Subaru297]

1500 watts is around 12.5 amps on the AC (110v) side but on the DC side it is around 130amps.
The more you pull from the battery the greater the voltage drop which means the amps goes up too. If you drop to 11.9 running the coffee maker you might drop to 11 ?? while trying to run the microwave.

1500/11=136amps being pulled out of the battery.

Also your 8inches of 6 gauge wire drops 0.08 volts at 130 amps and your 3.5 feet of 0 gauge drops 0.09 volts at 130 amps so the short 6 gauge wire is not really hurting anything.

Sorry I can't help with the inverter issue. You can probably try your microwave at half power and see if that works. Not really sure it will though as half power on the microwave might just be full power with a 50% duty cycle. I am not up on my microwave specs......

Does this inverter give you the full 1500W off of any of the outlets? Some advertise 1500Watts but really that is 500watts per outlet......

[Subaru297]

Just for reference....

Voltage Drop Calculator

[rick danger]

Thanks to everyone that has responded to this thread. (problem)..Ela1948..yes I substituted my 10 gauge romex for an extension cord and same results. And plugging directly into the inverter outlets I have no problem. I am basically plugging my shore power cord into the inverter to power the whole trailer. Just turning off breakers for big draw things like ac and of course the converter.

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by Subaru297

Not really sure it will though as half power on the microwave might just be full power with a 50% duty cycle. I am not up on my microwave specs......

Does this inverter give you the full 1500W off of any of the outlets? Some advertise 1500Watts but really that is 500watts per outlet......

Yes, exactly right on the micro. I thought that to. But if you run it at "half" power, it just cycles full power for half as long. On and off.....As far as advertising a 1500 watt inverter as three outlets each supplying 500 watts....Jeez, talk about false advertising They should have ten outlets...LOL I wouldnt put it past them though. Not even sure how to test for that. Wattage output at each outlet. Your right though, there are three outlets.....but now that I think of it, the led watt meter reads pretty much correct. The 650 watt coffee maker has the led bar about half way. And the microwave pins the led bar, but runs it....till it beeps and cuts out. Then back on ,but you have to push the start button again.

[rick danger]

you know...i just had the bright idea that instead of moaning on this forum i might look at the trouble shooting part of the instructions....like they did before internet.... I was wondering what exactly the beeping was trying to tell me. And the only thing that had to do with beeping was its low voltage alarm. Meaning critically low voltage. But that cant apply to this situation I think. I try it in the morning after the batteries are fully charged and reading 13.6 volts.

[LI-Camper]

By any chance is your frig running on 110v while using the inverter? Try forcing the frig to run on propane (not on auto). On my last MH, I had a 1500 watt inverter that I plugged the shore line into. I made sure the converter circuit was off and the frig was on propane. I used a one-cup-at-a-time Keurig coffee maker that heated only one cup of water. It worked great. I had a bedroom TV that had a built-in DVD player and two power cords (12V and 110V). A 12V socket was wired directly to the battery with fuse and when boondocking, I didn't need the inverter to watch TV.

[sebring96hbg]

The fridge set on auto as opposed to gas may be the issue.

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by sebring96hbg

The fridge set on auto as opposed to gas may be the issue.

wouldnt it pin the led strip(meter) on the iinverter? Same as the micro? Or at least show a load? And it shows no load unless I use something plugged into a wall outlet. Today I'm going to take a wire off the converter, instead of just shutting the breaker. Make sure its out of the mix. And I can always shut the fridge breaker to see. Its on the same circuit as the outlet I use for the coffee maker.

[Subaru297]

Originally Posted by rick danger

Thanks to everyone that has responded to this thread. (problem)..Ela1948..yes I substituted my 10 gauge romex for an extension cord and same results. And plugging directly into the inverter outlets I have no problem. I am basically plugging my shore power cord into the inverter to power the whole trailer. Just turning off breakers for big draw things like ac and of course the converter.

Are you plugging your shore power cord into the extension cord? Will just the coffee maker still work at the end of your extension cord?

The problem only arises when you plug in the entire trailer right?

Can you disconnect or disable absolutely everything in your electrical panel? 12v dc and 110v AC side? Then just enable your outlets and try and then start turning things on one at a time until the problem comes back.

I hope you figure it out as I am very curious now and want to do this to my trailer eventually.

This is why I asked about limiting each outlet....
http://www.amazon.ca/Sunforce-11240-...words=inverter
No mention of it in the description but a few of the reviews mention that it is two 500W outlets and not 1000W available on one outlet.

Cheers

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by Subaru297

Are you plugging your shore power cord into the extension cord? Will just the coffee maker still work at the end of your extension cord?

The problem only arises when you plug in the entire trailer right?

Can you disconnect or disable absolutely everything in your electrical panel? 12v dc and 110v AC side? Then just enable your outlets and try and then start turning things on one at a time until the problem comes back.

I hope you figure it out as I am very curious now and want to do this to my trailer eventually.

This is why I asked about limiting each outlet....
http://www.amazon.ca/Sunforce-11240-...words=inverter
No mention of it in the description but a few of the reviews mention that it is two 500W outlets and not 1000W available on one outlet.

Cheers

Seems weird that they would do that. I dont think its right.because when the coffee maker is on the led strip watt meter reads half way. So that would already be more than 500 watts. (1500 watt unit with three outlets.) BTW I paid $377 for it and saw a week later it was $299. Which was quite annoying. I sent amazon an e-mail about it and they credited my card back the difference. They said they dont usually do it with third party sales (purchases not fullfilled by amazon). ....Jeez, just looked it up to post a link for you and now its $479! whats up with the price fluctuation on this thing?....http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...n=new...Anyway, back to the problem. Its kind of a pia to try stuff because it takes a while (few minutess sometimes) to beep and reset. Makes you think it quit doing it. So to test a few times drains the batteries quite a bit. I think I remember flipping off all the ac breakers and pulling all the dc fuses and it still did it. That why I was going to pull the wire for the converter to make sure its out of the loop. The trouble shooting in the manual says beep is low voltage and that would correspond to the converter being on. It might think the batteries are low. I havent gotten to it today. I finished up installing my firestone ride right air bags. They work great BTW.

[sebring96hbg]

Originally Posted by rick danger

wouldnt it pin the led strip(meter) on the iinverter? Same as the micro? Or at least show a load? And it shows no load unless I use something plugged into a wall outlet. Today I'm going to take a wire off the converter, instead of just shutting the breaker. Make sure its out of the mix. And I can always shut the fridge breaker to see. Its on the same circuit as the outlet I use for the coffee maker.

Do you have a Kill-A-Watt meter? This would confirm the presence, if any, of a load independent of your inverter's LED power output display. The reviews of this unit on Amazon are a mixed bag.

[rick danger]

I might be on to something. I shut the breaker for the refridge and tried the hair dryer in another outlet (the fridge and kitchen and bath gfi are on same circuit) Ran it for three minutes with no problem. Turned the fridge breaker back on and it beeped and cut out again after like 15 seconds. If all I have to do is use the coffee maker in another outlet I'll be golden. I'm recharging the batteries now. Then I'll try out the microwave. .....If the fridge was the problem all along it would be nice to put it on a switch so I could use the outlets I want for the coffee maker. Do you think the gfci outlets have anything to do with the problem? Or do you think its the fridge?