Adding an overlander inverter?

[ems437]

I'm going to upgrade the Overlander 1 package that came in my 25RB. I contacted Go Power tech support and got their input on what I should get for the upgrade I want to do.

I currently have the PWM controller that hangs on the wall, one 190 watt panel on the roof, and an AGM battery.

First, I contacted Jayco service and told them I want to upgrade and I want to connect it into my JayCommand so that I can monitor it and control it in one place. They said since I am upgrading the solar system, get the MPPT controller that is RP-C capable and it will integrate with JayCommand just fine. They gave me the items, along with their corresponding Jayco part numbers, that they recommend I should get.

Next, I contacted Go Power. They suggested to add two more of their 200 watt panels (which replaces their 190 watt this year), the GP-RVC-MPPT-30 30 Watt MPPT RV-C controller, an IC2000 or IC3000 inverter/charger, and LiFePo4 batteries.

Everything agrees and sounds good except, Jayco recommends a Progressive Dynamics 1800 watt RV-C inverter or a Xantrex 1200 watt RV-C inverter. While Go Power recommended the IC2000 or IC3000 inverter/charger.

So I understand that the Go Power inverter/charger will charge the batteries off of shore power.

I'm now assuming that in the factory Overlander 1 configuration, that the battery is only charged by the solar panel? Does the Jayco configuration not have a built in AC to DC charger to charge from shore power? I haven't run it on shore power and paid enough attention yet to see if it is truly only charging the battery from the solar panels. And until I started looking into this, I assumed the Jayco could charge the battery from shore power.

Is my assumption correct that shore power doesn't charge the battery? Otherwise, why would I want to go with the inverter/charger at three times the price, over the inverter only?

Thanks!

[stearnsfamily]

Good luck with your conversion! In the near future we plan to upgrade to lithium and an MPPT controller coupled with our factory installed Overlander 1, but that’s a year or two down the road. Please make a post about your project when it’s completed.

My understanding is that your battery is charging via shore power when hooked up, via 7 pin when towing, and via solar if equipped.

[wordsmyth]

Following in the interest of expanding my general reservoir of knowledge.

[stearnsfamily]

I just looked at our setup since we are planning something similar. We lucked out and our camper came with the GP-RVC-MPPT-30. It also has the Progressive Dynamics PD4560WI with the lithium battery switch. I’m going to have to talk myself out of switching to lithium since I’ve got the beginnings already there. Probably hold off on additional panels for a year or two, but still got a lot to learn before we get that far.

[fireflyf32]

So when we bought our 2023 Jayco eagle HT 30.5 ckts, we asked to have 3 lithium 100ah smart batteries and an inverter charger installed. We planned on adding panels later but since we were planning a long road trip (6 weeks) we figured it would charge while driving and occassional shore power. Our tech got 3 Renogy batteries and a gopower ic3000 inverter because the renogy 2000 he ordered first would not work with our 50 amp system so he returned it. we hit the road with nothing but problems. we are power dumb, but found that we could not even overnight at a truckstop without losing power. We left wisconsin and when we stopped in Louisianna a tech told us that our inverter and converter could not both be wired into this system, yet they were. he also told us putting our fridge on auto would not switch it to gas when we travelled due to the inverter. So we always run on gas unless plugged in, which is fine, but sometimes we forget. We still lose power after watching a little tv, or making coffee. very quickly. fast forward, our dealer said because we had someone else mess with it they won't fix it. small dealer, small town. i think they had no idea what they are doing. even when plugged into shore power, we never ever achive more than 50% in our batteries which we just found out because we installed a battery monitor. we were told if we disconnect the converter that came with the jayco all together, half the outlets won't work. we won't mess with the system because we have no clue what we are doing but can't find anyone who wants to touch it. There are so many problems with this unit. tire blowout in the first 2 weeks, they said jayco don't warrenty tires. another tire wearing on the inside. its an alignment issue. they said jayco don't warranty alignment. doors falling off, plumbing leaks, (which we paid on the road to fix) the glass doors are under the bed and protected. We feel completely screwed by our dealer and jayco. what a mess. anyone willing to fix this wiring layout out there? I will plan my next roadtrip around getting to you!

[ARoamer]

Originally Posted by fireflyf32

another tire wearing on the inside. its an alignment issue. they said jayco don't warranty alignment.

I call BS on that issue. Your dealer should have no problem submitting a warranty claim for that. True, Jayco doesn't, but the axle supplier will. At 3500 miles my rear tires were wearing bald on the inside edge. I had a brand new axle with 2 brand new tires replaced under warranty due to a bad axle.

As for the electrical issue, did your dealer do the install? If not, it's very likely they won't mess with it and I can see them refusing warranty. If they did, they should make it right.
I'd be leaning hard on getting both issues taken care of properly.

[ems437]

Originally Posted by fireflyf32

So when we bought our 2023 Jayco eagle HT 30.5 ckts, we asked to have 3 lithium 100ah smart batteries and an inverter charger installed. We planned on adding panels later but since we were planning a long road trip (6 weeks) we figured it would charge while driving and occassional shore power. Our tech got 3 Renogy batteries and a gopower ic3000 inverter because the renogy 2000 he ordered first would not work with our 50 amp system so he returned it. we hit the road with nothing but problems. we are power dumb, but found that we could not even overnight at a truckstop without losing power. We left wisconsin and when we stopped in Louisianna a tech told us that our inverter and converter could not both be wired into this system, yet they were. he also told us putting our fridge on auto would not switch it to gas when we travelled due to the inverter. So we always run on gas unless plugged in, which is fine, but sometimes we forget. We still lose power after watching a little tv, or making coffee. very quickly. fast forward, our dealer said because we had someone else mess with it they won't fix it. small dealer, small town. i think they had no idea what they are doing. even when plugged into shore power, we never ever achive more than 50% in our batteries which we just found out because we installed a battery monitor. we were told if we disconnect the converter that came with the jayco all together, half the outlets won't work. we won't mess with the system because we have no clue what we are doing but can't find anyone who wants to touch it. There are so many problems with this unit. tire blowout in the first 2 weeks, they said jayco don't warrenty tires. another tire wearing on the inside. its an alignment issue. they said jayco don't warranty alignment. doors falling off, plumbing leaks, (which we paid on the road to fix) the glass doors are under the bed and protected. We feel completely screwed by our dealer and jayco. what a mess. anyone willing to fix this wiring layout out there? I will plan my next roadtrip around getting to you!

I’ve been through ALOT of those issues with the inverter and electrical, and can help you with the info about what is happening on the electrical side. You can most likely fix those very easily and quickly.

We are out and about right now and I was just checking messages. I’ll reply and tell you what’s going on with the inverter, converter, and charging when I can get on the computer this evening.

[ems437]

So here is what I think the scoop is for the electrical parts of the problem you described. I just went through upgrading all of the solar and electrical systems in my 25RB, so I am extremely familiar with the struggles you are having.

I put the IC-3000 inverter charger in my 2023 25RB as well. Assuming you followed the installation that GoPower says to do, your IC-3000 should be wired in from your shore power line, through the IC-3000, and then on to the power center/breaker panel in your RV. Then, the IC-3000 should also be connected directly to a bus bar connection that connects directly to your battery so it can handle charging your battery and pulling from your battery when it needs to generate AC power for your camper outlets.

The problem comes in to play because your power center/breaker panel also thinks it is supposed to take the 120v AC power that is coming in from the IC-3000, convert it to 12v DC power, and charge your battery. So your IC-3000 takes 12v from your battery, jumps it up to 120v and sends it to the power center to power all of your outlets, and then the power center takes that 120v AC electricity and turns right around and reduces it back to 12v and tries to charge the batteries itself, which you do NOT want it to do.

This process creates a vicious loop that runs your battery down very quickly. It will happen any time you plug in to shore power because the IC-3000 turns both the inverting and charging circuit on automatically when it senses incoming AC power.

So, what you have to do, and the GoPower installation guide for the IC-3000 has a warning note that says to do this during installation, is disconnect the converter module in the power center/breaker panel in your camper. The easiest way for you to do this is to turn off the breaker for it. On my 25RB, it is a 15 amp breaker and Jayco labeled it “converter” in the power center/breaker panel. Just flip that breaker off and half your problems go away.

Your battery is still connected and everything will still work with that breaker off. The only thing turning off that breaker will do is stop your power center converter from trying to charge your batteries (or run them down) since the IC-3000 is doing the charging for you. Solar will still charge, tow line will still charge, IC-3000 will still charge when on shore power, they will all still charge normally.

I left my converter installed and hooked up and leave the breaker off, just in case my inverter ever dies and I need an alternate method to charge the battery from shore power. I figure, it’s already there and paid for, so no reason to physically remove it. Just leave the converter breaker off unless the IC-3000 breaks down and you need it as a backup down the road.

Now for your fridge, your IC-3000 inverter turns on automatically when you connect the AC line to shore power or a generator. You cannot turn it off while it is running on the shore power line because it directly passes through AC to your power center, feeding AC power to all of your outlets in your camper, including the fridge. So yes, as long as the IC-3000 inverter is on, your fridge will receive AC power from it, which in turn, also draws power from your battery, causing it to run down. Unless you also have a good sized alternator and a DC to DC charger, your tow line power, by itself, will probably not be able to keep up with the power your inverter feeds your fridge and other outlets you have turned on in the camper, as well as charge your battery while driving. The tow line power on my vehicle was more of a trickle charge and didn’t provide a whole lot of battery charging current. I upgraded my alternator in my truck and added a Renogy 60amp DC to DC charger to my system to compensate for this. But you don’t have to do that unless you need more charging from your tow vehicle while you are driving.

So without needing that DC to DC upgrade, the quickest and easiest solution for you is to use the remote panel for your IC-3000 inverter and make sure both the inverter light and the charger light are off when you are getting ready to tow. That way your solar panels and tow line can work on recharging your battery and your fridge can run on propane. Some people worry about running the fridge on propane being a fire hazard while on the road, so temper your decision on that with good judgement and you can decide if that worries you. :-) The propane/electric fridge’s run on either AC power or gas. They do not run on 12v DC or batteries. So in order for you to have it kept cold by propane, you cannot let your IC-3000 inverter feed it AC that it makes from the batteries. So the inverter needs to be off unless you want to fire up the fridge on AC power. The same goes for your microwave and air conditioners. And the button on the IC-3000 remote panel will turn that off for you.

For your battery monitor, you need to get a LifePo4 battery charger and charge your batteries up all the way. Take them out of your trailer when you do this so that you know they are charged up 100%. I ordered a LiFePo4 battery charger on Amazon to do this. After you know they are charged up, hook them back up in your camper and then go to your battery monitor display and do its recalibration procedure. Look on Google if you don’t have the instruction paper for it anymore. If it works like the GoPower battery monitor, the whole process is about five button presses. It will ask you if the batteries you are connecting are at 0% or at 100% charge. Select 100% and save it. Your battery monitor will now read correctly and will match your actual charge levels of your batteries consistently.

Regarding someone telling you that half the outlets will not work, that should be wrong information. If your IC-3000 was installed following the GoPower instructions and the way I’ve described here, the IC-3000 will power all outlets in your camper. It is designed to invert on AC Leg 1 and pass through AC Leg 2 of your 50 amp shore power. So it should power every outlet that you have plugged in to your camper when on shore power, and anything on the Leg 1 side of the 50 amp breaker when you are running on inverter battery, which if still factory breakers, is everything except your second air conditioner if you have one, and “maybe” the microwave if they put that on the Leg 2 side of the breaker in your camper.

Hopefully that will get you started on the electrical frustrations. Like I said, I just went through all of this with upgrading my electrical and solar systems. Everything I upgraded is GoPower equipment except the Renogy DC to DC charger and the batteries. And that’s because GoPower didn’t have a DC to DC charger or the LiFePo4 battery setup I wanted.

GoPower’s support guys have been EXTREMELY helpful in helping me plan everything out and figure out how I wanted to hook it all together. So I’ve tried to stick with their solution as much as possible. And their warranty service has been excellent. I just had all three of my 190 watt solar panels flake out for some unknown reason and were generating 1/10th of the power they should have been. GoPower support had me measure a couple of things with my multimeter and send them the serial numbers of the panels, and they shipped me three brand new panels via FedEx the next day. No complaints on that 25 year warranty!

I have it all working pretty consistently and stable now, So if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[fireflyf32]

Thank you! I call BS too. But that issue is secondary to this power problem. Its going to be my next big fight. I am so tired of having to argue about everything!

[fireflyf32]

Originally Posted by ems437

So here is what I think the scoop is for the electrical parts of the problem you described. I just went through upgrading all of the solar and electrical systems in my 25RB, so I am extremely familiar with the struggles you are having.

I put the IC-3000 inverter charger in my 2023 25RB as well. Assuming you followed the installation that GoPower says to do, your IC-3000 should be wired in from your shore power line, through the IC-3000, and then on to the power center/breaker panel in your RV. Then, the IC-3000 should also be connected directly to a bus bar connection that connects directly to your battery so it can handle charging your battery and pulling from your battery when it needs to generate AC power for your camper outlets.

The problem comes in to play because your power center/breaker panel also thinks it is supposed to take the 120v AC power that is coming in from the IC-3000, convert it to 12v DC power, and charge your battery. So your IC-3000 takes 12v from your battery, jumps it up to 120v and sends it to the power center to power all of your outlets, and then the power center takes that 120v AC electricity and turns right around and reduces it back to 12v and tries to charge the batteries itself, which you do NOT want it to do.

This process creates a vicious loop that runs your battery down very quickly. It will happen any time you plug in to shore power because the IC-3000 turns both the inverting and charging circuit on automatically when it senses incoming AC power.

So, what you have to do, and the GoPower installation guide for the IC-3000 has a warning note that says to do this during installation, is disconnect the converter module in the power center/breaker panel in your camper. The easiest way for you to do this is to turn off the breaker for it. On my 25RB, it is a 15 amp breaker and Jayco labeled it “converter” in the power center/breaker panel. Just flip that breaker off and half your problems go away.

Your battery is still connected and everything will still work with that breaker off. The only thing turning off that breaker will do is stop your power center converter from trying to charge your batteries (or run them down) since the IC-3000 is doing the charging for you. Solar will still charge, tow line will still charge, IC-3000 will still charge when on shore power, they will all still charge normally.

I left my converter installed and hooked up and leave the breaker off, just in case my inverter ever dies and I need an alternate method to charge the battery from shore power. I figure, it’s already there and paid for, so no reason to physically remove it. Just leave the converter breaker off unless the IC-3000 breaks down and you need it as a backup down the road.

Now for your fridge, your IC-3000 inverter turns on automatically when you connect the AC line to shore power or a generator. You cannot turn it off while it is running on the shore power line because it directly passes through AC to your power center, feeding AC power to all of your outlets in your camper, including the fridge. So yes, as long as the IC-3000 inverter is on, your fridge will receive AC power from it, which in turn, also draws power from your battery, causing it to run down. Unless you also have a good sized alternator and a DC to DC charger, your tow line power, by itself, will probably not be able to keep up with the power your inverter feeds your fridge and other outlets you have turned on in the camper, as well as charge your battery while driving. The tow line power on my vehicle was more of a trickle charge and didn’t provide a whole lot of battery charging current. I upgraded my alternator in my truck and added a Renogy 60amp DC to DC charger to my system to compensate for this. But you don’t have to do that unless you need more charging from your tow vehicle while you are driving.

So without needing that DC to DC upgrade, the quickest and easiest solution for you is to use the remote panel for your IC-3000 inverter and make sure both the inverter light and the charger light are off when you are getting ready to tow. That way your solar panels and tow line can work on recharging your battery and your fridge can run on propane. Some people worry about running the fridge on propane being a fire hazard while on the road, so temper your decision on that with good judgement and you can decide if that worries you. :-) The propane/electric fridge’s run on either AC power or gas. They do not run on 12v DC or batteries. So in order for you to have it kept cold by propane, you cannot let your IC-3000 inverter feed it AC that it makes from the batteries. So the inverter needs to be off unless you want to fire up the fridge on AC power. The same goes for your microwave and air conditioners. And the button on the IC-3000 remote panel will turn that off for you.

For your battery monitor, you need to get a LifePo4 battery charger and charge your batteries up all the way. Take them out of your trailer when you do this so that you know they are charged up 100%. I ordered a LiFePo4 battery charger on Amazon to do this. After you know they are charged up, hook them back up in your camper and then go to your battery monitor display and do its recalibration procedure. Look on Google if you don’t have the instruction paper for it anymore. If it works like the GoPower battery monitor, the whole process is about five button presses. It will ask you if the batteries you are connecting are at 0% or at 100% charge. Select 100% and save it. Your battery monitor will now read correctly and will match your actual charge levels of your batteries consistently.

Regarding someone telling you that half the outlets will not work, that should be wrong information. If your IC-3000 was installed following the GoPower instructions and the way I’ve described here, the IC-3000 will power all outlets in your camper. It is designed to invert on AC Leg 1 and pass through AC Leg 2 of your 50 amp shore power. So it should power every outlet that you have plugged in to your camper when on shore power, and anything on the Leg 1 side of the 50 amp breaker when you are running on inverter battery, which if still factory breakers, is everything except your second air conditioner if you have one, and “maybe” the microwave if they put that on the Leg 2 side of the breaker in your camper.

Hopefully that will get you started on the electrical frustrations. Like I said, I just went through all of this with upgrading my electrical and solar systems. Everything I upgraded is GoPower equipment except the Renogy DC to DC charger and the batteries. And that’s because GoPower didn’t have a DC to DC charger or the LiFePo4 battery setup I wanted.

GoPower’s support guys have been EXTREMELY helpful in helping me plan everything out and figure out how I wanted to hook it all together. So I’ve tried to stick with their solution as much as possible. And their warranty service has been excellent. I just had all three of my 190 watt solar panels flake out for some unknown reason and were generating 1/10th of the power they should have been. GoPower support had me measure a couple of things with my multimeter and send them the serial numbers of the panels, and they shipped me three brand new panels via FedEx the next day. No complaints on that 25 year warranty!

I have it all working pretty consistently and stable now, So if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

First, this site, and the people on it...amaze me. I am still learning how to use it! I feel blessed. The time you took to write all of this down is amazing. Trying to order a charger and not sure which one to get. I will research that. The jayco converter is turned off now. But on shore power, we are still pulling 96-114 amps off the batteries when it kicks into charge mode. Husband says thats more than a house pulls and he is afraid that something is terribly wrong. Any thoughts?

[ems437]

Originally Posted by fireflyf32

First, this site, and the people on it...amaze me. I am still learning how to use it! I feel blessed. The time you took to write all of this down is amazing. Trying to order a charger and not sure which one to get. I will research that. The jayco converter is turned off now. But on shore power, we are still pulling 96-114 amps off the batteries when it kicks into charge mode. Husband says thats more than a house pulls and he is afraid that something is terribly wrong. Any thoughts?

DC amps and AC amps don’t function exactly the same. They will differ by a factor of about 10x. So comparing that number the charging circuit in the IC-3000 will feed your batteries to what you use from your house AC amps isn’t a good apples to apples comparison. It would be closer to about 9-11 house amps if you wanted to compare the DC to AC. You will also see that DC amp number automatically drop way down on your battery monitor screen and IC-3000 display when your batteries get charged back up close to 100%.

That being said, your IC-3000 is rated to charge your batteries at up to 125 DC amps if the batteries can accept that fast of a charge. So don’t be surprised if you see that happening when you plug in to the shore power line that can give it that much power. The IC-3000 figures out on its own how fast your battery will accept the charge. That 96-114 you are seeing is completely normal.

A caveat to that is that if you want to run on a generator that can not feed your shore power line that much power to fast charge your batteries, there is a maximum amps setting on your iC-3000 remote display that you can set to turn that down, if you need to.

For example, I have a Westinghouse generator that can put out a maximum of 30 AC amps. So when I want to run the trailer on the generator and still feed the battery charger from the generator, I will set the max amps on the IC-3000 to 30 so it doesn’t overload my generator and shut it down by trying to feed the battery charger more than it can get from the generator. Then when I plug back into AC shore power, I go back to the IC-3000 display and run that setting back up to the max it accepts.

If I remember correctly, the button combination is hold the enter/settings button down for a few seconds, then use the down arrow to scroll to the max amps setting. Something like that. And then enter and arrow buttons to change that to the value you want to set it to. If you don’t use a generator that has less power available, don’t worry about messing with this setting when running the charger mode.

The IC-3000 does support something that is kind of nice if you need it. When you lower that max amps setting to run off of generator, if you need more AC power than your generator is providing, the IC-3000 will use battery power to supplement that power if you have enough power charged up in your batteries, and it isn’t so much that it overloads it. (I did that once, more coming up next…)

One gotcha to be aware of. If you set the max amps setting too low, and then do hook up something inside the trailer that draws too much power. Like setting a lower amp setting to 20 amps if you have a smaller generator (or by accident) and then running the air conditioner and microwave at the same time, which draws a LOT of electricity, the IC-3000 can recognize an overload and shut itself down.

In order to reboot the IC-3000 after that happens, you MUST turn off all power to the IC-3000 for like 15 seconds. So this means unplugging your shore power line AND disconnecting your battery, in order for it to start back up without the red light on it flashing. The Jayco battery disconnect switch will NOT do the trick for this because you have things in your trailer that bypass it, like the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector. If your installer put a circuit breaker or fuse in for your negative battery cable, use that to disconnect the battery for the 15 seconds.

I tripped the overload protection once and it took me about 15 minutes of fiddling with all of my breakers to realize why I couldn’t get it to turn back on. Then I remembered reading that all power to the IC-3000 has to be turned off for it to reset after an overload. So then I disconnected the battery for 15 seconds, reconnected it, plugged my shore power line back in and it started right up. I was so frustrated that GoPower didn’t just put a power switch on it that I could turn off to make that process a whole lot easier. But now that I know it happens, I don’t turn on my air conditioner and microwave at the same time when running on my generator!

Hopefully that will save you a frustration headache when it happens down the road as well!

The LiFePo4 battery charger I bought on Amazon was by LiTime. It was a more expensive option out of all of the choices, but I am glad I got that one. That company makes LiFePo4 batteries as well, so I figured they know how to do it right. It did the job perfectly and worked the first time. No fuss or hassle with trying to adjust settings or knobs. I just hooked it up to the battery, plugged it in, it analyzed my battery and told me on the display when it was done charging. Worked like a champ. I would definitely buy that charger brand again if needed.

[mass-hole]

You need a lot of battery to run and use a 3000 watt inverter. I have three 170 aH Renogy LiFePO4 batteries and a 3000 watt inverter, and if I actually pull 3000 watts from the invert it will crush my battery voltage. Your pulling nearly 260A from the batteries assuming you are using a 12V battery setup. The cables running to the inverter have to be huge. Like 4/0.

You cant just throw a single 100AH battery in there and run 3000W out of the inverter. Im guessing even the three 100 AH batteries will probably struggle.

[ems437]

Originally Posted by mass-hole

You need a lot of battery to run and use a 3000 watt inverter. I have three 170 aH Renogy LiFePO4 batteries and a 3000 watt inverter, and if I actually pull 3000 watts from the invert it will crush my battery voltage. Your pulling nearly 260A from the batteries assuming you are using a 12V battery setup. The cables running to the inverter have to be huge. Like 4/0.

You cant just throw a single 100AH battery in there and run 3000W out of the inverter. Im guessing even the three 100 AH batteries will probably struggle.

You definitely couldn't run very much in terms of either AC or DC devices on a small 100ah battery.

The IC-3000 inverter only pulls what it needs from the batteries. Even though it can generate up to 3000 watts, it does not normally do so. So if fireflyf32 is only running the TV and the LP/AC fridge and some other small things in the trailer, the IC-3000 will power them just fine without using much of the battery power she has available. It has a pretty decent efficiency, so it doesn't waste much battery power in the DC to AC conversion.

However, if you turn on the air conditioner, run the microwave, or plug in a hair dryer for a while, they will suck the battery charge down in no time. So be aware and try not to use the high AC power things when on battery power only and the IC-3000 will serve you well.