Can electrical equipment overload plug in?

[Mel41]

Does anyone know if we are plugged into to the 50v on site plug in, how much electrical equipment can we run at the same time? The reason I ask is yesterday, first trip away in our new RV I plugged in my hairdryer and tripped the inverter. Did I overload the system? Obviously the refrigerator is running all the time, water heater and air con on and off, mostly lights and a couple of TV’s running.
Your thoughts will be appreciated.

[SloPoke]

My first question... What outlet was the Hair Dryer plugged into - that tripped the Inverter Circuit Breaker?

[Allen_C]

Originally Posted by SloPoke

My first question... What outlet was the Hair Dryer plugged into - that tripped the Inverter Circuit Breaker?

Right! If you were plugged into a 50A source, your inverter should have been bypassed. The inverter takes the 12v electricity from the batteries and inverts it to 110v. If you are not plugged in to 50A, the oem inverter in your unit is probably a Xantrex 1200 or similar, which will NOT run a 1500w hair dryer!

[ChuckW]

My first question is what RV do you own?

It is my understanding that in our 2017 Seneca the inverter is in standby mode when the coach is powered by shore power. It will become active if shore power fails. So, that said if you have a Seneca you were not using power from the inverter.

While on the inverter in the Seneca only the microwave outlet and the TV outlet are powered. As an example.. One a recent trip my wife/First Officer wanted to use a heating pad while traveling. I ran a power cord from the microwave outlet to her seat. Heating pad worked perfectly.

To calculate watts available multiply amps x volts. 50 Amps X 240 Volts = 12000 Watts total available. On the Seneca the legs are split into 2 120 Volt legs. So that gives 6000 Watts per leg. You can calculate watt demand by adding up all appliances running on each leg. Remember the air conditioner and perhaps the refrigerator have a higher demand at start than when operating.

With a high demand hair dryer you could overload a leg if at the same time a high demand appliance started.

I hope this helps. It's MAGIC!!

[Robbbyr]

Originally Posted by Mel41

Does anyone know if we are plugged into to the 50v on site plug in, how much electrical equipment can we run at the same time? The reason I ask is yesterday, first trip away in our new RV I plugged in my hairdryer and tripped the inverter. Did I overload the system? Obviously the refrigerator is running all the time, water heater and air con on and off, mostly lights and a couple of TV’s running.
Your thoughts will be appreciated.

Were you trying to operate the hair dryer from the bedroom (inverter-fed) outlet when the inverter tripped out? If so, you might try using another outlet not on the inverter circuit until you can find out what is going on.

A test you might try - Shut off the campground pedestal's breaker so you have no AC power coming in. Try operating the microwave using the inverter and see if it trips out again. If it won't keep the microwave running you may have to have your inverter looked at to determine why it is doing that.

I have an 1,800 watt inverter in my Seneca and the newest ones have a 2,000 watt unit, but I am not sure in what year they made the switch. And at least in my 2014, when I am on shore power the power is just passing through my inverter which is actually shut off. So an overload my inverter-fed circuits will trip a breaker, not shut down my inverter. But the newer Seneca's inverters work differently and are not just turned on and turned off like mine is. Some research on what you have may reveal something of what is going on.

[Les7h]

On our Seneca we can operate everything that is factory installed and add a hair drier with power to spare - the only thing that might cause a problem is if the A/C - microwave and fireplace were on the same leg as the hair drier but you wouldn’t be running the fireplace and A/C at the same time and the inverter should not be in use anyway ( either off or bypassed ) Les