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Message |
Darrell Bohannan (152.163.206.179)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2001 - 3:08 pm: | |
OK I am to the point of needing power to run lights, TV, appliances ect. where do I start? I know that the gen set will run my A/C and Heat. but what about the rest. Is it all 12 volt? The TV stereo DVD. Or 120 volt. When the gen is not running what is powering 120 volt when there is no shore power? is it is inverters how are the incorperated into this hole setup? Do I need a converter perhaps. Just need a layout of the electrical. Breaker boxes, transfer switch box, inverters, converters, wiring. From start to finish. Can anyone help on this. Thanks dbohanno@yahoo.com |
bob m (152.163.197.198)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2001 - 9:33 pm: | |
I have a detroit diesel 2-53 that runs a 15kw generator, an air compressor, the refrigeration compressor and has a 100 amp alternator.in addition to all the electrical power i need i have a charging system and air for the suspension and brakes as a backup. my bus is totally electric and i have a small inverter for lights and tv. |
Tom Caffrey (Pvcces) (12.146.33.228)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2001 - 10:47 pm: | |
Darrell, the new inverters can help you solve a lot of these problems and there are a lot of them available.
For example, if you use a Heart Combi or a Trace, it can serve the purpose of providing your transfer switch, a converter and an inverter all in one package, and the're not real expensive for what they do.
If you go that route, then you have a generator and a shore power cord as your two other sources of AC power.
While not totally automatic, an almost foolproof way of setting your system up is to provide a power outlet from your generator in the same bay that you store your shore power cord.
If you are hooking to shore power, you pull your cord out of the bay and plug it in to the metered source.
If you don't need to connect to shore power, then you put the cord back in its bay and plug the cord into the generator outlet.
If the generator is started up with a remote switch from inside the coach, power will be available for your AC units.
If you leave the generator off, you will have AC power anyway because the inverter will automatically turn on. You could run an AC on a 2000 or 2500 watt inverter, but you wouldn't want to do that because you would run down your house batteries awfully quickly.
Your shore power cord would be connected directly to your inverter, your inverter would be connected to your house batteries and to your power distribution panel.
From the panel, you would feed all your AC outlets and other permanently wired equipment.
If you are not familiar with how to figure out loads, there is an easy rule of thumb. If it heats or cools, it goes through power fast. What you can run depends on how much storage (Batteries) you want to carry and recharge.
All your house power that is DC needs its own panel to distribute it. For example, our coach has many cigarette lighter outlets, quite a bit of lighting and our water pump on DC.
Our DC loads are the same voltage as the starting batteries, so we have a switch that can connect our house batteries to our starting batteries, so that all the power is available to start the engine.
The switch is spring loaded, so we don't have to remember to turn it off after using it.
I hope this helps clear up the mystery. |
Darrell Bohannan (205.188.199.183)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2001 - 2:46 am: | |
OK. So let me get this correct. You have a transfer switch box. gen power and shore power feed into it. correct so far? then it will come out and feed into a breaker box. Now coming out of the breaker box I will run my A/C and Heat unit and what ever 110 outlets I will have. Now on the 12 volt side I will have a seperate 150 amp alternater running to my house batteries.From the batteries I will run to a fuse panel and from there to the 12 lights ect. Here is where I get lost. Do I run indivdual inverters for TV, vcr and other 110 accesories? Or one larger inverter? Is ther any need for a converter? Am I missing anything in this setup? |
Tom Caffrey (Pvcces) (12.146.33.94)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2001 - 12:08 am: | |
Darrell,
A single inverter with enough capacity to power what you want to run off your house batteries is capable of supplying most needs. They are readily available to nearly 3 KW in a single AC output.
A single inverter also eliminates the need for a converter by providing a powerful smart charger that will keep your batteries up with a minimum of wear and tear on them and a minimum of maintenance by you.
The only reason that one large inverter might not do everything you want is if you have something you need to run that is very fussy about the kind of power it uses.
Most people buy a modified sine wave inverter because they cost less per watt of output power and because they waste less power making AC.
If you have something that is too fussy for that kind of power, you may need to buy the sine wave inverter for your main inverter or buy a small sine wave inverter to go with your main inverter.
The small inverter, if you buy one, would not need to have a transfer switch or a charger because the main one would take care of that. Because of its low power and few features, you should be able to find one for much less money than the main one.
The choice of one sine wave inverter for everything or one of each type should depend on cost and usefulness. One thing you get with two different inverters is flexibility, which might have some value, in itself.
For example, if one inverter should fail, or you have trouble with some piece of electronic equipment on the main inverter, then you could try it out on the other one.
If it was me, starting fresh, I would buy the modified sine wave inverter and act like it was going the take care of everything. Usually, they do the job just fine.
If something gave me trouble on the inverter, but ran fine on shore power, I would decide then if I thought it was worth it to buy a small sine wave inverter.
If you have lots of money to spend on your power system, then you might like a sine wave inverter for everything. The manufacurer claims that their power is cleaner than shore power. Its just more expensive if you do that.
It is pretty easy to take an AC appliance and make it a DC appliance by just putting an inverter and a relay that would handle its current in it. The biggest difficulty is making sure the power cord is heavy enough and the connction to the batteries is good enough.
Our coach came with a little 1000 watt Trace inverter that we are getting by on. One day, we were running the refrigerator and the washing mashing, and then my wife turned on the microwave. Everything ran fine, and those microvaves take a good jolt on start up.
We were way over its ratings, but it never bothered anything. That's why we haven't yet replaced it with a more poerful one.
Sorry about the long post and I hope it helps.
Tom Caffrey PD4106-2576 |
FAST FRED (63.208.80.252)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2001 - 5:28 am: | |
"Most people buy a modified sine wave inverter because they cost less per watt of output power and because they waste less power making AC. "
Actually they dont waste more power , they make a slightly different type of power.
IF you wish to run a large AC motor , air cond ,you are much better off with the true sine wave.
Because of a matter called the power factor the BIG draws will run, but make less {a lot less} power on a chop chop {"modified" sine wave}AC.
For a microwave , refrigerator or TV the chop chop power is OK ,
but if your wanting air cond ,
from the coach alt,
use the sine wave inverter ,
you will get the cooling out put designed by the mfg.
Not a fraction of it.
FAST FRED |
Tom Caffrey (Pvcces) (12.146.33.27)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 1:20 am: | |
Hi Fred,
Do you have any numbers on the difference beteeen the two kinds of power? I did see this mentioned once before, but I didn't get any idea of the size of the effect.
I understand from the inverter specs that there is about five or six percent difference in the power consumed for any given rating.
I haven't seen where the inverter makers said anything about it, so I guess I just ignored it. If you can enlighten me, I'd be real interested.
We haven't bought our new inverter, yet, but we're looking, and we're weighing the two types.
Thanks. Tom Caffrey PD4106-2576 |
FAST FRED (63.215.231.232)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 5:41 am: | |
Home power has covered this in different articles, but were packed , so I cant go out and send you to the article.
Home Power is on line , FREE , so you might search for the references.
To visualize the concept , remember the chop chop inverter folks always show a graph of their current over a Real sine wave.
The area of the sine wave thats NOT filled in in the drawing , is the power that an induction motor needs to make full power.
The "saving" of not filling in the full sine wave is the "better efficency" of the modified sine wave stuff.The save power by not making it.
BUT your big AC will really notice, the rest of the goodies wont mind a bit.
Actually you can measure the lack of power if you wish ,
Plug the same microwave in to a real or modified sine wave inverter and you can time the difference in boiling a specific amount of water.
HP had a system for re-rating the microwave output , so it would be easy to convert cooking times from published recipees.
FAST FRED |
Tom Caffrey (Pvcces) (12.146.33.248)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 10:55 pm: | |
Thanks, Fred, I'll check it out. |
David Anderson (168.215.176.129)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 27, 2001 - 9:41 pm: | |
Darryl,
Go to www.traceengineering.com and download their installation manual. It gives you the wiring diagrams for which you are looking. It explains just about everything.
David Anderson |
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