Inverter project

[treeofliberty]

Thank u for you're patience, I'm by no means an electrician, my friend a 20 year electrician is going to be doing the work, So what you're saying if I understand correctly is you went from you're shore power plug directly to the inverter/charger than from you're inverter/charger to the panel in the RV. That would require unscrewing panels on the underside of the RV to get access to wiring? Does that sound about right.

Yes, that is what I did with the AC wiring, and it takes full use of the embedded transfer switch and the excellent charger in Magnum. Hooked up to shore power, or even driven by our Honda 2000w generator, will push a lot of amps into the battery bank. Even the Honda will push 80 amps into the batteries, according to the Trimetric.

Once you unscrew the three screws and pull back the panel in the garage, you'll be able to see everything. I didn't replace the AC wire run from the shore power plug, but extended it to reach the inverter in the forward bay. That way, I can return to stock with no issues.

[uthagan]

Am I being to simplistic? With the Magnum Inverter/Converter couldn’t I just take out the existing converter and replace using the same wiring?

[treeofliberty]

Am I being to simplistic? With the Magnum Inverter/Converter couldn’t I just take out the existing converter and replace using the same wiring?

Yes, you certainly could, and that's essentially what I did. The only difference is the placement of the inverter/converter. You loose electrons fast on the 12v wiring, so you want to make them as short and fat as possible. You can make the 120v cables long, because there isn't any real loss of current. For that reason, I placed the inverter/converter right next to the battery bank.

[blackhawk45]

Excellent thread. I just bought a 397th and plan on doing a solar and inverter install. Mine will be complicated by 3 a/c units but I'll jump off of that bridge when I get to it.

[Wizbangdoodle]

We've been boondocking on a Magnum MSH3012, PT-100 and about 1500 watts of solar panels for about a year now. I put 8 Full River AGM batteries for about 890 ah of storage. For anybody contemplating the solar addition, it really is nice. No reliance on anything. Considering we live in Washington where sunshine is rare, it still does a fairly good job.

[DaveMatthewsBand]

We've been boondocking on a Magnum MSH3012, PT-100 and about 1500 watts of solar panels for about a year now.
I put 8 Full River AGM batteries for about 890 ah of storage. For anybody contemplating the solar addition, it really is nice. No reliance on anything.
Considering we live in Washington where sunshine is rare, it still does a fairly good job.

Hey Wiz, sounds like a good boon-docking setup, we are having a similar system installed in 3 weeks, so I am curious about the performance you're getting.
I have a few questions... How many watts are your panels and are they poly or mono?
Are they fixed mount or tilt-able? How low do you let your battery bank get while you're out boon-docking? How long does it take to run them down? A day? A week?
How long does it take for the solar panels to recharge your batteries back to 100%?
I realize this is based on how much sun you have, where you are, what time of year it is, weather, etc., but ballpark... a day in full sun? A week in full sun? a week partly cloudy?
Also do you run a generator to recharge your battery bank? and if so, how long do you have to run it to fully recharge your battery bank?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is our first RV and this will be our first solar setup so we are curious how long it takes to use up 100ah, 400ah, etc.
We assume it will take a few days (not running A/C) to blow through our battery bank, maybe a week? Hopefully a week.
We are having the system built so it is expandable, we are starting with 400ah, but have the option to add 200ah more to the battery bank in the near future if we end up realizing we are blowing through our batteries too quickly. It would be nice to have some idea what to expect, even though our system will be slightly different because we'll be using Lithium batteries so recharge times will be shorter.
I'd appreciate any feedback.

[Wizbangdoodle]

Hey Wiz, sounds like a good boon-docking setup, we are having a similar system installed in 3 weeks, so I am curious about the performance you're getting.
I have a few questions... How many watts are your panels and are they poly or mono?
Are they fixed mount or tilt-able? How low do you let your battery bank get while you're out boon-docking? How long does it take to run them down? A day? A week?
How long does it take for the solar panels to recharge your batteries back to 100%?
I realize this is based on how much sun you have, where you are, what time of year it is, weather, etc., but ballpark... a day in full sun? A week in full sun? a week partly cloudy?
Also do you run a generator to recharge your battery bank? and if so, how long do you have to run it to fully recharge your battery bank?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is our first RV and this will be our first solar setup so we are curious how long it takes to use up 100ah, 400ah, etc.
We assume it will take a few days (not running A/C) to blow through our battery bank, maybe a week? Hopefully a week.
We are having the system built so it is expandable, we are starting with 400ah, but have the option to add 200ah more to the battery bank in the near future if we end up realizing we are blowing through our batteries too quickly. It would be nice to have some idea what to expect, even though our system will be slightly different because we'll be using Lithium batteries so recharge times will be shorter.
I'd appreciate any feedback.

Hmmm, where do I start? Well, as to your first question, we have 6 panels rated at 255 watts each for a total of 1530 watts. Only 4 of those are mounted on the roof on fixed mounts. These are mono panels from Renogy. 2 of these panels are on a 45 degree frame on wheels I made so that I could maximize the output. If I were to do it again, I'd probably put some tilt brackets on the roof.

Battery charging, that's a loaded question This is where you get into the setup of your inverter and control panel, which in my opinion, is the most important part. I have it set to auto start the generator when it hits 80% charge. It will run until it is at 95%. Most of these settings are battery dependant. If you have wet cells, you may want to change that up a bit. I see you are going lithium now and that is a whole other can of worms. The generator usually takes about 3-4 hours to charge things back up. If it is a nice sunny day, the batteries are recharged by noon with just solar.

A bit of clarification, the wife and I are not shy about power usage. She quilts and sews a lot and while doing so, she has the TV on. In the evening, we may have 2 TVs going. We run the microwave and use other AC powered devices without too much thought. I just figure that when the batteries get low, the generator or solar will take care of it. This means that we are charging constantly. I'm sure that if we did not run AC powered equipment, I could go a week easily before the batteries needed a charge. We also have never needed to run our air conditioner, but I have turned one of them on briefly just to see how the inverter would handle it.

Right now it is partly cloudy outside and I am pushing over 30 amps into the batteries. That is with the inverter on and AC circuits active. At this rate, it may take well into the afternoon before I'm at 100% on the batteries. In full sun, my panels will output over 1200 watts and give me over 90 amps of charge. I do have some limitations on that rate of charge according to the battery manufacturer. With you being in Texas, you should have no problem with sun.

What it really comes down to is how you use your power. At a permanent residence, you never think twice about it because it is a never ending source. When you have batteries and solar, you have to meter out what you want to use power on and when you want to use it. For us, when the sun is out, we take advantage and run the washing machine. This way, we get a charge and don't have to run our generator to wash clothes.

I hope this answers a lot of your questions. If you have more, feel free to ask. There is a plethora of info on this site as well as around the internet, but what I found, is there are a lot of differing opinions on batteries especially. Go by what the manufacturer tells you. They're the ones who spent the money in R&D to come up with the recommendations.

[Jdalmata]

Hey Treeofliberty thanks for sharing this info. I am looking to do a similar install on by 28BH, the only problem is that I am a bit of a noob with all of this and know virtually nothing about electrical wiring let alone AC to DC etc. Do you have more specifics about the actual install and how one would be performed by some one with limited knowledge. Last year I installed a small inverter near my TV (so the kids could watch movies when it rains) by hard wiring the small inverter into the back of the radio power supply. This works great but now I would like to go the same route that you went so that I can power the entire coach (minus AC) from the golf cart batteries. We camp in state camp grounds that have no hookups. I will be purchasing two champion generators that can be used to recharge the batteries. Would I need to do anything special to ensure that my refrigerator would continue to run on propane when camping and shore power when home and plugged in, or would the 4 batteries be enough to run the refrigerator as well. I also want my outdoor fridge to run off the batteries while were camping to keep my adult beverages nice and frosty. I have a friend who has this setup and runs everything all day log and recharges the batteries in the morning via generator for 2 hours. He leaves TV, lights, outdoor fridge on all day and never runs out of battery supply.

[OSU Sig]

Nice setup. One word of caution - those batteries are heavy so you'll need to watch for sagging in that front compartment. I needed to reinforce mine.

Keith, what did you use for the reinforcement?

[kregli]

2x2x1/4 bar welded across the frame about a foot back to avoid blocking the generator. Also 1x1/8 aluminum angle along the front edge.