Renogy 12v 2000W Pure Sine Wave

[Lee bay]

Has anyone any used one of these and is it any good?

 

[MisterB]

I have also been digging around for info about the remote switch, and it looks like people have worked out the pin out for it - given that and a spot of electronics, it should be possible to rig it so that the inverter is set to off when the 12V van power is switched off, which avoids the hassle of having to remember to switch multiple things on/off

cheers,

Robin

can you explain why you would want that to happen please? we never switch our 12v power off. would that mean the pass through wouldnt work? confused.com

 

[rwg]

According to Ray-Vic (post #28), the pass through works with the inverter off. The main idea of having the inverter switch tweaked so that it only comes on with the 12V power is to reduce the chance of leaving the inverter on and wasting battery powering basically nothing. Our van turns off the 12V when you start it anyway, so we are used to turning on/off the 12V.

On the position, I was planning to put a seat base battery under the driver's seat to increase the lithium capacity, but I have seen people who have mounted the inverter on the back of the driver seat base unit (removing the grey plastic cover). That's my plan at the moment, subject to confirming enough space, etc.

cheers,

Robin

 

[Ray-Vic]

If they supply a plug in cable with the device then ought that be fused at 10A if the connector is 10A?

They don't supply an input AC plug, only 12V cables which for most applications are not much use.

Not a bad idea to have the inverter turn off with the 12V if you're worried about leaving it on. I have left mine on several times when putting the van away in storage so had to go back and turn it off. I'm used to it now and it becomes another thing you just remember to do, but at the beginning I did it a good few times. I guess you just need to consider whether there is likely to be a situation where you want the inverter on for 230V but not the 12V systems.

Obviously there is a LED on the switch but visibility of it depends on location.

 

[Ray-Vic]

can you explain why you would want that to happen please? we never switch our 12v power off. would that mean the pass through wouldnt work? confused.com

The passthrough works anyway whatever the switch is doing. The switch simply dictates what happens if the EHU is removed (it will change over to batteries if it is on, and it will do nothing if it's off).

I'm sat in my motorhome now on EHU with the inverter switched off and everything is working just fine.

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[MisterB]

The passthrough works anyway whatever the switch is doing. The switch simply dictates what happens if the EHU is removed (it will change over to batteries if it is on, and it will do nothing if it's off).

I'm sat in my motorhome now on EHU with the inverter switched off and everything is working just fine.

the question i also asked is why would you want to to switch your 12v supply off? would that not then mean no 12v equipment worked?

 

[Ray-Vic]

the question i also asked is why would you want to to switch your 12v supply off? would that not then mean no 12v equipment worked?

Yes, I'm guessing he means for this when not using the motorhome, such as when it's in storage.

 

[Ray-Vic]

I have a support case with Renogy regarding this and they don't seem to be able to give me a straight answer, to date just saying the the passthrough current is linked to the input (no mention of the socket capacities), which I'm saying it can't be as the UK outlets can't supply 16A, so there must be a limit of either 13A (if their IEC socket is 13A rated) or 10A if it is a fairly standard 10A one.

Ok, the official line from Renogy support on the maximum current permissible on the AC passthrough circuit is "about 2200 watts". So this confirms it is about 10A, so if you are on a 16A hook up and want to use all of this, you can't do it without installing some form of bypass switch.

 

[MisterB]

Ok, the official line from Renogy support on the maximum current permissible on the AC passthrough circuit is "about 2200 watts". So this confirms it is about 10A, so if you are on a 16A hook up and want to use all of this, you can't do it without installing some form of bypass switch.

But surely that's only if all your sockets are fed via the inverter. Don't forget that the fridge (and poss water heater) will be fed direct from the site hook up ...

 

[Ray-Vic]

But surely that's only if all your sockets are fed via the inverter. Don't forget that the fridge (and poss water heater) will be fed direct from the site hook up ...

What's running off it is irrelevant, it's just the maximum power that the AC passthrough can handle. People may have space heaters or other power hungry items plugged into their sockets, which are often protected by a 16A breaker. How you divide up the load (taking away fridge and water heater) still doesn't change the maximum permissible load on the passthrough.

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[MisterB]

i think you misunderstood my point or i am just not getting it!! if the max pass through is 10A from the inverter, but you also have other appliances NOT running from the inverter, but direct from the EHU, you could still be drawing 16A = 10A through the inverter pass through and 6A through the EHU via a non inverter linked circuit?

 

[herald_400rl]

i think you misunderstood my point or i am just not getting it!! if the max pass through is 10A from the inverter, but you also have other appliances NOT running from the inverter, but direct from the EHU, you could still be drawing 16A = 10A through the inverter pass through and 6A through the EHU via a non inverter linked circuit?

We have a 10a mcb for sockets, 6a for heater and 6a for water heater. If we loaded up the sockets with the heating just on (so running on full) and water heater on I would think it'd trip a 16a breaker.
So we passthrough all sockets via the inverter as its 10a mcb anyway (and always has been).

 

[Ray-Vic]

i think you misunderstood my point or i am just not getting it!! if the max pass through is 10A from the inverter, but you also have other appliances NOT running from the inverter, but direct from the EHU, you could still be drawing 16A = 10A through the inverter pass through and 6A through the EHU via a non inverter linked circuit?

I didn't misunderstand your point. My point is that the inverter, however you split the load, has a 10A limit on the AC side, so the maximum passthrough current cannot exceed this and people need to consider this when planning their wiring and loads. Not everyone is going to split their loads, so they will need to know that they can't just run their 16A supply via the passthrough thinking it will cope with it, as it won't.

 

[Ray-Vic]

We have a 10a mcb for sockets, 6a for heater and 6a for water heater. If we loaded up the sockets with the heating just on (so running on full) and water heater on I would think it'd trip a 16a breaker.
So we passthrough all sockets via the inverter as its 10a mcb anyway (and always has been).

That's absolutely fine, and my point. You need to make sure that the load routing through the inverter is limited to 10A, and ideally protected by a 10A breaker so it can't inadvertently be exceeded.