Victron Charger/Invertor.. too damn clever !

Some of you may recall I installed a Victron 70 A Charger / 1600 watt invertor some months ago.. and as the title of the post suggests it is a clever bit of kit, if it had legs I'm sure it would plug the EHU in by itself..
Loss of EHU for whatever reason results in a seamless change over to the inverter without you ever knowing, it continues to power everything on board that was previously using shore power .... but, this is the problem.. you don't know this until you've ran out of battery power and it shuts down on low voltage oh: There is however an option on the Victron for 'Charge Only' which I now use while on EHU. Ideally I need to install an alarm for 'Loss of Shore Power'

The second issue is really only RV related, when not on shore power and using the inverter you need to ensure you have switched off all 110v appliances, fridge, water heater etc .. but it's still powering the transformer.. not good, off load the tranny still uses juice. To overcome this problem I've installed a 45A 240 v switch for the tranny inside the RV, when switched off this also ensures that no 110 v appliances are inadvertently left switched on and the tranny isn't sucking away at the batteries.

One of the best features is it's ability to supplement a low power shore supply by using the inverter, then recharging when the load is reduced..

See Manufacturers Description for better explanation..

 

Hi jim chase who did my conversion fitted it with a small consumer/RCCD unit, its got separate mcbs for both the 240 and 110 volt systems. Just a thought, 45amp is way to big, 20amp is all you need for a 3000watt tranny. The mcb is to protect your wiring to the tranny and this only needs to be 2.5mm flex. So unless your using 6mm cable I would reduce it.

Olley

 

Thanks Olley

That's a good plan which I'll look into doing, at present I only have the main RCCD and a mcb for the 240 v sockets, the switch I fitted on the tranny is only for isolation purposes, it's not a circuit breaker.

Cheers

Jim

 

Its all gobbledigook to me!
I can pretty much wire any power supply to anything and i find Motorhome supplies over-complicated and not needed!
My Transit was powered by three plant batteries on a breaker to the engine battery (so i could charge from the alternator) and powered everything including my 20 inch plasma TV, Digibox, laptop, lighting, fridge and other needs for two days with 2 hours charging!
I also had a huge German battery charger connected to my 240 volt hook up that charged up the batteries and fed my needs while on hook up!
This was all monitored by a simple £4 battery tester that gave me much more information than any system in a Motorhome!
Most of my components were industrial but very cheap compared to caravan shops and did the job twice as good while being more user friendly!
When at college on a Telecommunication course i learned that electricity is very simple and most reliable when kept that way!
I am known to my mate as NASA because of the technology i have connected where-ever i go!