Inverter alternative

[Passin Thru2]

My wife and I are not big AC (electrical) users. On our last trip we went 36 nights without any hookups. However there are times where AC would be nice such as letting my wife use her sewing machine. Also we use our solar for battery charging so I am not concerned about a better battery charger than the converter.

Since our AC use is limited I did not want to install a “full” inverter-charger setup wired into the entire trailer with the space usage, rewiring and other complications, not to mention cost.

Therefore I installed a 2000 watt Renogy inverter in the overhead of the pass through. I wired it to 2 new outlets - one by the door which gives easy access to anything to be used in the kitchen and one at the foot of the bed which will be reachable to anything in our slide where our settee is.

Not for anyone, but it meets our needs and uses very little space. About a $600 project with all wiring, cables, switches and fuses.

[Ray,IN]

Good job.

[BeatCJ]

I've been thinking about doing the something similar. Any particular reason you chose that inverter?

[Passin Thru2]

The first reason is it was a pure sine wave inverter. I have seen a lot of Renogy products and they seem to have a reasonable reputation. The 2000 watt output would meet my needs. The physical size would fit where I wanted to put it. And the cost was reasonable. Uncle A (Amazon) sells it for around $300.

[BeatCJ]

Thanks.
My panels are Renogy, seem to be what they are supposed to be.

[radar]

Nice job.

[jrd22]

Nice job! I've been wanting to do something similar since installing the solar panels on the roof. What size cables did you run to the batteries/shunt?

[Passin Thru2]

I ran 2/0 cables to the buss bar that is connected to the shunt and the positive buss bar that then runs to the battery. I did put in a 300amp fuse in the positive cable. Those runs (which go to the wire assembly area under the trailer) were 10 feet long. I also put in a battery switch right by the inverter.

The Renogy has one hard wired outlet from which I ran 12 gauge Ancor mult-strand wire to the outlet. The inverter has 3 plug in outlets. From one of them I ran a 12 gauge extension cord to the other outlet, cutting off the female end and hard wiring it to the outlet.

That does leave me 2 more outlets on the back of the inverter if I want to plug something else in.

The battery cables went on the inside of the frame down into the area above the coroplast and then to the wire area.

The wire that ran back to the door area went down the outside of the frame, thru the black plastic thru conduit attached to the frame and then back up thru the black plastic along side of the propane line that runs to the furnace. The extension cord wire went thru the wall of the pass thru into the area under the board under the bed on to the outlet at the foot of the bed.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hope that helps. Simple but flexible.

[jrd22]

Thanks Passin Thru, really appreciate the explanation and links. We don't use a lot of 115v either but it would be good to have some available when off grid.

[ewarnerusa]

Looks clean, nice work. What we have done for years is plug the shore power cord into the inverter outlet, this way all the camper's outlets are live and powered from the inverter. One must unplug/disconnect your converter when doing this, otherwise the converter tries to do it's thing using power from the batteries via inverter resulting in a feedback loop that will quickly discharge the batteries. Like the OP, we rely on solar for all battery charging so our converter is default off via a dedicated breaker in the AC panel.
One must also be careful that other items that would normally run off shore power are disabled/turned off. Water heater on propane, fridge on propane, etc. I flip the breakers for the water heater AC element and air conditioner off when doing this to avoid accidentally turning them on.
I have a transfer switch ready for a spring project that will eliminate the need to dig out the shore power cord.