Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » [GMCnet] Converter, charger, inverter stuff
| [GMCnet] Converter, charger, inverter stuff [message #258539] |
Mon, 11 August 2014 20:28  |
glwgmc
Messages: 1014
Registered: June 2004
Karma: 10
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Senior Member |
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Hi Mark,
Thanks for your suggestions. There is a presentation that I give at GMCWS and other clubs on how to install and properly wire for the 460 amp hour battery bank that is in the Royale that can be downloaded for free from my web site jerrywork.com. The battery cables are all 00 size and terminated with electro soldered connectors. The four six volt batteries are all properly balanced with the same length cables throughout. The cable runs from the battery bank to the inverter is 2', from the converter charger to the battery bank is also 2' so I doubt voltage drop in the cables play much of a role here, but they could.
I suspect the failing converter charger is at the bottom of this issue, but I have yet to postulate exactly how. The new converter charger will be here tomorrow and I can eliminate one factor and see what, if any, effect that has on the fully charged state of the battery bank. When we get home I will replace the inverter and see if the new one, with fully charged batteries, can properly drive the inverter microwave. This microwave has a power requirement of 12.7 amps, 1460 watts when running at full power. The nature of inverter microwave technology is that it modulates the power output - power draw - from the magnetron. A regular microwave only modulates the time the microwave runs at full power so anytime this one is running at less than full power it should be drawing less than 1460 watts. The replacement inverter is rated at 2000 watts for 5 minutes, 1800 watts continuous and 3600 watts instantaneous. Time will tell.
Jerry
Jerry Work
The Dovetail Joint
Fine furniture designed & hand crafted
in the 1907 former Masonic Temple building
in historic Kerby, OR
http://jerrywork.com
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Message: 9
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:15:55 -0600
From: Mark
Subject: Re: [GMCnet] Converter, charger, inverter stuff
To: gmclist@temp.gmcnet.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
The first thing I'd suggest you do is to let us know how many feet of what size wire is powering your inverter (both to the battery and to the
ground)?
To feed my own 1000 watt (about 7 amps at 120VAC) I needed to run about 30' of 1/0 and 2/0 cable. The #4 that my coach was wired with originally fell
FAR short of being able to power the inverter at full song. Inverters are notoriously finicky about having a very solid DC input, and dropping just a
volt will normally be enough to cause them to error out. FWIW, the 1000 watt inverter is enough to run the antique microwave in my coach, so I'm in
no big hurry to replace it.
There's no doubt that if your house batteries were not fully charged (due to the failing PD converter) your inverter also wouldn't be happy...
If you can't (or don't want to...) measure the size and length of your inverter wiring, you could just throw a voltmeter on the DC input when you're
trying to fire up the microwave... if the voltage is dropping much, you've found the problem. A further check would be to do the same test at the
house batteries to see if they're sagging under the load as well. FWIW, I stuck with a 1000 watt inverter because I knew that anything that drew more
current than that would discharge my two house batteries in VERY short order. I figure I sized the one I have for the maximum reasonable load
(microwave or vacuum cleaner), which should also keep the idling current to a minimum.
--
Mark Hickey
Mesa, AZ
1978 Royale Center Kitchen
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Jerry & Sharon Work
78 Royale
Kerby, OR
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| Re: [GMCnet] Converter, charger, inverter stuff [message #258573 is a reply to message #258539] |
Tue, 12 August 2014 09:23  |
habbyguy
Messages: 896
Registered: May 2012
Location: Mesa, AZ
Karma: 3
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Senior Member |
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Jerry, I agree that it's unlikely that 2' of 00 cable is going to cause much of a voltage drop problem.
I'd still seriously recommend checking the DC voltage input at the inverter under full load. If it's not sagging much (say below 12.5 volts) then you know for a fact you have a bad inverter.
If it IS sagging below that (and the battery voltage is fine while you're taking those measurement, of course), then the easiest method for finding the problem is to look for a voltage drop from point to point to point. The way I do this is to put the voltmeter on a low scale, and measure from the battery post to the battery cable clamp. Then from the clamp to the point the battery cable is connected to the next point. And then from that point to the next reachable point in the circuit, and so on. You'll figure out where the voltage is "going" that way, and if you DO find a drop of more than 0.1V (unless it's across a really long cable, where that could be normal), you have found the problem. And don't forget this applies equally to the ground side of the circuit - if you are measuring a significant voltage drop from the inverter's negative terminal to the chassis (or wherever it's grounded), you have located the problem.
Of course, none of the above means much if your house batteries aren't charged... inverters really don't like running on anything BUT a fully charged battery. You're going to be drawing at LEAST 120 amps from your batteries under full load (your microwave running on high), so those batteries really have to be in great shape and fully charged... you can eliminate a lot of troubleshooting if you measure the voltage at the batteries while the microwave is running... if it's dropping down to 12.0 volts or below, you have your answer and don't have to worry about the wiring.
Mark Hickey
Mesa, AZ
1978 Royale Center Kitchen
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