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tom73

Inverter Question...... I'm Puzzled!

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Hey everyone, I recently acquired a 3500w inverter (Edecoa 3500) that I was thinking about using for some boon docking. I have 400ah of FLA batteries (for now) and hooked up the inverter. I plugged my trailer in and the surge protector (Progressive Industries 35550 hard wired)  won't let the power go to the trailer. I checked the output of the inverter and here is where I run into an issue. Between hot and neutral I see 121.7vac, but from hot to ground I see 88vac, and neutral to ground I see 74vac. The surge protector won't allow the power to the RV because of the neutral-ground voltage I am guessing. Also, the inverter has a floating neutral, so I tried a neutral-ground bonding connection. That makes the inverter throw an overload alarm and no voltage is created, so, it appears that is not what the problem is. However, I have a 3600w inverter generator that has a floating neutral and with a neutral-ground bond it powers the RV just fine through the surge protector. I have tried emailing both Edecoa and Progressive Industries, but they don't seem to want to reply to me......

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Bill, I was not using the power pedestal for this. I was trying to get the inverter to power the trailer. Since my trailer is a 50A unit I made a 30A power cord to power the trailer. That cord works well on a pedestal or my generator, so I don't believe it is the problem. Like I said, I get about 88V from hot to ground and about 74V neutral to ground on the inverter.

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I've read your post 7 times over the past two days and I'm still not sure what you're trying to do. What part does the PI have to do with using your house batteries to power the trailer. My house batteries are wired to my inverter and my portable PI is only used when I connect it to the park pedestal and then connect my 50amp cord to the PI. 

What am I missing?

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I am trying to use the inverter to power the trailer. I use my 30A power cord to plug into the inverter and attach to the side of the trailer just like the original power cord would.

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2 hours ago, tom73 said:

Bill, I was not using the power pedestal for this. I was trying to get the inverter to power the trailer. Since my trailer is a 50A unit I made a 30A power cord to power the trailer. That cord works well on a pedestal or my generator, so I don't believe it is the problem. Like I said, I get about 88V from hot to ground and about 74V neutral to ground on the inverter.

I am pretty shure that is not how to wire the system to power your trailer whether it is 50 or 30 amp. 

The inverter output should go directly to a sub electrical panel. That should have circuit breakers for the circuits to be powered by the inverter. 

Bill

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14 hours ago, wildebill308 said:

I am pretty shure that is not how to wire the system to power your trailer whether it is 50 or 30 amp. 

The inverter output should go directly to a sub electrical panel. That should have circuit breakers for the circuits to be powered by the inverter. 

Bill

And that is exactly what would happen if I plugged the inverter into the receptacle on the side of my trailer. The trailer does not care where the power comes from. HOWEVER, I may have stumbled onto what my problem is. Some inverters (ie the "less expensive" type) make 120V between the hot and neutral, but in all reality they make 60V on the hot and neutral iin reference to ground, meaning the only way for this inverter to power my trailer is to bypass the EMS. That is a potentially dangerous situation in my mind since there is 60VAC in reference with the ground. That would also explain why when there was a neutral/ground boning plug installed it put the inverter into an overload condition. I don't believe I want to use this in my RV even though it came out of another RV.

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I have decided that I am not going to use this inverter for my RV due to having to bypass my surge protector and the potential of having 60VAC on the neutral. I am going to look for a better inverter.

 

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