[snakebitten]

Braggard.
(I'm envious)

 

[Arkansas Eco]

Braggard.
(I'm envious)

Don't be. I'm a boring ol goat. Just ask Ms Beautiful.

 

[mass-hole]

Got the inverter mounted today. Had to remake the box.

 

[MAXXPAY]

Alright, so I have to put a relay on the power converter 120V hot wire. The problem is all my non-GFCI outlets are tied into the same breaker as the converter and so I can't just cut power to the breaker, I have to catch the connection on the power converter feed after the breaker. I will just trigger the relay off the shore 120V hot wire so that its only on when the shore power is plugged in.

The only other option was to disconnect the battery from the distribution panel, but this seems highly inefficient as I would be converting 12V DC from the battery to 120V AC with the inverter, which would then feed that 120V to the power converter which would turn it back to 12V DC to continue to power the lights and refrigerator and stuff. That seems silly.

I won’t have the fancy slide outs and copious space the run of the mil haulers have but ill sure appreciate the design ive put into our square box that allows me the flexibility to do whatever we want


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mass-hole]

All done except I gotta put in the relay for the power converter.

It will power the microwave which runs around 1500 watts. Thats about the limit of what my battery will supply.

The 120A and 50A breakers are in series. 120A is wired direct to the battery with two 4 ga wires to protect the battery from being over drawn. Then the 50A breaker is wired to the 120A and feeds just the 12V circuits in the trailer as well as back flowing to charge the battery.

 

[mass-hole]

Trial run for the inverter and cell phone booster. My wife and I left the kids with my MIL and came down to the desert for a couple days. We are working and relaxing and doing a little mtn biking.

The cell service here is ok, i have 3 bars of lte. But my speedtest.net results were like 50 mbps/20mbps without the booster. With it on im hitting 110 mbps/60 mbps, which is faster than my home internet was up until last week

Had a zoom call with video no problem.

 

[snakebitten]

Wasn't that long ago that corporate America was paying hefty fees for bundling 4 T1's to support a campus of offices. 6mbps

50mbps today in the desert with a phone set to Hotspot. And we want more.

I marvel at all of it every single day. My own children don't understand why I do
My grandchildren aren't even aware

Looks like your trial run is a win.

 

[mass-hole]

So I am running my AC with the generator because its so windy here right now that dust/sand was blowing in the windows. The weird thing is, I have a 240V 30A to 120V 30A adapter and when I use that it kept tripping the breaker on the generator. When I plug into the regular 20A plug on the generator, it will run the A/C no problem.

I thought 240V 30A plugs were essentially 2x 120V 30A lines.

 

[snakebitten]

They usually are. I wonder if it's just one 120v bank that's throwing?
With those adapters you don't get to choose which bank you are plugging into.

Are there separate 20A receptacles for each bank? You could try the AC on the other?

 

[mass-hole]

They usually are. I wonder if it's just one 120v bank that's throwing?
With those adapters you don't get to choose which bank you are plugging into.

Are there separate 20A receptacles for each bank? You could try the AC on the other?

I think the problem might be that I have a switch on the gen to run 120V only, or 120V and 240V. The 240V plug and adapter won't power the trailer if I have it flipped to 120V only mode. So its either turning off one(the wrong one), or both hot wires on the 240V plug when in that mode. I gotta break out my voltmeter and see what its doing.

Hopefully its just as easy as swapping the hot wires on the 240V plug and leaving it in 120V mode.

 

[snakebitten]

From what I understand the 240v 30A outlet on the truck is the standard NEMA L14 that's on other generators. Is yours the same?

 

[mass-hole]

From what I understand the 240v 30A outlet on the truck is the standard NEMA L14 that's on other generators. Is yours the same?

View attachment 178526

Correct. I am using one of these to convert to my 30A 120V rv connection:

Camco 55338 PowerGrip 30 Amp 4-Prong Generator Adapter , ORANGE https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CXAC5MG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1B1YMVCK4T94526XSCMF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

For some reason the generator does not like to be in 240V mode an use this adapter.

 

[mass-hole]

So i just did a thing. A guy on ebay was selling these renogy 170 ah batteries for $600 obo. So i took a few measurements and realized i can fit 3 in my little battery nook.

So i sent him an offer to buy two batteries for $500 each.

So now i will have 510 ah worth of batteries, completely overkill for the trailer but also can run my 3000 watt inverter and then some at full steam.

My thought is if there is ever a power outage i can break out my solar panels and power the basics in my house off the 3000w inverter if needed.

If anyone is interested

New Renogy Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery 12 Volt 170 Amp Hour 816360029137 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for New Renogy Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery 12 Volt 170 Amp Hour at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[mass-hole]

Well the bikes didnt tear the bumper off including about 20 miles of dirt roads.

 

[Blown F-150]

Well the bikes didnt tear the bumper off including about 20 miles of dirt roads.

Bonus, lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mass-hole]

Yeah so my generator in 120V mode was only powering one side of the 240V plug. For whatever reason, it was not the same side as the Camco adapter. One of the power pins on the 240V side of the adapter us just a dummy pin thats not wired to anything which was the one getting power from the generator.

So i cracked open the generator panel and just swapped the leads for the two 120V pins. The red wires here:

And the white on the other side.

I am now running my camper on the 240V plug and everything seems to work.

This generator is 3500W continuous but i think it can really only supply about 2800W at this altitude assuming it is engine power limited. Thats only 23 Amps.

So really if I wanted a generator capable of a full 30 amps i probably need one thats 4500W continuous. I am not even sure one of those honda eu2200’s would even run the A/C

 

[snakebitten]

One alternative way to approach it, although not the most elegant, is to get the Generator dogbone for a 50Amp RV.
And then get the dogbone for splitting the RV50 into 2 RV 30's

That's the approach I took with the Powerboost and I have confirmed that I can switch banks by just choosing the alternate 30A outlet

 

[mass-hole]

I got the two new batteries today. They were triple boxed with foam padding and everything in the original Renogy boxes. Both are measuring 13.1V.

So if anyone is interested I can say these are a solid buy.

Thats 6528 Wh worth of battery, or 4.4x a F150 Powerboost battery

 

[Blown F-150]

That's awesome. Maybe I should ditch the "heated" battery and just build a insulated box with some kind of heating pad I can turn on if needed. For the power, the size of these are nice and small. Even just going to one of these would be 70% more capacity then I have right now.

 

[snakebitten]

Thats 6528 Wh worth of battery, or 4.4x a F150 Powerboost battery

So after you get all this sorted out, you should design an "add-on" extended battery pack for the Powerboost. Even if just ONE of those could be hacked into the battery management system.

Imagine breaking through the 30mpg barrier.

You could retire on the royalties. I'd be happy to be your field tester.

Seriously though, that's intriguing what you are doing for boondocking prowess.