Shore Power to Inverter Charger

Thurmond1317

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Washington
Hello all!
I've been trying to price and map my electrical setup in my P30 and want to get the aux heat working asap. Where I park it I have easy access to shore power but I'm a bit confused on how I'm supposed to wire it for both charging my house batteries and working the not yet purchased diesel heater and lights.

The inverter charger I have been looking at says it can work in AC power supply mode and will charge the batteries, or work in DC power supply mode where it takes power from the House Batteries(HBs) and runs the system. Verbally is it giving me my answer but there is only one set of cables running to the HBs and it seems wrong to both inject power and take from the same set of cables. I've worked with a bit of electricity before but it's always been one direction or so I thought. From power to switch to output device.
I just want to confirm that what the inverter is advertising is correct and that through the one set of pos and neg cables it can both take and give power to the HBs. I really don't want my heat to be coming from the fire I created due to terrible wiring.
Here is the one I've been looking at. Link to Inv/Chgr
 
So shore power is VAC, and you need both VAC and VDC in your bus. The way to think about this is to have two separate systems and have a bridge to combine them with main switches to divide them so only one input is occurring at a time. You may want to charge from both but legally this isn't allowed because you could feed back into the VAC shore line and kill a lineman

Your DC system is using the inverter and you are typically going solar to charge controller to batteries to inverter then to VAC for house appliances like a microwave, or not using the inverter. The inverter plays best as a DC to AC crossover only when you need to convert VDC to VAC. You need to have a house circuit breaker panel for the VAC. Or a manual transfer switch.

To reduce confusion a circuit breaker panel and manual transfer switch are basically the same accept the circuit breaker panel by default doesn't have the switch. You can easily upgrade it to be a manual transfer switch with a protective slide switch.

When wanting to be on shore power, you'll flip this switch in the circuit panel which makes the bus a VAC only system. You don't include the DC stuff as it's separate and it will run off the batteries when in shore mode.

Now is the time you are asking what about if I want to run DC stuff. Well this is where a typical battery charger comes in. You plug in the charger like any battery charger I to your VAC system at home in a wall outlet,. They mostly 200 watt chargers and up to about 400 watt chargers. So it's slow charging your VDC system and while doing so you can also use the DC devices without battery drain unless your exceeding your battery chargers wattage output. But during all of this electrically other than the battery charger the VAC and VDC systems are separated while on shore power.

When you go back to VDC being king, you shut off the manual transfer switch or circuit breaker switches once modified with a slider switch and now solar wins and is charging batteries, and VAC is reconnected via inverter.

So think of it as a criss cross type system or how a railroad track switch works.

The bridge for VDC when it's running off of solar is the inverter, which is shut off when you switch to shore power by cutting it off via the manual transfer switch or the circuit panel with slider.

The bridge for when VAC is king, is the battery charger. Solar can technically still charge the batteries too.

You have to switch between them electrically when you switch from VDC to VAC.
 
I'm probably way overthinking this aren't I?
Are you saying both charging types existing in the build is illegal or just at the same time? I understand the manual switches to never have both operating at the same time, or the auto sensing ones I've been reading about. But the logistics of the the inverter charger should be fine?
Cause solar is it's own thing to the batteries, same with the alternator, generator is probably ac so can run through the invertor charger to regulate it and same with the shore power. Switches to auto or manually register the right power source. Dedicated ac charger circuit that's turned on in gen/shore mode. That's basically it right?
 
My system is completely automatic and worry free, but I had to take a masterclass to build it. The class was pretty inexpensive, but the parts weren't. Mine is Victron based and I used the Victron MultiPlus II 3000 inverter/charger that you can set up to switch automagically.
 
Setting it up in such a way that your VDC System is outputting electricity back into the VAC System while on shore power can potentially backfeed through the campground system. That is illegal, but as long as you have a switch to cut off the VDC from the VAC shore power system when connected to shore power it's legal.
 
Here's a simple diagram. It can get more complex but this is the base of what you need to do. (Obviously there are no fuses etc in this diagram that also need to be added but this is for explaining how VAC and VDC systems work together in your bus.)
Electrical_Bus.png
 
Nikits once claimed that 12v DC was "bidirectional" in his dash lighting circuit. I am very wary of his electrical advice.
In all fairness, Dc voltages can be designed and implemented to work "Bidirectionally", either using Zener diodes, bi directional op-amps or simply using negative voltages... but in a dash lighting circuit, I agree, it goes one way...

Oh and it is current flow that matters, voltages are nothing but a "reference" point, voltages does not travel, again, electrons (current flow) are what moves....
Also, In an A/C circuit, such as the one above, Triacs can be used/implemented, acting like a switch allowing current to flow in both directions.

It all boils down to circuit design!
 
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It's not bi directional the resistance is balanced on both ends due to the way the dashs traces come into the lighting socket. Since there's a lesser path of resistance (aka another trace it can go down) it's going to take that trace rather than push through a diode with higher resistance.

My comment to bidirectional was towards incandescent light bulbs. Power can flow through that type of bulb in either direction and light up. An LED doesn't work bidirectionally. So way to take it out of context.

The traces were designed like Christmas tree lights so they don't all burn out if one bulb burns out so there is the redundant trace to keep the circuit in tact should one light fail.

We already established why it doesn't work and how I can modify it to work by cutting the extra traces.

And I already demonstrated scientifically and electrically with pictures that this won't work with the traces as is proving this to be the case so you can get wrecked with your above comment @Mr P
 
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It's not bi directional the resistance is balanced on both ends due to the way the dashs traces come into the lighting socket. Since there's a lesser path of resistance (aka another trace it can go down) it's going to take that trace rather than push through a diode with higher resistance.

We already established why it doesn't work and how I can modify it to work by cutting the extra traces.

And I already demonstrated scientifically and electrically with pictures that this won't work with the traces as is proving this to be the case so you can get wrecked with your above comment @Mr P
These statements probably prove my point. I'm open to being wrong...

Edit: I reviewed the post about dash bulbs. The drawings of the dash bulb circuit proves that the illustrator does not understand the subject. I stand by my cautionary statement.
 
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I'm with Mr P on this.
With Victron its simple, the Inverter/Charger is just that - it inverts DC power (takes 12v DC and turns it into 120v AC) to supply AC systems in your bus; it also charges the Batteries that provide the DC power when hooked up to any shore/generator power. When you're on shore power, the inverter will latch the switch so that the shore (AC power) passes through to your AC output (to your AC breaker box) The Victron inverter/chargers are built so they wont back feed to the shore connection unless you program it to, this is one (of many) reasons for the high cost of Victron.
The transfer switch is what prevents back feed. The inverter/charger will not provide the working power to your DC devices, it will charge the batteries while they provide the power to the DC devices. The inverter will "sense" the voltage of the batteries and then apply charging as needed based on voltage and battery chemistry (Li-ion, AGM etc.) Try to find the user manual and read through it before you buy it just to be sure.
I hope I explained this well. It took a long time staring at YouTube and reading manuals before the light bulb went off for me.
 
@Thurmond1317, what you're confused by can be difficult to conceptualize at first, so don't feel bad. The big problem I see here is the common belief that devices are 'injecting' or 'forcing' energy/electricity/electrons/whatever in any particular direction. It doesn't really work that way, though the difference is subtle. It's more about energy seeking balance than anything else... flowing to where there's an imbalance of energy until the energy state of all things is the same.

Consider a single battery by itself. If you measure the voltage between the negative terminal and the positive, you'll get some reading (let's just say 12.8V in this case... totally arbitrary figure). What this means is that the energy state at one terminal is much higher than the other. Not connected to anything, there's no path for current to flow to balance these levels out.

Now let's take another battery and hook it up in parallel with that one (like a dual-starter-battery setup common to large vehicles like ours, only in this example not hooked up to any potential loads). Let's say the first battery was at 12.2V, and this one is at 12.8V. What happens? Well... with a deficit of ~.6V, current will flow from the point of high concentration (12.8V), to low concentration (12.2V), until they balance out. For this discussion let's just say they both end up at 12.6V. At that point, current flow stops. They now both have the same amount of 'push' in terms of voltage.

Now let's take the 2nd battery away and replace it with a charger. It doesn't matter if it's a stand-alone charger, DC-DC alternator-fed charger, charging unit of your inverter... whatever. They all work the same (at least in this simplified example). Let's say the charger is set to output 13.4V. What will happen? Well, our remaining battery is now at 12.6V, so energy will flow from the area of higher concentration (the charger), to the battery, until the voltages balance. The only difference in this case is that unlike another battery, the charger has an external source of energy. So it's not going to decrease its voltage output in the process (once again, this is a simplified discussion to illustrate core concepts. In reality a charger very well may decrease voltage as part of its charging algorithm, but that point is moot here, and an unnecessary distraction).

What happens if we set the the charger to output 12.8V, and we hook it up to a battery that's at 13.2V? Will current flow from the battery to the charger now? Yes, it absolutely will, and this movement will be used by the charger to trigger its circuitry to stop producing juice. The internal circuitry will be designed to prevent this current flow from finding ground and thus discharging the battery, but that doesn't change the fact that current will flow from higher concentration to lower... or at least try to, regardless of which 'device' is the source of the imbalanced energy.

Finally, let's take the battery and charger combination, and now hook them up in parallel with a load (as would be the case in any real-world example, including yours). What's a load? Basically, just a path energy can travel to reach ground (aka achieve balance), while doing work along the way. In real world use the load on your system at any moment is the combined draw of everything demanding power at any given moment. But for purposes of example, let's just make it a light bulb.

This light bulb (load) will have something we haven't talked about yet, 'resistance', which works pretty much exactly how the name sounds. It resists current flow. So if we put it in the path between a high voltage and a lower voltage, current will follow that path seeking balance, but only at the rate this resistance allows. The higher the resistance, the slower this movement. The higher the voltage difference between the source and ground, the faster this movement. And this movement of energy... those are 'amps'... which is a term used to describe how much energy moves from one point to another over a unit period of time. This is what ohms law is all about.

So to wrap things up, let's say our battery starts at 12.8V. We've chosen a 30A charger because 30 is as good a number as any other, and it's putting out 13.4V. (30A means it will allow up to 30A worth of current to flow out of it before it says 'no mas!'. Note this is completely different than 'pushing' 30A of current. An important conceptual distinction). The higher of the two voltages between the battery and the charger at this point in time is the charger, so between those two components, current flow will go from charger to battery (until they equal out). But what about the load? Well, let's say the load pulls 10 amps @ 13.4V, which is the higher of the voltage sources in our example. The charger can handle 30, so it's not maxed out yet, so in this case, current will flow from the charger to both the load, and the battery, at the same time. Bump the load up to 20A, that doesn't change... it's still within the capacity of the charger to provide. The battery will charge slower, as there's less total energy output by the charger that's free to do so, but it will charge. Now let's bump the load up to 30A. We're now at the capacity of the charger, so pretty much everything it's got is going into powering the load. So the battery just sits at 12.8V. No energy is flowing out of it, but none into it either. The difference between the voltage of the charger and the 'end' of the load (aka ground) is much greater than the difference between the charger and battery. Energy wants to balance itself out. The path through that load is, in this case, the best path to do so.

Now let's bump that load up to 50A. 30A was all our charger had, and all that current is now flowing though the load due to that difference in voltage potential. The battery is also exposed to that difference in potential, being at 12.8V relative to ground, so now current flow from it through the load at the same time. Now it's discharging.

In an actual system, you might have multiple batteries, multiple charging sources (DC-DC charger, solar panels via charge controllers, charging unit of inverter, etc), and multiple loads, all connected together in parallel. It seems complicated on the surface, but no matter how much 'stuff' there is, the energy flow still all works the same as described above. The combined wiring ultimately provides multiple potential paths for energy to flow from areas of higher concentration to lower. And that is why you only have one set of cables between the inverter/charger and battery. Current can and will flow both directions (though not at the same time), depending on the energy state of things.

I really hope this helps rather than confounds. I've rewritten this like 5 times trying to make it understandable, but it's kind of hard for me to explain. Just doing simple problems with ohms law really helps develop a more intuitive understanding of the dynamics at play. Long story short though, once you 'get it', you'll see it's not really as hard to get as you thought.

Edit: I guess a 50A light bulb was a stupid example, lol. Some like it bright lol!
 
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@Thurmond1317, what you're confused by can be difficult to conceptualize at first, so don't feel bad. The big problem I see here is the common belief that devices are 'injecting' or 'forcing' energy/electricity/electrons/whatever in any particular direction. It doesn't really work that way, though the difference is subtle. It's more about energy seeking balance than anything else... flowing to where there's an imbalance of energy until the energy state of all things is the same.

Consider a single battery by itself. If you measure the voltage between the negative terminal and the positive, you'll get some reading (let's just say 12.8V in this case... totally arbitrary figure). What this means is that the energy state at one terminal is much higher than the other. Not connected to anything, there's no path for current to flow to balance these levels out.

Now let's take another battery and hook it up in parallel with that one (like a dual-starter-battery setup common to large vehicles like ours, only in this example not hooked up to any potential loads). Let's say the first battery was at 12.2V, and this one is at 12.8V. What happens? Well... with a deficit of ~.6V, current will flow from the point of high concentration (12.8V), to low concentration (12.2V), until they balance out. For this discussion let's just say they both end up at 12.6V. At that point, current flow stops. They now both have the same amount of 'push' in terms of voltage.

Now let's take the 2nd battery away and replace it with a charger. It doesn't matter if it's a stand-alone charger, DC-DC alternator-fed charger, charging unit of your inverter... whatever. They all work the same (at least in this simplified example). Let's say the charger is set to output 13.4V. What will happen? Well, our remaining battery is now at 12.6V, so energy will flow from the area of higher concentration (the charger), to the battery, until the voltages balance. The only difference in this case is that unlike another battery, the charger has an external source of energy. So it's not going to decrease its voltage output in the process (once again, this is a simplified discussion to illustrate core concepts. In reality a charger very well may decrease voltage as part of its charging algorithm, but that point is moot here, and an unnecessary distraction).

What happens if we set the the charger to output 12.8V, and we hook it up to a battery that's at 13.2V? Will current flow from the battery to the charger now? Yes, it absolutely will, and this movement will be used by the charger to trigger its circuitry to stop producing juice. The internal circuitry will be designed to prevent this current flow from finding ground and thus discharging the battery, but that doesn't change the fact that current will flow from higher concentration to lower... or at least try to, regardless of which 'device' is the source of the imbalanced energy.

Finally, let's take the battery and charger combination, and now hook them up in parallel with a load (as would be the case in any real-world example, including yours). What's a load? Basically, just a path energy can travel to reach ground (aka achieve balance), while doing work along the way. In real world use the load on your system at any moment is the combined draw of everything demanding power at any given moment. But for purposes of example, let's just make it a light bulb.

This light bulb (load) will have something we haven't talked about yet, 'resistance', which works pretty much exactly how the name sounds. It resists current flow. So if we put it in the path between a high voltage and a lower voltage, current will follow that path seeking balance, but only at the rate this resistance allows. The higher the resistance, the slower this movement. The higher the voltage difference between the source and ground, the faster this movement. And this movement of energy... those are 'amps'... which is a term used to describe how much energy moves from one point to another over a unit period of time. This is what ohms law is all about.

So to wrap things up, let's say our battery starts at 12.8V. We've chosen a 30A charger because 30 is as good a number as any other, and it's putting out 13.4V. (30A means it will allow up to 30A worth of current to flow out of it before it says 'no mas!'. Note this is completely different than 'pushing' 30A of current. An important conceptual distinction). The higher of the two voltages between the battery and the charger at this point in time is the charger, so between those two components, current flow will go from charger to battery (until they equal out). But what about the load? Well, let's say the load pulls 10 amps @ 13.4V, which is the higher of the voltage sources in our example. The charger can handle 30, so it's not maxed out yet, so in this case, current will flow from the charger to both the load, and the battery, at the same time. Bump the load up to 20A, that doesn't change... it's still within the capacity of the charger to provide. The battery will charge slower, as there's less total energy output by the charger that's free to do so, but it will charge. Now let's bump the load up to 30A. We're now at the capacity of the charger, so pretty much everything it's got is going into powering the load. So the battery just sits at 12.8V. No energy is flowing out of it, but none into it either. The difference between the voltage of the charger and the 'end' of the load (aka ground) is much greater than the difference between the charger and battery. Energy wants to balance itself out. The path through that load is, in this case, the best path to do so.

Now let's bump that load up to 50A. 30A was all our charger had, and all that current is now flowing though the load due to that difference in voltage potential. The battery is also exposed to that difference in potential, being at 12.8V relative to ground, so now current flow from it through the load at the same time. Now it's discharging.

In an actual system, you might have multiple batteries, multiple charging sources (DC-DC charger, solar panels via charge controllers, charging unit of inverter, etc), and multiple loads, all connected together in parallel. It seems complicated on the surface, but no matter how much 'stuff' there is, the energy flow still all works the same as described above.

I really hope this helps rather than confounds. I've rewritten this like 5 times trying to make it understandable, but it's kind of hard for me to explain. Just doing simple problems with ohms law really helps develop a more intuitive understanding of the dynamics at play. Long story short though, once you 'get it', you'll see it's not really as hard to get as you thought.

Edit: I guess a 50A light bulb was a stupid example, lol. Some like it bright lol!
Bravo!!
 
The explanation was good Hubbard and addresses part of the OP's question.

The diagram I supplied answers the other half of his question. He was concerned about wiring up the systems. I supplied him with 1 method he could use. There are others like with a Victron Inverter/Charger which is very expensive. That is a 2nd method he could use. The method I supplied is far cheaper but just as quality in build, but does require manually throwing 1 switch before plugging and unplugging into shore power.

Throwing a switch is not that pain staking and is not worth the money in my opinion of the expensive Victron, but some of us never ever want to even have to think about it or chance forgetting to throw it before plugging in. I can understand that, truly I can, and I do not knock anyone who wants to do it. But I'm also not the kind of guy who sets a time on a microwave and walks away without looking and confirming the time I set either so to each their own. ;)
 
Here's a simple diagram. It can get more complex but this is the base of what you need to do. (Obviously there are no fuses etc in this diagram that also need to be added but this is for explaining how VAC and VDC systems work together in your bus.)
View attachment 1953370

There's more at stake than a lineman's health if you forget (ever, like... just one time) to flip that breaker. Energizing the same circuit with two distinct (read: out-of-phase with each other) sources of AC current can lead to all kinds of bad outcomes. The OP's anticipated inverter / charger has a built-in transfer switch, so there's no need for such work-arounds. And even if there was, there are ways to achieve the same safely. Like... an actual transfer switch.

What you are proposing... backfeeding the output of the inverter into the AC panel through a simple breaker... is a terrible idea. It's not NEC-code-compliant, because it's inherently unsafe. And in more ways than one.

Transfer switches are not the same as a breaker. They're responsible for proper neutral-ground bonding, as well as preventing human error from having entirely foreseeable consequences. If you want to cheap out on something like this, I guess that's your prerogative. But advising others to do the same is irresponsible, IMO.
 
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It's legal with a slide switch on the breaker and far cheaper.

The lockout device you're referring to is not uniformly 'to code'. More importantly, it also is incapable of switching the neutral-ground bond, which is absolutely necessary in the configurations we're discussing. Inverters with integrated transfer switches - like the one the OP linked to - perform such functions, along with syncing of AC waveforms during pass-through operation.

I'll say it again... what you are proposing is DANGEROUS.
 

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