NEED HELP- WIRING CABIN:INVERTER PROBLEM

hockeypuck · Sep 3, 2007

There is already a ground bar installed in your panel. Take the ground wire off of the neutral bar and put in on the ground bar which is attached to the metal box of the panel board. Take your ground wires and put them on that new bar. Make sure you remove the bonding screw or jumper from the neutral bar because it bonds it to the case, you do not want that now (there may not be one but if you see a large green screw in your neutral bar take it out.)

PS I checked the picture again, it looks like there is no bonding strap or screw so you are good to go.

escavader · Sep 3, 2007

BobRip said:
I don't have a clear solution for you, but some suggestions.
Does the refrigator have a defrost cycle. If is does that can pull 900 watts to run the defrost heater. Obviously your inverter could not handle this. This does not really sound like the problem, since you have been running on the inverter earlier.NO its a small college size fridge

Do you have a ground at the generator, inverter, or battery bank.
yes the generator is grounded
If so I would try to temporarily disconnect these grounds. I see you tried to disconnect the ground from the panel, a good thought. Two grounds might be a bad thing. The batteries (I believe) must be ungrounded.

Try running a temporary cord from the refrigator to the inverter and see if it will power it. Perhaps the frige is now pulling more power due to aging, locked cooling fan (if it has one) or something else.i was going to ,but need about 200 ft of cord

What guage wire is now running from the inverter to the panel? Did you enlarge it, make it smaller, or longer. If it is smaller on longer then extra voltage drop could account for this problem. How long is this run? same as before,didnt think it was a problem as long as i didnt draw any more current then i have been.

I have a 1kW inverter which will not start my 22 cu ft. fridge. So they can be hard to start. How large is your fridge? Did you leave the fridge off for at least 2 minutes prior to repowering it. This gives the freon a chance to loose back pressure and it starts easier.its one of those 4 ft high fridges,i never had to wait before

I hope this helps. I am not an expert here.

i appreciate the ideas ALAN

escavader · Sep 3, 2007

hockeypuck said:
There is already a ground bar installed in your panel. Take the ground wire off of the neutral bar and put in on the ground bar which is attached to the metal box of the panel board. Take your ground wires and put them on that new bar. Make sure you remove the bonding screw or jumper from the neutral bar because it bonds it to the case, you do not want that now (there may not be one but if you see a large green screw in your neutral bar take it out.)

PS I checked the picture again, it looks like there is no bonding strap or screw so you are good to go.

HOCKEY PUCK,
WHen you say wires ,do you mean both of them coming in from the inverter[white and bare] or just the bare one.does this bar need to be run to a seperate ground rod? What happens if there is a short?
ALAN

hockeypuck · Sep 3, 2007

White wire from inverter leave where it is now.
Bare copper wire from inverter put on bar on right side of panel.
Ground wire (from ground rod) goes on the bar on right side of panel. Remove it from the current neutral bar.
I would ground your generator to the same ground rod that your panel is on. It would not hurt to put another ground rod in and tie them together.

escavader · Sep 3, 2007

hockeypuck said:
White wire from inverter leave where it is now.
Bare copper wire from inverter put on bar on right side of panel.
Ground wire (from ground rod) goes on the bar on right side of panel. Remove it from the current neutral bar.
I would ground your generator to the same ground rod that your panel is on. It would not hurt to put another ground rod in and tie them together.

I dont know if there is a hole big enough to accept that cable.I dont recall one and dont see one in the pic. If i need to swap it ,would it be wise to run to my rod with a smaller wire?generator ground-I could ground them togeather but the generator is like 200 feet away.could it cause a problem being grounded seperate? I guess i could by some cable and link them.

hockeypuck · Sep 3, 2007

You can get a lug to put on the ground bar to accept the wire. As far as the generator ground, it would not hurt to just put a ground bar by the generator and ground the frame.

escavader · Sep 3, 2007

hockeypuck said:
You can get a lug to put on the ground bar to accept the wire. As far as the generator ground, it would not hurt to just put a ground bar by the generator and ground the frame.

Could i move all my white wires up to the right sideand leave all the copper ,and ground rod wire where they are and accomplish the same?probably not,but thought id ask

My generator frame is grounded to a rod .If you look in that pic youll notice the wire.
If you lose me tonite ,ill respond tommorow 4.00 comes early

thanks for your patience with my 50 questions

ALAN

tallyho8 · Sep 3, 2007

It would be ok to use a smaller ground wire. We usually just use a 10ga. copper wire. It sounds like your generator is 200 feet from your breaker box and you are running 10 ga. wire from the generator to the breaker box which would cause a voltage drop in that long run but that should not be a big problem since your generator is powering the few things you have ok and your inverter was too at one time. Since your inverter won't run a skill saw plugged directly into it, it sounds like it is not performing properly. A skill saw shouldn't use more electricity than the refrigerator, fans and lights that you were powering before.

After you isolate your grounds from your neutrals, if it doesn't work you better further test your inverter.

rosietheriviter · Sep 4, 2007

escavader said:
HI
What i do is run a tank full of gas [2 hrs] thru the generator,and charge up the battery bank.Then when it runs out of gas,i unplug the line to the camp from the generatoroutlet and reinstall in the inverter and turn it on.running time depends on how hot it is and how much the fridge runs.On adverage i can go 8 hours until recharge time.
Im showing a bunch of pics,mabey you can see something screwy.I have not altered a thing in the generator shed,its all still as it was before i rewired the camp.Would appreciate any thoughts.

Hi escavader,

My background is with NASA spacecraft assembly, 22 years. That does not give me any knowledge that most others do not have, just a little more of the "test it three (or thirty) times before putting it into service" mentality.

As a troubleshooting suggestion, you might try the following:
Try inverter and cord to each individual appliance/device.
Disconnect each power input, one at a time.
Disconnect each outlet breaker, one at a time.

The prices and availability of the newest invertors suggest an increase in inverter size might be a worthwhile consideration.

Without the ability to explain why, I got a gut feeling the problems might be more of a battery problem.

Rose is Rose