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Living on 2 X 20 Amp service
Been 4 days at a friends house in Iowa (85 – 90 Deg days) and plugged into two of his 20 Amp outlets. Each on a different breaker.
I have Magnum 4024 inverters (traces died some time ago).
It’s been a juggling act but do able. I have two evaporators on my front CA unit so it draws around 17-18 amps when running. The front CA is on line 1 and so is the water pump. Soooo, the inverters are set on 20 Amp and the load assist kicks in when the water pump is running and prevents the breaker from popping. Line 1 also has the TV and Sat system on it. Because the front CA runs at 17-18 Amps the TV & Sat adds those few extra amps that push the inverter into load asset. This pulls power from the batteries that requires recharging. On my Featherlite, both inverter 1 & 2 charge the house bank so I turn off the charger on line 1 and let line 2 that doesn’t have a heavy load on it charge the house bank while line 1 is in load assist. This only works if the load assist is minimal.
I have the house hold style basement HVAC air conditioning along with a front and rear CA units. The basement HVAC can be switched to Low which only allows one of the two compressors to run and this will also run off of the 20 amp (draws about 14 amps ) but doesn’t provide adequate cooling. My solution to this has been to turn off the basement HVAC and run only the front and back CA (front is on line 1 – back is on line 2). This gives me 17-18 Amps on line 1 & 14-15 Amps on line 2.
There is very little margin for error. Aux air compressor has to stay off, forget about the cook top, Microwave does work with load support for short term use. Refrigerator is on line 1 too and will push amps over 20. Inverter load assist has been handling this quite well, trying to keep the fridge door closed as much as possible also helps.
Interior lights have been changed to LED and lighting draw has not been a issue.Having the patio and window awnings out to help shade the coach has also helped.
Although we have had to juggle power, surprisingly it hasn’t been that much of an inconvenience. Had our host had only 15 Amp outlets things might have been different.
Chuck
P.S. Also discovered pushing the temp settings on the CA as low as possible so the units run all the time and do not cycle is better than allowing them to cycle. The start up amp draw is pretty hard on the inverters load assist.
2000 Featherlite H3-45
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Leesburg, FL -
2 Replies
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Well done Chuck, I think you have your bus electrical figured out.
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Tom:
That’s just about the time something happens you can’t figure out. LOL
Chuck
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