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shore power confusion
Have new Hugfhes autoformer watchdog. When at shore power it would trip as its supposed to at about 45 amps. We could only run a few things at once. I just now made a table of current draws and which line in. Seems like all the equipment loads are on same line! no wonder we had to limit usage. Since this is a 1997 Marathon I am not sure if the previous threads about state requirement needing all equipment operational. the equipment I am referring to is all ac, all electric heat, microwave water pumps etc. Even though the equipment is shown split up between the two electrical breaker panels which show for example the air conditioners not all in same circuit breaker box.
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4 Replies
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Maybe what your talking about the two 120v AC panels with all the breakers? one of the panels will be larger with a lot of breakers, the 2nd will be smaller and have a lot less breakers. The small panel will be everything that runs through the inverter that will invert, Like you said one panel has 1 or 2 AC breakers air conditioners and refrigerator, tv things that will work when you don’t have 120v power and no gen.When you plug into a good 50 amp box you have 100 total amps coming in, the coach converter will split things up to try to even things out. You should never run low on amps even with everything running if all is OK
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What I am confused about is how the shore lines one and two are used. I assume with shore power the transfer switch sends power directly to the two ac panels but that does not appear to be what the Hughes reports. I get the inverter setup having main and auxillary confirmed the other day by Marathon.
Can you tell me where lines 1 and 2 go from the transfer switch?
Thanks
2005 XL Thompson Coach
Rarely tow anything behind us.
Sold: 1993 Liberty that we loved for 12 years. -
Check your 50 amp plug. Make sure you have 240 and not two 120 lines.
i.e. measure Leg 1 to Leg 2, it should show 240. then measure Leg 1 to ground should show 120 and leg 2 to ground will show 120. If you don’t see 240 between L1 and L2 then you have a single 120 line split in 2.
Don’t know where you are plugged in but some campgrounds will “cheat” and instead of 2 separate 120 lines they provide only 1 line and jump to both legs. Your watch dog will see all the current being pulled on one leg.
To answer your question it depends on the converter. Some converters run all AC power from the transfer switch through the inverters, other don’t, Usually, L1 and L2 will go directly to the “MAIN” breaker panel and then from their run a 30 amp line, one from each leg to each inverter. then the output of the inverter runs to the smaller breaker box to power inverted circuits.
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I am not familiar with Marathon and their 120V AC electrical circuits, but I would bet serious money they did an excellent job balancing loads between L1 and L2.
Without the benefit of actually knowing how your system has been modified the first thing I would do is verify when your device is measuring loads it is not seeing the same load twice. If your electrical panel ahead of the inverter electrical panel is the source of 120V AC power that feeds the inverter sub panel you want to be certain it is not also measuring the inverter sub panel loads. When there is shore or generator power available to the coach, the inverters receive that power as a pass through but when that shore or generator power is not available the inverter is creating that power from the coach house batteries.
Your device is to limit current draw on shore power so you do not care what the current output is through the inverter sub panel. Keep in mind this is solely a guess and people who are more familiar with Marathon need to chime in and verify or refute this as a possible issue.
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