Surge Protectors

[Ray Davis]

Sid, to the best of my knowledge (I may indeed be wrong), a 30A surge protector will not protect you any better than your 50A. It's my understanding that the surge protectors protect against voltage issues (i.e. under voltage, over voltage, or over voltage spikes). I do not believe that they specifically limit current at 30 or 50A. Again, I could be wrong.

One thing that anyone storing their coach with 30 or 20A power should know is that some inverters expect 50A as standard. My trace inverters, if turned off, or reset, will go back to expecting a shore cord size of 50A. Because of this, the battery chargers default to something like 15-20A per leg.

When I first plug into shore power, my inverters always go into bulk charge mode. If I'm plugged into 30A (my storage power), without adjusting the shore cord size, and/or the battery charging settings, then I will quickly pop a 30A breaker.

IF you're going to use a 30A service, set your shore cord size to no more than 15A per inverter. I actually set them to 13-14A per inverter to leave a little wiggle room. I also set my battery charging down to only 5A per inverter. Since my coach is rarely used dry camping this is generally just fine, as I'm almost always plugged in or I'm driving which charges the batteries too.

I set my settings down like this, so that if there is some sudden electrical usage in the bus while stored (fridge compressor kicking in), I've got plenty of headway, and don't worry about the 30A breaker tripping.

Ray

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Ray's post should be required reading. Not only because people that have a coach with his type inverters need to know these nuances relating to the operation on less than 50 amp, but because his post illustrates an important point.

Ed posted about something he learned about his generator operation on another thread. Pete posted something related to that on the same thread.

All of these posts reflect one very important thing that all owners need to understand, especially those new to their coach. Our coaches are converter and systems specific. There are details relating to their operation that as owners we must learn. I am still learning on mine. The message for all of us is we really have to understand how our systems have been set up, how the various devices such as inverters or auto-start or any other devices work, and how we really need to understand those many little secrets that we only learn the hard way.