Inverter for one outlet...calling on the experts.

[Henry Boyd]

Hi Brett
I do understand the whole posses of drawing down the battery's this I agree with you .The issue is that if you left the lights on or whatever on, and went to bed the next morning the you will have no way to start the boat .I know it has a minim voltage shut down ,but if the draw is behind the inverter you have no way to charge the battery's you can run the gen for days and you still will have a dead battery .It is represented to be a battery charger ,it is not it is at best a trickle charger.My frustration is that there customer survive is horrible i Emailed a return request and they never answered then when I called they gave me the survive centers number and when I wanted to have this checked out because i still am not sure the unit is working correctly none of there northeast service centers did warranty repairs ,for 225.00 they would bench test it but thats it . The other problems I had was the auto gen start ,we tried 6 different wiring protocols and it still does not work correctly,I don't have to tell you how frustrating it is to keep rewiring the gen circuit to try to get it to work .

If you left the inverter on overnight (or even left it on during the week) and it would not effect the ability of the gen, or engines to start if the inverter was properly installed and you have true house and engine battery wiring.

By that statement I mean the boat literally has electrical systems that are independent. In that way the inverter will only draw down the house batteries and not touch the engine and gen batteries. Yes, if the inverter does not have a low voltage shut off, or the low voltage shut off is improperly set up it will exhaust the house battery to a point too low for the inverter’s charger to recharge. To recharge you would need an independent charger to get the house battery back to a level that would allow the inverter charger function to work.

This is where the properly installed comment comes in. If the inverter is installed to draw from and charge ALL batteries then it could kill the engine batteries. This would not be a “best practice” installation for a lot of reasons, but could happen with a DIY, or poor installation by someone who does not understand the implications of not doing it correctly.

As for other part of my underlined comment. The 2xx series Sea Rays For example, do not have house and engine independent wiring so it is possible to over draw the batteries even when the inverter charger is correctly wired.

 

[Evan Ardente]

I am well aware of the multiple systems I have on board ,that is not what I am saying .I am saying if you buy this unit as a inverter battery charger and for some reason the voltage drops below 20 volts it will not charge your battery's,that's it Capt

 

[Henry Boyd]

I am well aware of the multiple systems I have on board ,that is not what I am saying .I am saying if you buy this unit as a inverter battery charger and for some reason the voltage drops below 20 volts it will not charge your battery's,that's it Capt

That's how inverter chargers work. That's why a properly installed inverter/charger will NOT include starting batteries in the battery array it uses. Your own example was:

"What this means is if you are on the hook and forget to turn off all the lights you better have sea tow to come and give you a jump ,yup the generators running but the charger will or can not charge the battery’s"

SO if this happens to you, your inverter was incorrectly installed, or configured.