Inverter on or off when charging.

[Gellscom]

Hi

 

We have a 12 volt battery bank with a Victron 12/2000 compact inverter charger a 3.5kw travel-pack generator and a master volt auto sensing mains source contractor. My question is should we turn the inverter to charge only or leave it on inverter/charger when running the engine and travel power unit to charge the batteries? It does indicate it has dropped into charger mode when the engine is running. The inverter charger gets plenty warm when we sit recharging and I wondered if having it set to inverter/charger would do any damage. As soon as the travel power starts you here the source contractor switch and 240volt supply is seamless.

Interested to hear from anyone with a similar setup, and how they do it.

[Tracy D'arth]

Why would you want to run an inverter off the batteries you are charging when you have mains power from the travel power?

Seems daft to me.

[David Mack]

Does your engine have a separate 12V alternator for battery charging? If so both the inverter/charger and travel power can be turned off when the engine is running, unless you need 230V ac. 

But if you have a permanent 230 V appliance, such as a mains fridge, then it's easier to leave both switched on so the travel power powers the fridge when the engine is running and the inverter when it is not, with the autosensing taking care of the switching between them.

[PeterF]

An inverter charger is either charging or inverting, it can not do both at the same time, so when it detects mains supply from shore power or the travel power it stops inverting and goes to charger and passes the mains through the unit. You do not need to turn it to charger only, so when the travel power stops, the inverter picks back up automatically.

[nicknorman]

33 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Why would you want to run an inverter off the batteries you are charging when you have mains power from the travel power?

Seems daft to me.

You don’t understand the question.

[nicknorman]

1 hour ago, Gellscom said:

Hi

 

We have a 12 volt battery bank with a Victron 12/2000 compact inverter charger a 3.5kw travel-pack generator and a master volt auto sensing mains source contractor. My question is should we turn the inverter to charge only or leave it on inverter/charger when running the engine and travel power unit to charge the batteries? It does indicate it has dropped into charger mode when the engine is running. The inverter charger gets plenty warm when we sit recharging and I wondered if having it set to inverter/charger would do any damage. As soon as the travel power starts you here the source contractor switch and 240volt supply is seamless.

Interested to hear from anyone with a similar setup, and how they do it.

No you can leave it on the “on” setting where it can be an inverter or a charger. It will be in charger mode with mains power present at the input. Moving the switch to charger will make no difference except to wear out the switch and introduce human fallibility (forgetting to turn it back on).

 

The time to switch the inverter charger to charger only, is when you are plugged into shore power for an extended period. Leaving it on “on” risks that if/when the shore power fails unnoticed, the inverter charger automatically and seamlessly switches back to inverting and the first thing you know about it, some hours later, is when the batteries go flat and the lights go out!

[Gellscom]

Hi

 

thanks for the feedback, the responses make perfect sense to me and is how we have been running it, I just wanted to ensure we were on the right track.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Gellscom