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Inverter question


Dibbo and Jules

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On 12/06/2018 at 19:01, WotEver said:

It isn’t :)

Had a Mastervolt with 2 Fans inside .Both had 'Made in China' Labels.

The Present Inverter is a 'Sunshine Solar' 3 KW unit ,3 Years use and no Problems ,less than one third of the Mastervolt Price.

Edited by cereal tiller
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2 hours ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

My mistake, we all make them, I think you know I've not got a small power station. 

It obviously was a mistake, but add in the incorrect understanding of the AC output and for someone who proclaims to be 'good with electrics', it does throw up some doubts.

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7 minutes ago, cereal tiller said:

Had a Mastervolt with 2 Fans inside .Both had 'Made in China' Labels.

The Present Inverter is a 'Sunshine Solar' 3 KW unit ,3 Years use and no Problems ,less than one third of the Mastervolt Price.

Shh, CT.... He's already bought it! ;)

 

Mastervolt kit is made in China iirc, but is a Dutch parent company outsourcing their design for build over there. Victron is similar, but they build in India. Few would argue they're not among the best in the business, or that some of the no-name Chinese stuff is somewhat "lower end". If the design is right and the Quality Control is good enough, there's no real reason why the Mastervolt kit shouldn't be as good as that which was made in the Netherlands.  Not a lot of evidence of the savings being passed on to the consumer though,  some might say!  The elephant in the room is the issue of less scrupulous countries copying the technology and selling it cheaper - what happens when we all buy the cheap stuff and the companies with the R&D skills go to the wall? A dilemma, methinks.

 

My tip? When buying anything with Made in China on it, always, always, always throw the enclosed screws away and use decent ones!  (If only I could always remember that myself) :(

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1 hour ago, cereal tiller said:

Had a Mastervolt with 2 Fans inside .Both had 'Made in China' Labels.

The Present Inverter is a 'Sunshine Solar' 3 KW unit ,3 Years use and no Problems ,less than one third of the Mastervolt Price.

One of the difference is that your inverter uses several amps when on but not doing anything, whereas the MV uses about 0.75A, or less on one of the economy modes. So the latter can be left on permanently, with the former you probably want to turn it on only when you want it to run something significant.

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It obviously was a mistake, but add in the incorrect understanding of the AC output and for someone who proclaims to be 'good with electrics', it does throw up some doubts.

 

an honest typo, sat out in the sunshine asking a question. you dont know me or my abilities , so don't presume, I have not done so with you.

Edited by Dibbo and Jules
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1 hour ago, cereal tiller said:

Had a Mastervolt with 2 Fans inside .Both had 'Made in China' Labels.

The Present Inverter is a 'Sunshine Solar' 3 KW unit ,3 Years use and no Problems ,less than one third of the Mastervolt Price.

Cost reduction can be by assembling in a low cost country, but that’s what everybody does, so another good way to reduce cost is to use cheaper components, components that aren’t really up to the job on the assumption the inverter will only give full output for a few mins at a time so probably won’t overheat, and simple inefficient circuit design using less components.  It may waste energy but that is the buyers problem and gets the sticker price down.

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12 hours ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

... it seems to have two outputs for AC power. A 50 amp and a 25 amp. This i can see  but do I now have to separate the washer ,Tumblr dryer ( yes we have one)  and immersion heater from the rest of the boats equipment? I also wonder about the input from the genny? Does this stay as a separate thing? 

Based on the above observations and questions I would say that yes, you do need to get a man in. For a start, it has two 13A outputs, it has two inputs which feed these two outputs, it requires substantial cables and fusing to the batteries... I’m not convinced, based on your post, that you have the knowledge to correctly wire it up. 

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I agree . Ive re-wired houses, rebuilt and rewired motorcycles ( lots of them) and I drive 2800kw ( small power stations) engines with an excellent knowledge of exactly how they work, if I thought I knew exactly what to do I wouldnt be here asking. 

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1 minute ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

I agree . Ive re-wired houses, rebuilt and rewired motorcycles ( lots of them) and I drive 2800kw ( small power stations) engines with an excellent knowledge of exactly how they work, if I thought I knew exactly what to do I wouldnt be here asking. 

Just do it yourself then, with the aid of a few sensible(!) people on here... You could get a man in but how would you know he has any more idea about it than you do? Just because you will pay him doesn’t mean he is any good! Wiring up an inverter is quite easy and if there are specifics you aren’t sure of, just ask. Perhaps best for you to tell us how you will do it / draw a diagram, and we can then tell you if there are any issues.

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1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

Shh, CT.... He's already bought it! ;)

 

Mastervolt kit is made in China iirc, but is a Dutch parent company outsourcing their design for build over there. Victron is similar, but they build in India. Few would argue they're not among the best in the business, or that some of the no-name Chinese stuff is somewhat "lower end". If the design is right and the Quality Control is good enough, there's no real reason why the Mastervolt kit shouldn't be as good as that which was made in the Netherlands.  Not a lot of evidence of the savings being passed on to the consumer though,  some might say!  The elephant in the room is the issue of less scrupulous countries copying the technology and selling it cheaper - what happens when we all buy the cheap stuff and the companies with the R&D skills go to the wall? A dilemma, methinks.

 

My tip? When buying anything with Made in China on it, always, always, always throw the enclosed screws away and use decent ones!  (If only I could always remember that myself) :(

And replace then with what? Screws made in China !!:) In truth I know what you mean. Almost without exception fixings supplied with kit are usless 

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3 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Just do it yourself then, with the aid of a few sensible(!) people on here... You could get a man in but how would you know he has any more idea about it than you do? Just because you will pay him doesn’t mean he is any good! Wiring up an inverter is quite easy and if there are specifics you aren’t sure of, just ask. Perhaps best for you to tell us how you will do it / draw a diagram, and we can then tell you if there are any issues.

I might just do that, Thanks for the vote of C

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34 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Based on the above observations and questions I would say that yes, you do need to get a man in. For a start, it has two 13A outputs, it has two inputs which feed these two outputs, it requires substantial cables and fusing to the batteries... I’m not convinced, based on your post, that you have the knowledge to correctly wire it up. 

Why do you say 2 13A outputs? We are talking the MV, not the Sunshine.

6 minutes ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

I might just do that, Thanks for the vote of C

If you are going to make up the 12v cables to battery (via megafuse) make sure you have the right crimping tool, don’t just bash it with a hammer! Hydraulic or other crimping tools can be got very cheaply from eBay.

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43 minutes ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

an honest typo, sat out in the sunshine asking a question. you dont know me or my abilities , so don't presume, I have not done so with you.

No, I only know what your abilities are from the little you have said "I'm good with electrics' - no offence was intended, maybe my post was a bit lacking in explanation, but as I and others have suggested, maybe your skills are not in the area understanding the input / outputs of an inverter & of wiring boat equipment drawing 100s of amps.

 

Ask away, and you will get all the help you need - good luck.

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11 minutes ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

I agree . Ive re-wired houses, rebuilt and rewired motorcycles ( lots of them) and I drive 2800kw ( small power stations) engines with an excellent knowledge of exactly how they work, if I thought I knew exactly what to do I wouldnt be here asking. 

In your defense (I'm sure you don't need it :)) when I fitted my Mastervolt 2000/100 combi to replace my standalone Mastervolt inverter and battery charger I found the instructions somewhat confusing. The terms used were, to me,  obscure. What the H**l did 'short break' mean? Once I had worked it out it was obvious. It was a classic case of the designer also writing the instructions, never a good thing but almost inevitably done  

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4 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Why do you say 2 13A outputs? We are talking the MV, not the Sunshine.

One pass-through and one inverter. As you observed earlier you don’t use the pass-through yourself but it’s still there. 

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

One pass-through and one inverter. As you observed earlier you don’t use the pass-through yourself but it’s still there. 

Yes but they are not 13A outputs. One is 25A and one 50A.

OK one might in practice struggle to get 50A out of the one, but 25A out of the other is possible even with only a 16A shore supply.

Edited by nicknorman
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30 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

OK one might in practice struggle to get 50A out of the one, but 25A out of the other is possible even with only a 16A shore supply.

So, 15 amps from the shore supply supported by 10 amps from the inverter.

 

Maybe it should be explained to the OP that he won't get anything above 10 amps output unless he is connected to the land-line or generator.

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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So, 15 amps from the shore supply supported by 10 amps from the inverter.

 

Maybe it should be explained to the OP that he won't get anything above 10 amps output unless he is connected to the land-line or generator.

But he does have a 2200 kw inverter!

 

Just joking ? 

 

I think he probably knows that with the inverter being 2200w at 230v or so, he’s only going to get about 10A max.

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6 hours ago, Slim said:

In your defense (I'm sure you don't need it :)) when I fitted my Mastervolt 2000/100 combi to replace my standalone Mastervolt inverter and battery charger I found the instructions somewhat confusing. The terms used were, to me,  obscure. What the H**l did 'short break' mean? Once I had worked it out it was obvious. It was a classic case of the designer also writing the instructions, never a good thing but almost inevitably done  

“Short break” isn’t that when you stop for a coffee whilst trying to understand the instructions that the supplier translated by google.......

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3 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Yes but they are not 13A outputs. One is 25A and one 50A.

OK one might in practice struggle to get 50A out of the one, but 25A out of the other is possible even with only a 16A shore supply.

Ahh okay, I didn’t know that :)

 

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14 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So, 15 amps from the shore supply supported by 10 amps from the inverter.

 

Maybe it should be explained to the OP that he won't get anything above 10 amps output unless he is connected to the land-line or generator.

I am aware of this, we are most of the time on shore supply and rarely need anything more amp wise than running the tv. The washing machine seems fine on the shore supply, but if it gets a bit more off the batteries if needed then that's ok.

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1 hour ago, Dibbo and Jules said:

I am aware of this, we are most of the time on shore supply and rarely need anything more amp wise than running the tv. The washing machine seems fine on the shore supply, but if it gets a bit more off the batteries if needed then that's ok.

One of the things to be decided is what you want the maximum current to be. Our installation is simple in that we presume a max of 16A (the max shore supply) and we have just one RCBO rated at 16A after the Combi, nothing before it. We don’t use the 50A output at all, everything is on the 25A short break output. This means that the immersion heater can be run from the inverter, something one wouldn’t normally want to do. But since we have an alternator that is more than capable of supplying the 1kw immersion heater I do sometimes run the immersion heater from the inverter whilst the engine is running when moored - to load the engine up a bit and hasten the creation of hot water. It’s up to me to ensure I turn the immersion heater off when I stop the engine.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/07/2018 at 08:39, nicknorman said:

One of the things to be decided is what you want the maximum current to be. Our installation is simple in that we presume a max of 16A (the max shore supply) and we have just one RCBO rated at 16A after the Combi, nothing before it. We don’t use the 50A output at all, everything is on the 25A short break output. This means that the immersion heater can be run from the inverter, something one wouldn’t normally want to do. But since we have an alternator that is more than capable of supplying the 1kw immersion heater I do sometimes run the immersion heater from the inverter whilst the engine is running when moored - to load the engine up a bit and hasten the creation of hot water. It’s up to me to ensure I turn the immersion heater off when I stop the engine.

That sounds exactly what we want to do. For everyone on here, we have sought advice from a mate, Andy Downing , at Stourbridge dry dock,  who is very electrically savvy and a few other issues have emerged, so it's going to be with him soon , he's going to put right the issues, tidy up and make good. 

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