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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Wiring cabin for generator/solar?
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mxjamie540
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# Posted: 21 May 2021 06:41pm
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Trapper. This is EXACTLY what I was planning on doing in our off grid shabin. I wanted to keep everything wired like a normal house (in case I want to connect to grid at a later time).

gcrank1,

May I ask, how big is the inverter you're using? Pure sine, or modified? What has been your overall experience?

gcrank1
Member
# Posted: 25 Dec 2023 09:04pm - Edited by: gcrank1
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Missed that question!
Dont bother with MSW inverters! Just Dont, lots of stuff doesnt run well on it, fans in particular, many refrigerators die early, some LED lights, some tool chargers, and expensive computer and maybe tv's. I dont want to be killing stuff because I was cheaping out on an inverter.
We have run most of the 16x24 cabin for a couple years now on a 300w psw inverter. That is fans, inc a mid sized cheap house ceiling fan, LED lights (they draw so little that I dont even count it and we never have all on at the same time anyway), old tv/vcr unit, tool and phone chargers/any usb stuff. It has never tripped.
For the new cabin this spring I have a 1000w unit with auto-transfer (no charger though, I use a separate unit). My gen will come in via a 30a outside RV type plug to a 20a duplex (maybe a double box/4-plex) outlet. The inverter will plug into the one side of the duplex, the other will be to a power strip for the kitchen stuff.
Most of the time the LFP bat-bank runs all but the kitchen stuff via inverter as described above, when I want/need more beans I can start the gen and the inverter auto-transfer goes from bat power to gen power, seamlessly. We can run the microwave, toaster, the old 30 cup coffee perc as a utility hot water heater, vacuum, power tools (though mostly I'm using cordless now) and such (one at a time). All the 'small' stuff will run as well. Whenever the gen runs it can be running the bat-charger too.
Turn the gen off and it switches back to bat-bank/inverter.
This way I have NO mix up about which outlets are powering what; the gen runs all inc the big stuff, the bat-bank/inverter only the the small stuff.
It all works Great!.
Btw, our gen is only a little Champion 1750/2000w peak gas pull start inverter gen. It has also been Great; never needed to bring my big gen to the cabin yet.

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