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Old 03-01-2014, 11:06 AM   #29
DavidM
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City: Litchfield, Ct
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 6,785
Tim:

If your driver is convenience then I would go with the Mastervolt principally because it has 3 isolated outputs. You probably will have to upgrade the AC breaker to at least 20 amps and 12 gauge wire and the DC wiring to at least #6 for the house bank. The other two can be 14 gauge if these are limited to 10 amps.

Don't know anything about GoPower. Maybe Chinese- some ok, some bad.

I agree that the IOTAs are an installation hassle. Contrary to another poster they are UL listed, just not marine rated. Marine rating doesn't mean much as there is no standard that defines it.

Two IOTAs draw a maximum of 36 amps AC. That is probably at a .8 or .9 power factor so at worst it is 36*120*.9 = 3900 watts which is pushing your generator's rating. But you will probably never see 18 amps each, more like 15 amps. But this does mean that one leg of your generator can't have any other load on it while you are charging.

You will probably have to install a 40 amp AC breaker directly off of one leg of your generator, probably the one that feeds the A/C and feed the IOTAs from that with #8 wire. The DC output wiring will have to be at least #4 for 150 amps.

It is doable, but it probably needs a marine electrician to wire it properly. And it needs careful power management to avoid overloading your genset.

Another way is to parallel two 55 amp IOTAs. The maximum current draw for two is just 27 amps, which means that you can wire them to your existing 30 amp breaker on the generator's A/C leg. After some reflection, that would be my preferred choice.

David
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