Inverter and Generator

[MaasGuy]

Good Morning.....I have a couple of questions...thought someone with more experience may be able to help out. Newer to us Albin 36' express trawler. We have a Pro-Mariner 2500w inverter/charger and a 7.6kw Westerbeke genset. Spent the night at anchor the other night for the first time and we wanted to see if everything works. First...I ran a few things off the inverter. tried the microwave and it popped something in the inverter and shut down.....after about 5 min the inverter came back on line. Fired up the genset and made sure the switches were correct, but the microwave was still trying to run off the inverter and popped it again.

This is our first boat with a generator....with the shore power turned off and the generator switch turned on....shouldn't everything 120v run off the generator and not the inverter?

Thanks for any help and let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Guy

[ranger58sb]

IIRC, the maximum PSW inverter/charger ProMariner offers is 2000W... so maybe you've got a non-PSW (quasi or whatever)... and maybe your microwave doesn't like that.

-Chris

[Eagle Pursuit]

Do you have an inverter/generator lockout panel. I do and it routes 120v either from the invverter or the generator, not both.

[MaasGuy]

I will go down later today and take a couple of pictures of what we have.

[MaasGuy]

this is the inverter/charger we have

TruePower Combi 2500W QS - 110V AC/12V DC

[Gdavid]

Originally Posted by MaasGuy

This is our first boat with a generator....with the shore power turned off and the generator switch turned on....shouldn't everything 120v run off the generator and not the inverter?

Thanks for any help and let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Guy

Yes, with AC power available from the shore power or generator, that inverter should not be powering anything. An easy way to ensure that unit is receiving AC power from the generator would be to confirm that it is charger the battery bank as it is a combination charger/inverter unit. If it is not getting power, I would inspect all of your AC power switches, confirm everything is in the correct configuration, then start looking for bad connections. There is a reset button on the unit (cannot confirm exactly where, I used to have the same unit). Finally, if the AC power is reaching the unit but it still isn't acing in "pass through mode", there is something wrong with the unit, and I would just plan to replace it.

That unit is a "quasi-sine" or modified sine wave unit, some AC powered devices don't like running off of them.

[MaasGuy]

Originally Posted by Gdavid

Yes, with AC power available from the shore power or generator, that inverter should not be powering anything. An easy way to ensure that unit is receiving AC power from the generator would be to confirm that it is charger the battery bank as it is a combination charger/inverter unit. If it is not getting power, I would inspect all of your AC power switches, confirm everything is in the correct configuration, then start looking for bad connections. There is a reset button on the unit (cannot confirm exactly where, I used to have the same unit). Finally, if the AC power is reaching the unit but it still isn't acing in "pass through mode", there is something wrong with the unit, and I would just plan to replace it.

That unit is a "quasi-sine" or modified sine wave unit, some AC powered devices don't like running off of them.

That makes sense.....may be an issue with the pass through......I will be getting a marine electrician to go through the system.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by MaasGuy

this is the inverter/charger we have

TruePower Combi 2500W QS - 110V AC/12V DC

Yep, that's the quasi sine wave model. Maybe your microwave just needs pure sine wave.

Assuming the microwave label tells you it should run on something less than 2500W.

Or that pass-thru thing.

-Chris

[Mambo42]

I had the same problem with my Victron multiplus 3000 and my 6.5 KVa generator. It turned out that the generator was supplying power to the boat VIA the inverter, thereby limitiing the output to 3000 VA max. So whatever I wanted to do, all I could get out of the generator was 3000 VA.
Now I changed the set up, which means the generator and shore power deliver straight into the 220 V system (110 V for your boat) but don't run through the inverter anymore and as a result I have the full capacity available.
Don't know for sure that you have the same set up as I had, but it is worth to take a look at it.

[CaptTom]

Every boat is likely to be set up a little differently. It's not uncommon to have only selected circuits run through the inverter. It should pass through shore or generator power, and only run from the batteries when neither is available, although there may be selector switches somewhere.


Yes, have an electrician explain your system to you. It could be you just had too many things running on the inverter-supplied circuit(s) and the microwave put it over the limit. In other words, it could be working as designed. Power management is something you need to learn specifically for your boat.