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alright so in the next topic today I'm Jeff Cote with Pacific yacht systems and today we're gonna be talking about selecting an inverter and some inverter installation tips for your boat so company's been around for 11 years you know the big difference for us is expertise - repetition and that knowledge and that learnings is what I'm trying to share with everyone here today finding because I would say inverse is probably within the top five things that we do within our business it's one of the most life-changing things to have on a boat unless you're a Luddite but in terms of the benefits what it costs and what you get it's pretty up there in terms of transformations for a boat owner in terms of the creature comforts that it gives or the convenience and it gives from going from you know land life living to boat living okay it makes it for pretty seamless transition so what is an inverter I mean and that's a good question and I'm not gonna presume that everyone here in the room knows an inverter is really a device that takes DC power and creates AC power that's ultimately the purpose of an inverter now what are the things that you want to run off of an inverter it might be a TV it might be refrigeration it might be charging a computer it might be AC outlets on your boat right those are common things that inverters will run now there is no limit to what an inverter can do I've seen inverters the size of this stage and three times the size of the stage some inverters will run Lily almost a small little village right so there is no size but for both purposes you're gonna limit the things you're gonna run on an inverter because simply you just don't have endless power to run all loads on an inverter but there is no limits to what an inverter can do the true limitation of an inverter is the size and the battery bank that it's connected to so an inverter is really the opposite of a converter and converters are things that we see on a lot of older boats on the panel they're gonna have a label converter and a converter is a charger so the next thing is okay so you know what an inverter is what do you need for an inverter well the first thing you need absolutely is a battery bank and you gonna need remember that inverse especially if you're gonna run a microwave or a coffee machine they draw a lot of power right they draw as much as probably you're winless all right it's easy like I can see for example a ceramic heater like a 12 amp ceramic heater from West marine or whatever it is those little kind of fact a Fra Mauro heaters or something like that they're gonna run at four maximum heat about a hundred and forty amps at 12 volts a windless is maybe 50 to 75 amps so this is two winless is running and that's just 12 amps you put two of those heaters there you're drunk 300 amps three of them you're drawing 400 amps out of your battery back so you need a pretty big battery bank and a pre-meeting inverter to be able to handle those loads so when manufacturers think about a battery bank they're thinking at least 200 amp hours 200 amp hours is to golf car batteries in series and in series is to group 30 ones in parallel right so it's not a big battery bank it's a battery bank you know this big or an 8 d right which is about this big right so not a massive battery bank but something right it can't be a motorcycle batteries it could but the inverter would be tiny and generally for boats most of us work in 12 volts or 24 volts so that's the other thing you've got to ask yourself is when I'm gonna be shopping for an inverter what is my house battery voltage is it 24 or 12 most of us is 12 and very very few of us have 32 maybe one out of a hundred one out of 50 boat owners have a 32 volt house system okay that would be more from the 70s or early 80s great system it's just it's like betta you know VHS versus meta way better have a 34 32 volt system and it just it didn't win you know 12 volt won it is what it is we can't change it so when you're gonna be purchasing an inverter you're gonna have to consider what's how is your house batteries wired are they 12 volts or 24 volts alright so the next question you have to ask yourself when you think about in inverters what's the purpose what am I going to do with this inverter right because not everyone uses an for the same purpose so common things that people want with inverter I want to run the for example my partner wants to run the microwave without having to start the generator right in the morning that could be one I want to have my coffee machine like an espresso run in the morning without having to start the generator that's another one I want to run a TV at night in an anchorage and not have to run the generator that's another one I want to recharge my power tool batteries right again whenever without having to be connected to shore power or running a generator so you can see like all these things are possible without connected to shore power without having a generator running but you've got to look at the back of every single device are going to talk about the wattage you know some microwaves very very compact my grades are only about 600 watts so microwaves are in 900 watts somehow microwaves are 1200 watts so you got to start figuring out the size a hairdryer might be 1400 watts 1600 watts so you got to think about what is the purpose of my my of my inverter and that's gonna allow you to figure out what is the wattage of my inverter because inverters come in all sizes okay obviously you can even buy them smaller than 300 but you know why bother so you basically start at about three to six hundred right what are the things you're gonna be able to do like for example I have a 300 watt inverter on my boat and here's what my 300 watt inverter does it runs a 40 inch LED TV Iran's two media centers laptop charging iPad charging basically every kind of little NIT bit small little thing and it's on 24/7 I leave it on all the time anybody want to plug in anything it's very little power draw because it's only 300 Watts anybody wants power they just know that outlet is always powered and it's easy breezy so that's what a 300 watt and won't run a vacuum I can tell you that my cousin tried to run it blew the breaker so they will not run a vacuum but it's got to recharge devices and it's going to run a TV and charge computers no problem a thousand watt inverter now that's a little bit more popular what is a thousand watt inverter small microwave small blender right and then a 2000 watt inverter is gonna run what like a coffee and espresso machine right and it goes from there there's 3000 watt inverters as well that might be concurrent use someone in the galley using a microwave and someone else using a coffee machine at the same time concurrently at the same time so those would be the thing the Ranger you're thinking about at 12 volts the biggest one is 2000 watt 24 you can go 4000 and I have owners that go and we've done we're doing a boat right now it's 8,000 watts you start stacking them right you can have 4,000 4,000 iowa's on a boat this summer I drove an 16 kilowatts 16,000 Watts he can run washing machines the whole thing his whole boat can run off the inverse I mean it's industrial but that's what he wanted and that's what he has so there's no limit of course but the range is really between three and three hundred and three thousand is for most of us is the range of the inverter that we're gonna choose on a boat okay all right the next big question is okay now you figured out hey you've got a battery bank to run it because you need a battery bank you figured out what the voltage is so you know that you figured out the size of the inverter you want the next question you've got to ask yourself is okay am i dinner what type of low is am I going to be running because there's a big difference in AC between what are called the resistive loads and inductive loads and you're probably what's a resistive load a resistive load is a toaster resistance that's what it is it's eating element let's say heater itself is a resistive load like a light old lights right incandescent lightbulb that's a resistive load inductive loads are motorized loads like a Nespresso machine an owner of mine replaces Nespresso three times first time terrible product second time Nespresso makes an awful product third time what oh and the the third one worked at home but it broke on the boat hmm maybe Nespresso is not the problem what could be the problem get a phone call go on the boat he's running a modified sine wave inverter modified sine-wave inverters are not good with inductive loads they're less expensive than true sine wave and they're not good for recharging you know power tools batteries it can't do that your microwave is going to run great on the generator Shore power but it's gonna take forever to warm a cup of coffee or soup on the inverter that's because you're running a modified sine wave inverter your TV has a line going through it you can't see it but generally the your partner can and is driving you crazy that's a modified sine wave inverter your thruster controls which are connected to a DC battery are humming that's in a basically modified sine wave inverter that's making it so anything crazy or interference you turn the inverter on in your auto pods working and the boat veers off like 70 degrees support every time the toaster comes on that's a modified sine wave inverter that happened when I got my boat didn't know turn Karen's down below we basically suddenly someone turns on the making toast the bow goes 70 degrees support that's a modified sine wave inverter so all those reasons are a lot of negatives right I mean let's be honest there's not a lot of selling points the only reason people buy modified sine-wave inverters is for cost and back in the day 10 15 20 years ago it was a big difference it was substantial but nowadays when you can buy a true sine wave inverter for between 50 40 cents per watt to $1.00 per watt maybe a dollar 10 per watt there's really no incentive in my opinion to run a modified sine wave inverter now your choice your boat your rules but to give you an idea I have never installed a modified sine wave inverter in 11 years in my business I've never installed one I always try to encourage the owner to go the true sine wave front for all the benefits that I talked about but you know maybe for you you don't see that's the only thing you do your boat your inverter is gonna make toast well then an inductor or a modified sine wave inverter is perfect for you it's gonna be certainly less money okay oh the other thing too is by the way also a modified sine wave inverter is less efficient at converting ace DC power to AC power so the other thing too is you you have to care you don't care about power on your boat you have lots of it and you don't care if it's inefficient you lose about 30% so again it'd be sort of like doing a conversion on your American dollar to Canadian dollar instead of losing 2% on each side of the transaction you're losing 35% on each side of the transaction so that's pretty significant right a true sine wave modern inverter is gonna cost you between five and ten percent modified sine-wave old inverter around thirty five percent so considering that battery banks are a finite capacity and battery capacity on a boat is like money it's very valuable and it's rare to lose thirty five percent on your transaction to convert DC power to AC power is a pretty big deal and I honestly have done some boats where the only reason the owner changes the inverter is just to get the energy savings from going from modified to true that's the only reason owner takes it out works perfectly fine gives it to a friend says that to a friend puts a true one in and saves literally thirty percent on his power for all inverter loads and that can add up a lot because some refrigerators on a boat run only on shore power so you got a refrigerator or a deep freezer on the flybridge refrigerator not in the galley that's AC driven you're attacking on 30% more power consumption because you're running a modified sine wave inverter that's outdated okay so that would be another thing to look for when you're shopping for an inverter the other thing too is when you're looking at an inverter one thing that you can consider and that's certainly the reason why I ended up buying a 2000 watt inverter so I have a 300 that I leave on all the time but the reason why I wanted a 2000 watt inverter is not really for the 2000 watt although that was really good to sell it to other stakeholders the real reason is I wanted a high charge rate I have an 800 amp hour battery bank and remember the max the minimum charge rate for a battery bank is 10% of battery capacity so 10% of 800 is 80 amps right but would flooded I can go all the way to 25% so I got a hundred amp charger with a 2000 watt inverter and that's the reason I put a 2000 watt inverter on my boat is so that I got a hundred amp charger and with the 100 amp charger I got a 2000 watt inverter so for me the the justification and the drive to going to a 2000 watt inverter was to get a hundred amp charger so one stone to birds and remember a give you an idea 800 amps standalone charger is about two thousand dollars a 2000 watt low-frequency so good quality inverter charger is about two thousand dollars so they're the same price and why would you have two instead of one it's because inverter chargers sell a hundred to one to a single standalone charger so they have mass production that cost per unit is so much more down on an inverter charger than a charger so it's cost-effective to actually buy an inverter charger versus just a charger yeah different profiles absolutely yeah all right so when you're gonna be buying an inverter what are other things to look for first of all you want to make sure that it's marine certified and I can go I could take 10 minutes explain why but there is some automatic switching that happens between the neutral and the ground on an inverter and that is absolutely essential and it gets unsweet and sweet switch depending if it's a source of power and a non marine inverter won't do that if you care about your underwater metals meaning you care about Straker and corrosion and you value money I highly recommend that you choose a Marine certified inverter sort of like a Marine certified chargers the same thing if you don't value money and you don't care about losing your underwater metals like your prop your struts right your legs and all those things under your boat then yes it can entire inverter or can entire charger is right for you but for everyone else that values money and they want their boat to operate and they don't want to lose all their medals and they don't want Straker and corrosion I highly suggest and tell you that you buy a marine certified inverter charger the other thing too is make sure what is going to be that efficiency of the inverter you want an inverter of course you know you go from 12 volts to 120 of course is going to be a factor of 10 right 12 into 120 is 10 there's going to be a factor of 10 to convert but on top of those 10 how much to convert from AC to DC a modern really efficient charger is going to do it within about five to ten percent in efficient inexpensive chargers are going to do it within about thirty five percent so that means you use a lot more of your battery power to do the same thing if you buy an unofficial or an inefficient inverter the other thing too that started to happen and it's a little bit more sophisticated is that now inverters have what's called a power assist mode so your boat might have only 30 amps or 50 apps coming in and sometimes you have surge loads that are inductive loads their condition comes on a water maker comes on a dishwasher comes on some large load comes on that kicks you over 50 what can happen is the inverter for a short period of time can actually take that difference and suddenly give to your about 70 amps of power so your inverter can actually supplement your Shore power connection as a way to avoid tripping your Shore power breaker different companies have different names for it but that's kind of convenient you might only have maybe in your boat you only have 30 amps and sometimes just four short period of time you need 40 amps for 20 seconds for whatever reason some inverters will allow you to get the 40 ounce even though you're connected only 30 amps so the inverter will actually sync with the shore power and will add another 10 amps to the 30 amps that you're getting from shore power to avoid the shore power breaker from tripping essential is that your inverter has the ability to be disabled meaning that it actually you can say inverter off and this is going to be really key especially when you're not onboard the boat and you don't want your inverter to automatically turn itself off when it senses that there's no AC power coming on the boat I've had a lot of boat owners that have been very sad to find out that they lost shore power in the winter their inverter was on standby they had heaters on board shore power got lost because of a storm whatever happened someone kicked the cord their heaters now we're running through the inverter from the batteries and within two hours the batteries are dead and a battery that is left uncharged for a week two weeks a month is a dead battery forever there is no coming back from the other side if your battery has left uncharged and completely depleted for any period of time you can bring a battery to zero you can do it it's gonna be very damaging the battery but you have to recharge it the moment it gets to zero the longer it stays in that uncharged state at one point it's a lost battery I had an owner I met him again today he went on a traveling trip a friend disconnected a short power cord you know thinking I need more power but what he didn't realize is when he pulled the cord the breaker tripped right you can't disconnect a short power cord under load person didn't think about that pulled the cord breaker trip he reconnected but the breaker never came on the heaters were on they ran off the inverter it was a six thousand dollar AGM battery bank just batteries he came back he had a six thousand dollar bill just for batteries that doesn't include taking the old batteries out and putting new batteries in so your inverter has to have a disabled button a inverter off button very essential okay do not buy and invert it's always on because there's may be unintended consequences when something else happens you might want to consider an inverter that has a built-in charger certainly a little bit more time to install because an inverter with a built-in charger needs an AC input but since you're already running a wire to the AC out you're running two cables or one cable it's not that big of a deal in terms of labor so I would say 95 percent of owners boat owners are choosing to buy an inverter charger right because then at the same time they're getting a battery charger and an inverter maybe 90% so that's something to ask yourself do I need a larger charger maybe I'm changing my battery banks because I'm putting an inverter in and if it's a larger battery bank on my going to recharge that larger battery bank a large inverter charger will give you that and then another thing too is that and I'm not a big fan of it although some of boat owners do like it is there are modules that come with different brands of inverters where the generator can automatically start if the battery voltage is too low I personally believe that a generator should only be started by an operator and that a machine shouldn't decide when your generator should turn on right because that generator doesn't have a sense if the seacock is open or closed right it doesn't know so you can have the seacock closed and then the generator starts the cooling is closed damage to the water impeller right it could be pretty catastrophic in my opinion a generator should be started by an operator but some owners like convenience they want automation and so if that's important to you there are different manufacturers of inverter chargers and inverters that have automatic generator start modules that can be tied to the inverter so whenever the inverter sees a low voltage and doesn't feel that it can provide enough inverter to run your loads the general will kick on automatically this is a typical wiring schematic at the bottom you can see a generator a shore power there's a source selector switch right here right power goes into the inverter the out of the inverter goes to the panel route some outlets the inverter is powered from this battery bank which is your house battery bank there's an echo charge that allows this charger to charge to battery banks battery monitor it's a simplified diagram it's a one-line diagram it's not completely accurate we'll talk about a more accurate one but it kind of gives you a sense of how an inverter is wired you would not wire an inverter like that but this is kind of like let's not get it too complicated this is right enough but not completely accurate so now that you've figured out which inverter you're gonna buy how do you go about installing one well first thing you got to ask yourself is what loads am I gonna run off my inverter and remember it's very rare that I have an owner that says I want to run all my AC lows on my boat on an inverter when we install an inverter I always like to make it foolproof foolproof is for instance not having the battery charger run off the inverter and by the way I've seen that often so you have your inverter that takes powers from the batteries creates AC AC runs a charger to recharge the batteries now DaVinci's you know eternal machine of power or whatever it is that has not existed okay there is no such wheel that creates power endlessly so you can't take power to make power to give it back and I've seen it often and so that would be one load that you wouldn't want to run off an inverter you wouldn't want to run your battery charger off an inverter so that would be a low that you would choose to take off another one might be your hot water tank even though you might want it a hot water tank is generally a 20 amp circuit 20 amp circuit at 12 volts with your efficiencies it's probably gonna be a 220 app load think about a 220 amp load on your battery bank that is a massive look you're winless is maybe 50 to 75 right this is a huge huge load on your battery bank and that low is gonna run for 30 minutes so if you have a hot water tank on your inverter you need to have a very very very large battery bank and so I always advise owners I'm like it doesn't make sense to run your hot water tank on your inverter it just doesn't you might have a water maker you can't run that on it you would need a massive massive inverter system to run you'd be like my other boat owner that had at 12 kilowatt or 8 kilowatt because the water maker has huge inductive loads right take off same thing with air conditioning you can run an air conditioner off an inverter but you need a large inverter system and a large battery bank system to do that we've done that with lithium of course it's possible but for most of us it just becomes too much of a burden so you choose the lows that are gonna run off the inverter and choose those that won't okay and that's part of the first step that you've got to decide when you install your inverter here's an example of blue see shows you kind of a like a one-line diagram and that's kind of the terminology we use we got non-inverted loads hot water air conditioner could be in here it could be I don't know a water maker garbage compactor whatever it is those would be non-inverted outs loads that only work from shore power or generator and then you have inverter loads and notice the inverter is down here and here's the input and there's a breaker very essential there's a breaker before the inverter the inverters here and then there's out and then this microwave outlets lightning it could be entertainment system bail express view you got a satellite TV system whatever it is now notice when you're connected Shore power the inverter loads are effectively going to be run through a mode called bypass or pass-through so everything is gonna be running off of shore power even with the inverter off if you lose Shore power and the inverter is enabled all the inverter loads are going to be powered if the inverter bottom is off you lose your power all your inverter loads are not working okay that is I would say 99% of all our installations follow this schematic that's how we do it in non inverted loads and inverter loads so want to emphasize that it's really important that your inverter charger has to have a breaker at the source of AC power coming to the inverter charger you want to make sure that the AC wiring is not the solid strand home wiring to inverter you'd be shocked a lot of boats from the 80s didn't have AC systems or 70s and it got retrofitted and cost this King right just get it done cheapest is better all right and people in actually installed Hart clearly like solid strand copper wiring on boats from the 70s and 80s so make sure that you're using me green gray wire and I'll show a picture about that and here's the big kick and that is probably 95% of all non professionally installed in inverters have this problem first of all if you ever read an inverter charger manual it's about and I'm not gonna joke it's about not a centimeter thick but half a cm you think it's probably a hundred pages any self-respecting man is gonna see that manual and he's gonna see the inverter box and say this is just stupid it's a waste of my time I'm smarter than this and they'll take the manual and they're gonna use it for any other purpose than reading material and they will then dive in on the installation MacGyver style and they're gonna get it to work and at the end of their project they're gonna really be proud of themselves because the inverter will work but they're not gonna have read anything and it's not gonna work safely but they don't care because as long as it works it's MacGyver so one of the most missed things on an inverter install is the fact that when you separate your panel you don't only intercept the hot leads from the breakers you also have to find the neutrals and bring them to a separate neutral bus so you have a neutral bus for non inverter loads and a neutral bus for inverter lows your boats not going to be wired like that you're gonna have to literally peel the loads off and create a non invert an inverter bus and an inverter bus for your neutrals and that is probably missed and I would say 95% of all inverter installations because no one is gonna read an inverter manual because it's just who would it's too thick right and the other thing too a lot of inverters if you've got a boat and it's really questionable about the work that was done on board a lot of boat owners not reading the manual are gonna install an inverter directly connected to shore power between their AC panel so they're gonna literally go in and they're gonna pop the inverter in between their AC panel and their Shore power plug they're gonna be like well if I don't have Shore power the inverter is gonna run my boat and that would be a boat where the hot water tank the battery charger and all these things are run off the inverter there's no circuit protection generally in those situations because the circuit breaker on a boat is generally not at the shore power receptacle it's actually on the AC panel so that whole line is unprotected I cannot tell you there are so many reasons why that is wrong but that is very common if you got a guy that did work on the boat for a case of beer or for whatever then he probably installed the inverter in line between the shore power receptacle and the AC panel because again he probably didn't read the manual definitely no no okay so look this is what AC wiring and it's kind of hard but you know you want to have wiring that is basically fine strand tinned right flexible so it won't break very essential if you're gonna install an inverter on your boat make sure that the inverter never is mounted in a gasoline engine room yes chargers are in gasoline engine rooms but inverters cannot be mounted in a gasoline engine room because there is no such thing as an ignition protected inverter many owners I would say anybody who's got a gasoline boat and has an inverter I'd say probably half of you have the inverter in the gasoline engine room why because the batteries are there and there's a charger there and whoever put the chart the inverter saw a charger in zywall if the charge is good here and the batteries are here where am I going to put the inverter it's got to go in the engine room what they don't realize is if ever there's a fuel leak maybe a fuel leak from the fuel filter or fuel leak from one of the hoses leaking fuel that fuel is has a very very very low flash point doesn't need a lot to ignite it's not like diesel these are you can throw a match on it it won't light and the other problem with gas is the reason why it's also called gas probably not just gasoline coincidentally is it's very gaseous like it actually expands right that's why people in the summer blow up from their lawn mower sheds you know and they have no ventilation and the tank was open and the whole space is filled with gasoline they opened the light the shed explodes well that's what happens it goes everywhere every whole compartment is gonna be full especially in the heat it gets warm and so it's essential that your inverter and remember your inverter is gonna be you're not gonna have the blowers operating when you're gonna be installing inverter because your engines not working you're going to be sitting in anchor so the code is very black-and-white about this there isn't black and white an inverter charger cannot be mounted in a gasoline engine room so essential that you install it within the cabin of the boat but then some people do that and drill huge holes and they break that and by the way this is 95% of all installations people forget that huge hassle that builders go to make sure that a gasoline engine room is completely vapor proof from the cabin like massive costs insane costs to do that then people go in and they take hole saws and they punch holes through and I cannot tell you how many people are proud of having their inverter chargers in the cabin and there is literally a hole this big between the cabin and the engine room now their whole cabin of their boat is part of the engine room because any vapors from gas are going to go through that whole craziness and now people are living families on board kids and if that inverter ever turns on and there's a gas leak you're gonna if there's gonna be an explosion so really essential if you're installing on a gasoline boat you need to make sure that those wires going through the bulkheads are absolutely vapor proof the other thing too is you want to make sure that the inverter is mounted in a dry location it can never be exposed to you know Spray or water rain make sure it's in a good ventilation I have owners that put it in under a settee and it's all closed inverters create a lot of heat you're gonna need ventilation to that like some sort of louvered vent it will shut down if you have it in an enclosed space sort of like if I go in a freezer you close the door I'm gonna die both of lack of oxygen and the fact that I'm gonna heat that space up and I'm gonna cook myself it's just I cannot breathe inverters are creating heat if there's no ventilation in that space the inverter will shut itself down through overheating and it's going to give you overheating error so it's really essential that your inverter is not mounted in a location where there's no ventilation and the other thing too is an inverter cannot be mounted you want to mount it as close to the batteries are possible but you don't want to mount it directly above the batteries especially for flooded lead-acid because flooded lead-acid batteries when they charge especially in bulk create a lot of gas and that gas it's corrosive and it rises and so you're gonna have premature failure on your inverter because you've got too much gassing so the manual says all of this but make sure that your inverter is close to the batteries but not above them so here's an example on a Grand Banks 36 I did that in nineteen 2000 2008 you can see the switch you can see the inverter the the fuse we'll talk about that a little bit later fuse when you install an inverter you want to have the right fuse the right amperage of the fuse you want the fuse to be locally in the right place so you want to class the fuse you want a few size that is specified by the manufacturer it's gonna be in the manual and you want to have the fuse located at the beginning of the circuit very essential not anywhere in the circuit because that fuse not only protects the inverter it also protects the wire feeding the inverter okay very essential and also believe it or not it's really hard to find a Class C if used in a Chandler II the further north you go like don't think you're gonna find one in refuge cove for instance okay so and remember your inverter is not just an invert us also an inverter charger so if you lose that fuse you lose your and you lose your charger that's pretty critical right even if you have a generator on born now your charger will never work because you don't have the fuse so it's really essential to have a spare fuse otherwise you're going to do something like this and the owner never did it it's just the previuos owner never fixed it and by the way this is actually quite common this is not a joke they kept the fuse older though which is kind of nice so they have the intent of the fuse older but they just yeah they figured the wire seems a little smaller though so that's probably gonna catch on fire before the other wire well they did put a fuse and notice it's in front of an engine and the engine is all negative right so if you touch one and the paint chips you'd have it Indiana Jones master craft in your hands forever you know you see I mean the welding would be amazing your it would be like you'd be burnt like three degrees your hands would be seared on that thing like that wrench would be dead hot be like lava hot so yeah so they they use the wire as a fuse and this is a Class D fuse holder well those people are the why yeah I mean I would love to meet these people one on one with a beer I'm like what were you thinking they'd be incredible another thing too is when you install an inverter and this is often overlooked again it's in the manual you want a master DC disconnect switch an on/off switch that will disconnect DC power to the inverter now that's what the code says so as an tech I'm thinking well why right I'm always curious well the reason why is it sort of the same way when you this call the service disconnect in some ways because if you're ever gonna play with AC on your boat change an AC outlet what's your first reaction or first instinct of what you should do before you're gonna change an AC outlet on your boat personally I would disconnect the shore power port I'm not gonna turn off the breaker of the panel I'm not gonna take a chance why not disconnect my boat from shore power why trust a breaker when I can physically disconnect my boat from shore power that would be my instinct the problem is if you have an inverter on your boat inverters have this thing that's called a standby mode Stan my moans means I'm an inverter but if I don't sense a load I'm not on so now you have a little wand from Home Depot and a GCI tester and you put in your AC outlet your inverters on standby there's no load you put it beside the AC outlet no beeping you put your GFCI in there it's like a five watt load no light you're like this is amazing I am prepared and ready to take away that GFCI and change it there is no electricity AC electricity on my boat you disconnect you touch the hot and the neutral suddenly the inverter says oh wait a second I sense more than a 50 watt load right because your fingers is definitely more than 50 watt resistor here and be like I think I've been asked to turn myself on so now you're gonna get electrocuted because your inverter was on standby mode and hence why inverters have a master DC disconnect and the master DC disconnect should be labeled and it's not something you'll ever touch unless you're working on your AC system okay so you don't mean it but you sure do you know I'm saying that's why the standards say so and the other point that I'm trying to say there especially if you have an inverter charger and this is essential and often overlooked often probably two three well one thirds of the votes don't do this people are very incentive to take shortcuts we all do we're all trying to be efficient we're trying to do things faster better what the issue is that people will wire an inverter charger at a panel because you don't want to go all the way to the batteries and they're thinking well the batteries are too far there's already a big cable there why would I bother I'm just simply going to connect to the panel connect to this switch and it's already a switch switch location switch distribution we call so they run the inverter to that and they're like oh look I just saved all this wire to run another 10 feet so then what happens is the owner of the boat goes the charge is on by the way of this point and the charger the owner says and this happens all the time all the time the owner goes oh I'm gonna disconnect my batteries from my loads and it takes the the main DC disconnect for the boat turns it off but now suddenly all the loads are still on and then you're going what the hell I just turned the batteries off and you did now your battery charger is acting as a power supply now a power supply and a battery charger are two separate things and a power supply is way more money than a battery charger because the battery charger assumes that there is a battery there to take the shock loads of the battery voltage going up and down a power supply is able to hold steady regardless of the voltage loads coming in and off and it's going to hold at 13-3 a battery charger does not react like that so now you have your inverter charger running all your households on your boat besides the point that it's freaking the hell out of you right you're like what the hell my batteries are disconnected how can I have charged now you're wondering where's the short what's going on and then suddenly what you do is you have maybe a load that comes on takes a time for the charger to react right the voltage drops light go dim and then come back on again but now what you do is you take the load off then that's where you're gonna pay a price because the charger does not react instantly if you have 300 pounds on top of you and suddenly the load is gone you're gonna push up voltage is gonna spike 18 20 24 25 30 because the Chargers putting output of amps it doesn't know that you're suddenly gonna take away a load and it's not connected to battery and something you're gonna have a voltage spike and now all your sensitive DC electronics that were actually connected at a time are going to blow up so that's the reason why you always want to have an inverter charger or all charger circuits alternators chargers inverter chargers directly connected to a battery and not switched except if they have their own switch right because if its own switch the inverter won't be able to draw from it and the charger it's it's lost both legs okay so won't matter but very essential so an inverter charger has to be directly connected to an unconnected at the battery via its own dedicated fuse at the battery in its own dedicated switch and that's what the code says and that's how they should be wired but most boats are not wired like that I was on a boat it happened a week ago grand banks 42 beautiful boat beautiful amazing you would think this boat is wired perfect and it happened when we were on board there was a dead short on the engine the charger was actually connected directly to the load side of the switch not to the battery side we shut off the engine battery switches but the dead short was still happening and there's a fire in the engine room on board and the owner was there extremely scary stuff couldn't disconnect it we're like what the hell's happening it was because the charger was connected to the load side of the switch so the engine was always on even you could actually you could have the engine switches off and the ignition panel will be popped you couldn't start the engine because the charge is only 40 amps the voltage was crashed I can only power 40 but the ignition would be on the gauges would be on everything was on you think you're connected and your engine switches was off very confusing okay DC wiring make sure that the wire size meets the amperage or the wattage of your device if you have a thousand watt inverter and you're switching to 2000 or 3000 unfortunately the reality is that the wire size feeding that thousand watt inverter is not going to be sized for 2,000 or 3,000 it's not like a short like a AC outlet where you can plug whatever appliance you want in DC because the wire size are so big and so expensive people only use the cable size that they need they don't oversize everything for multiples of what they need so make sure that the wire size can handle the amperage and will offset the voltage drop of that so there's a table in the manual and it's gonna tell if the the run to the inverter is 10 feet and 10 feet back you've got a 20 foot run there's gonna be a table and says 20 foot run 2000 watt inverter you need four OTT right and you got to follow it okay make sure also and I've seen that happen is that sort of like a carotid artery right quarter are someone who's not in shape sitting on the couch watching TV you know it doesn't matter that tons of cholesterol cord artery no big deal so the inverter might see twelve point eight volts everything's good you're looking uh got a crimp everything's done well that's because you're not asking anything of it you see I'm from the East Coast you do the same person you say now there's three feet of snow in the front yard go shovel right that same person sitting on the couch is completely fine not breathing everything's okay now you ask him though shovel snow for an hour and a half he's gonna have a heart attack in the front yard well your inverter is the same thing you could have twelve point eight volts perfect connection under no-load to the batteries but if you have a bad crimp on that wire and you're running 200 or 300 amps continuous that crimp better be perfect so make sure that your crimps on high current draws to an inverter or a thruster or a starter are perfect otherwise a starter is only fifteen seconds thrusters maybe five seconds on and off but inverter can be continuous you know maybe a partner is having a hair dryer twenty five minutes you've got a few teenage girls on board maybe it's gonna be 60 minutes of hair dryers who knows that load is gonna be pretty hard and you made or make sure that your crimp ie the lug on the wires perfect also and this is not seen as essential and the MacGyver's out there are gonna say well why would you ever have a shoulder on a highway what's the purpose of having a shoulder to pull over because my car never breaks down and the car in front of me never breaks down and we're always simply gonna run because they're optimists right but some of us know the reality is sometimes the car breaks down and it can't actually Park on a highway it needs to pull over a chassis ground on an inverter is basically the equivalent of a three wire AC system and we've been to three wires for over a hundred years okay old old little houses were two wires hot and neutral eventually someone figured out that there needs to be a secondary path to return because the path the ground could be you so they have it what's called a grounding wire if you do not have a chassis ground on that inverter you are foregoing you are willing to say the last hundred years of progress were stupid and I am gonna go back to circa 1898 and I'm gonna do a hot neutral a/c system on my boat now yes of course it functions everything's fine until it doesn't and if there's no chassis ground and you touch the case and it's energized this will be the last inverter case you will ever touch you'll get electrocuted and you will die so essential to have chassis ground and I'm not joking probably half of all inverters don't have one because you don't need one right it works without it sorry you don't need a seat belt in a car to drive it so you don't need it and if they do have one they didn't read the manual and the cable size is gauge 10 because most people that wire boats are household electricians and again they didn't read the manual and the manual says that it needs to be one size smaller than the largest cable size connect to the inverter so if you're feeding a 2 odd inverter you need one on on the chassis ground because if you don't and the chassis ground shorts to 2 watt positive that 10 gauge wire becomes a fire wire and you will lose your boat guaranteed there's no amount fire extinguishers there's nothing you can do your only source is to get off the boat because it's gonna be a volcano that's gonna turn on your boat that length of wire will go full-blown will light up like melt and lava on your boat so you can never ever ever ever have a 10 gauge wire as a chassis ground fed with a 2 watt positive wire you can but you're asking for trouble and I talked about that a little bit so if you're gonna use your inverter charger make sure that you turn your inverter function off right never ever and this is important especially with an inverter charger and the labels are misleading because they only say inverter on it but on your AC paddle you might have an inverter and it's gonna say inverter you think oh well I'm gonna shut it off there if you have an inverter shut off and you turn the breaker off you're shutting off the charger function as well and I've had owners where they lose their battery banks because they're looking at the panel of like oh I'm don't need my inverter you bow donor right no I don't need the charger shut it off they walk away two months later they come back the batteries are dead why they turned the battery charger off on the inverter function so never turn your battery charger on the circuit breaker always on the remote panel or the inverter and the Justin lastly just to wrap up think about this as an inverter charger it's not just a device that runs a light in your cabin right that inverter might run your refrigeration so if you lose that inverter you lose the food in your fridge because that inverter is running the lowest pass-through meaning if the inverter dies even I'll generate or show power the fridge won't get powered you need to literally take it off and jump those AC wires together now not many people are gonna be willing to do that so then what happens is they go to Campbell River they go to Nanaimo they go to Sydney and then they get another inverter now those are easy points of entry but if you're up in Discovery or Browns and use the inverter your trip is your fridge if it's running off AC is done and now you won't run on shore power and it won't even run off of a generator so when you install an inverter charger make sure that at one point don't push your luck if you've got a 20 year old inverter charger appointment you got to ask yourself how long is that inverter charger gonna last and in this summer I probably change about two dozen and I never change some in the winter they fail under use that's when we get called out so if you if it's critical to you an inverter charger you have one on your boat you got to ask yourself how much luck can I have with this inverter charger and what happens if I lose it is it just gonna I'm not gonna run the microwave big deal right maybe my house the AC outlets are not gonna work or am I gonna lose some essential those like my refrigerator on top of the flybridge and I'm going to the Browns for two months and then everything on board I won't be able to do connect to shore power or anything nothing is gonna run so those are things you've got to think about how critical your inverter charger is on your boat and with that I'm going to let go because we've got about two minutes and someone else is in the room so I'll take questions on the outside and thank you everyone for your time
Electrical