RV setup charge from generator

[derbuechsenmacher]

I have a very simple setup for my off-grid camper setup. Renogy 3500w inverter with 3 230w panels in series and a single 48v server rack battery. When I set up the system at my house (no panels), I was able to charge the battery fine from the grid. I finally got the camper to my property and gor the panels setup. Of course the battery was dead. The system charges fine from the panels, but will not charge from for my generator. I checked all the wiring and it all is good. The generator is a predator 4375w (peak) 3500w constant. The inverter is configres for grid priority charging. The only thing I can think of is the generator output is not clean and the inverter doesn't like it for charging. The inverter panel seems to indicate that is is seeing the input (unfortunately the setup is on my place in NC and I did not take any photos of the panel ). Anyone have suggestions?

 

[derbuechsenmacher]

One other thing that probably is not relqvent, the battery is lithium

 

[justinm001]

Not having perfect voltage/amperage/sinewave is usually the issue with rejecting input power... but with Renogy could be anything. Victron has an option to accept weak AC which on my old RV with a Onan 7500 I had to enable so it would work.

Simple thing is to check the voltage with a multimeter. idk how to check hertz though.

 

[0truck0]

What generator is it (predator 4375w doesnt tell us much), without me trying to look it up, what does it do? Is it an inverter generator? Those should put out a very clean sine wave AC power. The rpm based generators/ old skoo ones, might not put out anything clean. Are you using the AC out of generator or trying to use the DC output, which is weak at best?

What do you mean, of course batt is dead? A lithium battery will not die just from being moved, or even sitting for months. Is your battery any good? is it lithium? Is it a new server rack battery or one that got removed and given to you bc it was old?

When you say, inverter, is this the output or is it part of the charging? Big difference... need more info.... Because a DC to AC inverter (takes battery and make household current) is not part of the equation. OR is it an inverter AND charger? so, lets call it a charger if that's the case.

 

[50ShadesOfDirt]

Many AIO's, and possibly this Renogy, have very low tolerance for high-THD generators, as specified in their docs. If your generator is not an inverter-gen, then it probably puts out too high a THD level, sometimes as high as 10% to 25%; you'll have to dig thru the docs to see exactly what it spits out.

The gen could also need adjusting to see if it is spitting out as near as possible to 120v at 60hz, under load ... it comes from the factory, mostly tuned. Every once in a while, it isn't adjusted right, or gets knocked around, and needs readjustment. Slapping a UPS on it is sometimes a good way to test this, as UPS's don't like their voltage/freq to drift too much from grid-standard (plus or minus 3, iirc).

You may have to replace this gen with either a closed-frame inverter-gen (multitudes, expensive), or a few recent models of open-frame inverter-gens (champion), or a few recent models of open-frame non-inverter gens (westinghouse wgen11500tfc, others). In all of these gens, THD is usually "less than 5%", per their docs.

High THD doesn't usually affect things in the house, but AIO's are in that very small class of things "checking" the power input, and deciding whether or not to "reject" it. If their docs don't specify this, you can usually find this out from their tech support.

Hope this helps ...

 

[derbuechsenmacher]

As far as I can tell, it is not an inverter generator. By the battery dead, I mean it is below the voltage that the renogy inverter will use the battery. The battery is good, as it charged from the solar panels. I am using the 120v from the generator, into the ac input of the renogy (yes, it is an inverter and charger. My friend (who also has a camper on this property has an inverter generator, we just had mine out of the storage container,. As it seems that this might be related to the generators output quality, I'll just try his generator next time I go down, though I expect that the solar will provide the power necessary to charge the battery the majority of the time).