I am in the final stages of getting my solar, lithium, inverter setup going for my RV and I am having difficulty finding the products I would need to solve the shore-line/inverter to ATS to AC/DC charger wiring. I cannot be the first person to want to do this and I am hoping that someone here may have been able to find the products that I cannot find.
Here is the situation. I have PV's going through MPPT charge controllers to charge a lithium battery. There is also a shore-line that comes into my WF-8735LiS power center's main circuit breaker. That circuit breaker feeds a single power bus in the panel which is connected to a second breaker that feeds the AC/DC converter that also charges the lithium battery. I am adding an inverter which is connected to the lithium battery. The plan is to connect the shore-line and the inverter output to an ATS and feed the output of the ATS to the main breaker in the WF-8735LiS panel to power the rest of the trailer's AC circuits.
The obvious issue is that the inverter should not power the AC/DC charger. In principle, the answer is easy - the wires that feed the AC/DC charger are pulled out of the circuit breaker in the power panel and wired to a separate breaker which takes its input from the shore-line upstream of the ATS. My challenge is that I need a place to mount said breaker. I considered trying to get a small power panel (less than 5" x 8") that can take a small number of breakers and install that in the cabinet facing near the existing power panel - put my new breaker there and I'm good. Problem is - I cannot find a small power panel that I could mount in the RVs cabinet facing. Everything I can find that takes a small number of breakers still insists on putting them into a gigantic, and almost entirely empty, box - far too large to place anywhere inside the trailer. So if anyone knows of a *small* service panel (with a hinged cover) that one could mount inside a trailer, that would be helpful.
Failing the best approach of putting in a second panel with an independent breaker for the AC/DC charger, my next though is that I could put a switch/contactor, controlled by the presence of shore power, on the output of the breaker for the AC/DC charger such that power can only flow from the breaker to the AC/DC charger when the system is on shore power. I am leery of putting in a contactor that is independent of the ATS because it allows for the possibility that ATS may be passing through the inverter output even when there is shore power (which would result in the inverter driving the AC/DC charger). So my next thought was a 3-pole ATS where I use the 3rd pole to act as the switch between the breaker and the AC/DC charger - that way the switch can never be out of sync with the ATS. Problem is - I cannot find a 3-pole ATS that is suitable for installing into a trailer. Again, it has to be small and it has to be enclosed - no exposed metal tabs, spades, screws, etc that are electrified. I have found some 3-pole units, but they all have electrified bare metal sticking out in all possible directions - just begging for someone to electrocute themselves (I'm not even certain how one would use such a device - it would have to be enclosed in something to be safe, but I cannot find any sort of box that is meant to take them).
So if someone has actually built out an inverter, ATS, isolated AC/DC charger setup in their trailer, could you let me know the specific parts you found to solve the AC/DC isolation part?
Here is the situation. I have PV's going through MPPT charge controllers to charge a lithium battery. There is also a shore-line that comes into my WF-8735LiS power center's main circuit breaker. That circuit breaker feeds a single power bus in the panel which is connected to a second breaker that feeds the AC/DC converter that also charges the lithium battery. I am adding an inverter which is connected to the lithium battery. The plan is to connect the shore-line and the inverter output to an ATS and feed the output of the ATS to the main breaker in the WF-8735LiS panel to power the rest of the trailer's AC circuits.
The obvious issue is that the inverter should not power the AC/DC charger. In principle, the answer is easy - the wires that feed the AC/DC charger are pulled out of the circuit breaker in the power panel and wired to a separate breaker which takes its input from the shore-line upstream of the ATS. My challenge is that I need a place to mount said breaker. I considered trying to get a small power panel (less than 5" x 8") that can take a small number of breakers and install that in the cabinet facing near the existing power panel - put my new breaker there and I'm good. Problem is - I cannot find a small power panel that I could mount in the RVs cabinet facing. Everything I can find that takes a small number of breakers still insists on putting them into a gigantic, and almost entirely empty, box - far too large to place anywhere inside the trailer. So if anyone knows of a *small* service panel (with a hinged cover) that one could mount inside a trailer, that would be helpful.
Failing the best approach of putting in a second panel with an independent breaker for the AC/DC charger, my next though is that I could put a switch/contactor, controlled by the presence of shore power, on the output of the breaker for the AC/DC charger such that power can only flow from the breaker to the AC/DC charger when the system is on shore power. I am leery of putting in a contactor that is independent of the ATS because it allows for the possibility that ATS may be passing through the inverter output even when there is shore power (which would result in the inverter driving the AC/DC charger). So my next thought was a 3-pole ATS where I use the 3rd pole to act as the switch between the breaker and the AC/DC charger - that way the switch can never be out of sync with the ATS. Problem is - I cannot find a 3-pole ATS that is suitable for installing into a trailer. Again, it has to be small and it has to be enclosed - no exposed metal tabs, spades, screws, etc that are electrified. I have found some 3-pole units, but they all have electrified bare metal sticking out in all possible directions - just begging for someone to electrocute themselves (I'm not even certain how one would use such a device - it would have to be enclosed in something to be safe, but I cannot find any sort of box that is meant to take them).
So if someone has actually built out an inverter, ATS, isolated AC/DC charger setup in their trailer, could you let me know the specific parts you found to solve the AC/DC isolation part?