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sam-carleton avatar image
sam-carleton asked

Is a smaller inverter worth adding to my system?

I have a travel trailer w/ 50A line. I am going to be living full time in it and the goal is to stay off grid as much as possible and to run a generator as little as possible.

At the moment the travel trailer has two Multiplus inverters. Most of our AC needs are going to be small loads: running computers, monitors, Starlink, PoE switch, etc. It seems to me running there is extra overhead in running two Multiplus all the time.

Q: How much power does the Multiplus really take when idle? When I go into the Cerbo and shut it off, what type of power consumption does it have to enable it to turn back on?

From my last build I still have the Phoenix 800 that I could install in the system to run those light loads. My #1 concern is in the extreme conditions in the winter when I don't see the sun for 2 weeks.

Q: What type of saving would I see if I ran the light loads on the smaller inverter and only turned on the big ones when a large load was needed?

multiple inverters
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2 Answers
derrick thomas avatar image
derrick thomas answered ·

Are the multi's in parallel or split phase? If in parallel you could shut down the slave and reconfigure the master to stand alone. I have done this on a few occasions when I needed to plug into a 15a outlet. (In the USA)

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sam-carleton avatar image sam-carleton commented ·

In parallel. A few things with disabling the slave: The RV is a 50amp RV that has two legs, when I go to turn on the multiplus inverter(s) I don't want to try to figure out which outlets to use. Also, I didn't set the initial system up so I don't have a MK3-USB yet.

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

The data sheets/manuals give the numbers you need.

I did this for my boat, but you end up with more complex wiring.

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sam-carleton avatar image sam-carleton commented ·
Was it worth the time and effort on your boat?


I’ve hear the Cerbo only shows one inverter group, so it would be another DC load and I would have to wire it into the Lynx BMS‘ load disconnect.

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