Victron 3k Inverter Charger install question

[J-Dog]

Greetings,
I wanted to get a couple of opinions on the way I was thinking of hooking up the 120 volt AC side of a Victron Inverter Charger.

Currently my 2 shore power plugs terminate at the aftermarket surge protector (hardwired inside the trailer) which then feeds the A/C distribution buss.

I am contemplating running the 120 A/C from the inverter directly to the A/C buss bypassing the surge protector.

The reasons behind this are:
1. The power from the Victron will most certainly be cleaner that virtually any RV park shore power hookup.
2. Should the surge protector take a dump, I would still have 120v power until I get a new surge protector installed. (Because you know it won't fail during a nice sunny day between Monday through Friday.)
3. If the shore power did fail would the surge protector keep the inverter from feeding power back to the grid? I am guessing it would.

I understand the benefit of running it through the surge protector, but wanted to see if anyone with the proper knowledge could give me more reasons not to do it the way I have planned.

Thanks for your time.

[lsbrodsky]

I am curious why you think the Inverter/Charger does not need protection from events that may occur on the campground power circuit?

Larry

[waninae39]

IMHO, place the surge First right after the outside plug. That will ensure the 3k is protected by bad power.

it has save our system many times.

we feed AC2 out to the AirCon, all else gets fed from AC1

[wulfraat]

Above post is correct. Surge protector should go upstream of the Victron, always. (wired between victron and shore). Why? power-surge hitting the victron multi directly could damage it.

Are doing a split + sub panel? Or are you leveraging the new AM Solar Smart Phase Selector?


Other comments:

>>> 1. The power from the Victron will most certainly be cleaner that virtually any RV park shore power hookup.

On battery-only, yes. Otherwise the Victron will assume voltage and frequency of the inbound source in pass-through or PowerAssist mode.

>> 2. Should the surge protector take a dump, I would still have 120v power until I get a new surge protector installed. (Because you know it won't fail during a nice sunny day between Monday through Friday.)

I don't follow. If your surge protector is installed in line with your victron (before or after) and it dies then you are dead in the water. This is the primary reason I use a portable unit that installs outside. If it fails, it takes less than 10 seconds to remove from the system.


>> 3. If the shore power did fail would the surge protector keep the inverter from feeding power back to the grid? I am guessing it would.

no, not necessarily. But it doesn't matter. The Victron Multi will not feedback a material amount of power to the grid if programmed / configured correctly. You can configure a Victron/Quattro to do so in ESS mode but that is a complicated setup / programming and not applicable to your installation.

On a side note, from Guy Stewart @ Victron:

"In a situation where grid feedback is strictly forbidden, and even a few watts will cause issues with your utility meter, or power company you should not use ESS which keeps the AC input grid connected at all times. Even with all feed in / feed back options disabled there is still a chance with ESS that there is some non-zero amount of power flowing back to the grid. For example when the inverter is assisting the grid to run a very large load with solar on a full battery and the load stops, it could allow some small amount of power back into the grid."


On another note do you have a pre-programmed Victron Multi or are you going to try and configure/program it yourself using Victron Connect?

[J-Dog]

Thanks to all for the feedback.

And especially wulfraat for the detailed response, I learned a couple of things from that.