When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
You know I travel using my system in all locations in the west and in all "conditions " mother nature can through at us and my biggest adjustment made to the system is bulk 14.1 to 14.2 to 14.1 and that is during the spring/ summer and summer/ winter daylight hours.
Henpecking kills systems. 😉
I'm inquisitive to systems and especially the Victron stuff. It's one thing to see bowing down to the the V god but if henpecking is needed then is that good of stuff???
Last edited by scraprat; Nov 11, 2025 at 08:24 PM.
This is all I have to monitor my system, right is readout from my EMS, middle is the control for one of my inverters and far left is remote start and stop for the generator. My pure sine wave inverter was Bluetooth but Bluetooth doesn't work anymore but the inverter works fine. At first when the Bluetooth worked I checked the input and out put often but now that I know it all works I just leave it alone and occasionally check the battery voltage when we stop and the truck isn't running, it all works fine without me messing with it. When we are setup for a long stay like now I take the inverter out of the system and let the lithium batteries get a full charge and just shut them off and run on the inverter. Simple but affective and for the way we use the trailer it works fine.
Denny
Last edited by rvpuller; Nov 11, 2025 at 08:56 PM.
You know I travel using my system in all locations in the west and in all "conditions " mother nature can through at us and my biggest adjustment made to the system is bulk 14.1 to 14.2 to 14.1 and that is during the spring/ summer and summer/ winter daylight hours.
Henpecking kills systems. 😉
I'm inquisitive to systems and especially the Victron stuff. It's one thing to see bowing down to the the V god but if henpecking is needed then is that good of stuff???
My system is still fairly new and I'm getting used to it. I'm keeping an eye on a set of rooftop solar panels that I'm thinking aren't producing as well as they should be.
The RV panels never seam to produce as well as expected. I live in a dusty environment so if I see a drop in output I just get the garden hose and make it rain for a few minutes to clean them off..... Not sure where you live south of Denver but if down low like Cortez it probably would not hurt to give them a bath if you have not seen rain in a while.
The RV panels never seam to produce as well as expected. I live in a dusty environment so if I see a drop in output I just get the garden hose and make it rain for a few minutes to clean them off..... Not sure where you live south of Denver but if down low like Cortez it probably would not hurt to give them a bath if you have not seen rain in a while.
They've been cleaned. They just don't seem to be putting out like they should. I need to get up there and use my PV panel tester to see what it says. It could be a bad connection too.
I think the victron stuff is nicer, but I'm not a renogy hater. Had well over 10,000 miles on a renogy dc-dc charger, upgraded with new camper to a victron for future 50a. But the renogy never gave me an issue.
the automatic transfer switch on the renogy inverter socks though.
the automatic transfer switch on the renogy inverter socks though.
The transfer switch on both of my inverters aren't fast enough for electronics or refrigeration so I just leave them on when traveling and eliminate them when sitting for any length of time.
I had issues with my transfer switch. They had a delay circuit that failed. I was sold that the switch also had a feature that you could take out this 'feature'. Well, when the circuitry failed my butcher skills came up with a couple diodes that allowed the switch over solenoids to work without all that fancy additional stuff. Now it works fast enough to keep the memories alive on my components.
My Victron Quattro has the ability to switch from shore power or generator power to battery power with a response time in the milliseconds.
The transfer switch inside the Quattro, that allows power from the generator to be used, has a delay that is measured in seconds, like 30 seconds. That delay - so I've read - is to allow the generator to come up to speed to a steady state and warm up. The shore power has no such need. I think I recall tweaking that delay down to just a few seconds. That's a setting in the Quattro. I removed the OEM transfer switch installed by the factory, which cannot be adjusted.
My prior trailer used the OEM installed transfer switch. The switchover delay (shore or generator) seemed to be a lot longer in the winter than it was in the summer. Bad enough that I was wondering when the heck the power was going to come on.
The only issue I have with mine is that the delay is so fast, if the breaker is tripped at the shore power, I don't know that it happened. The only way to find out is to look on my phone and see what the Smart Shunt is doing and I have to be 10ft for that to happen.
The first time it happened is when I noticed the fireplace was not working. My first one lasted a couple months before it failed and I thought it happened again. That consumer is on the leg that is not supported by the inverter [as well as the bedroom A/C].
In the new setup I'm using a go power 30a transfer switch. It also has a delay 20 or 30 seconds on the shore power side, the inverter is priority and switches instant or whatever milliseconds it is. The nice thing about it is the converter is wired to it, so while on inverter power the converter is off. Still using the renogy inverter. Just without the built in transfer switch.
This is something to think about on transfer switches and inverters. When you are running on shore power the inverter can sync itself to the phasing on the incoming power so when the shore power is lost the inverter is already in phase do it can switch faster but when you apply shore power the inverter has to match to the incoming power phasing and that will cause a delay, no way around it.
That's why I use the transfer switch built into the Victron. Virtually instant switching in any condition - no waiting for anything. However, I left the ATS in between shore power and the generator. I figure it this way - the batteries will carry the Victron for hours, even with the A/C running. If I see that the generator will be needed, I can fire it up and let it feed the Victron through the ATS. The flexibility of the Victron gear is superb. I've yet to run into a situation where I couldn't make it work. The ability to tell the inverters to not draw more than X amps really helps with low power connections - the inverter will use battery to make up any power difference needed by the RV. Buy once / cry once is my motto.
Inverter synchronization to shore or generator power depends on how "clean" that power is. A generator that has been poorly maintained may not provide clean enough power for the inverter to sync with. Guys that are running into this situation are using what is called a Chargeverter to charge their battery bank instead of the inverter. Think of a Chargeverter as a much larger 120vAC-48vDC RV converter. I think this mostly occurs with residential implementations and larger generators.
While I'm rarely in a campground, it's sometimes interesting to see what my EMS is reporting for voltage. I don't recall if it displays the frequency. I've seen the voltage as high as 130 at one campground.
I dislike all automatic transfer switches. They're an un-needed, relatively expensive, and sometimes failure prone, item that I just don't see the added convenience in. I put a manual transfer switch in my inverter system (the silver backed switch in the picture below).
Position 1 (as shown) is shore power, position 2 (straight up ) is all off/ everything disconnected, position 3 (turned the the right ) is inverter power.
So I always know what power source is feeding my camper and it won't be constantly switching back and forth as the shore power flickers during a storm. My exterior surge protector (Bluetooth readable from inside the camper on my phone) tells me when the campground power is back on.
...
Last edited by Antonm23; Nov 18, 2025 at 05:01 PM.
Rezvani's Latest Post-Apocalytic Monster Is a Ford F-150 Raptor Underneath
Slideshow: Called the Fortress, the 850-horsepower pickup combines Raptor underpinnings with military-inspired features, survival equipment, and a starting price of $285,000.
