Golf Cart Batteries and Inverters

[BigRich]

Something is wrong with the site. It keeps cutting off my posts.

[BigRich]

We lost power for five days. By day five I was finally starting to get comfortable running the generator, feeding it gas, etc.. Anyway, my view of how to handle things is a little different now. I

[BigRich]

We lost power for five days. By day five I was finally starting to get comfortable running the generator, feeding it gas, etc.. Anyway, my view of how to handle things is a little different now. I

[SunEagle]

Water heaters with upper and lower elements are almost always wired so that both elements are never on at the same time. The power feeds first to the upper element, and only when its thermostat, in the top part of the tank, reaches the set temp does it turn off the upper element and feed power to the thermostat controlling the lower element.

You may be right. The thermostat and sensor location would determine when the element came on.

When I swapped out my electric water heater for a solar heated one the tank included a 120v element as a backup power source should the sun not get the temp high enough. The only loss was my POCO reduce my credit for load management since the heater was no longer controlled by them.

[inetdog]

Chances are your water heater has 2 elements each wired for 120v so the entire unit is power by 240v. If possible you can try to turn off the top element but that is not always easy to do depending on the model water heater. The heater is one of you big loads that you probably only power if most or all other loads are turned off.

If you have a specific 120volt load that is not plugged into a receptacle you may want to use a dedicated extension cord to it. But by providing 240v into your main panel should power all 120volt loads.

Although the generator might stall if you have a lot of load and the well pump or booster pump starts. The surge may over load the generator for a brief time and the engine may not be able to handle it.

Water heaters with upper and lower elements are almost always wired so that both elements are never on at the same time. The power feeds first to the upper element, and only when its thermostat, in the top part of the tank, reaches the set temp does it turn off the upper element and feed power to the thermostat controlling the lower element.

[BigRich]

Thanks again.

[J.P.M.]

Chances are your water heater has 2 elements each wired for 120v so the entire unit is power by 240v. If possible you can try to turn off the top element but that is not always easy to do depending on the model water heater. The heater is one of you big loads that you probably only power if most or all other loads are turned off.

If you have a specific 120volt load that is not plugged into a receptacle you may want to use a dedicated extension cord to it. But by providing 240v into your main panel should power all 120volt loads.

Although the generator might stall if you have a lot of load and the well pump or booster pump starts. The surge may over load the generator for a brief time and the engine may not be able to handle it.

I'd guess the water heater may well be a single element 240 Volt unit. In any case, 4,500 Wattts is a relatively big draw. I'd suggest considering finding other ways to heat the H2O for the duration of outages or forego the hot water.

[SunEagle]

Yup. Thanks.

Here's my load calculations. It doesn't include minor things like lights, fans, or tvs.

refridgerator 115v 7.2A 830W
well pump (potable water) 230v 8.4A 1,932W
freezer 115v 5.0A 575W
booster pump (potable water) 115v 8.6A 990W
a/c (window shaker) 115v 4.9A 530W

total watts 4,857
230v, 1,932W, 8.4A
115v, 2,925W, 25.7A

Do I need to use the extension cords to the 110v receptacle or can I run all of this through the 120/240v receptacle?

I'm not sure about the water heater. It says 240v and 4,500 watts. Maybe when I need to heat up the water I just unplug everything and plug that in.

Chances are your water heater has 2 elements each wired for 120v so the entire unit is power by 240v. If possible you can try to turn off the top element but that is not always easy to do depending on the model water heater. The heater is one of you big loads that you probably only power if most or all other loads are turned off.

If you have a specific 120volt load that is not plugged into a receptacle you may want to use a dedicated extension cord to it. But by providing 240v into your main panel should power all 120volt loads.

Although the generator might stall if you have a lot of load and the well pump or booster pump starts. The surge may over load the generator for a brief time and the engine may not be able to handle it.

[BigRich]

Yup. Thanks.

Here's my load calculations. It doesn't include minor things like lights, fans, or tvs.

refridgerator 115v 7.2A 830W
well pump (potable water) 230v 8.4A 1,932W
freezer 115v 5.0A 575W
booster pump (potable water) 115v 8.6A 990W
a/c (window shaker) 115v 4.9A 530W

total watts 4,857
230v, 1,932W, 8.4A
115v, 2,925W, 25.7A

Do I need to use the extension cords to the 110v receptacle or can I run all of this through the 120/240v receptacle?

I'm not sure about the water heater. It says 240v and 4,500 watts. Maybe when I need to heat up the water I just unplug everything and plug that in.

[SunEagle]

Simple QO breakers (no suffix in the part number) are bidirectional.

The 4 prong outlet on that inverter can only supply up to 20 A. You'll be ok with #10 wire. It looks like it will do what you want it to do, providing the 120/240 V output that will power your 120 V loads and your 240 V loads.

You can supply up to 5000 W through all three outlets, but no individual outlet may supply more than 20 A.

Perhaps someone with more generator experience will jump into the thread with any other suggestions.

I believe the OP is ok concerning the wire size in the cable. One way to make sure he doesn't over amp the 30amp circuit breaker he is back feeding is to turn off all of the major appliance circuit breakers along with the main circuit breaker.

To keep the load down try powering only 120v loads and turn off lights when you leave the room.

A 5000 watt generator will not run a home AC unit, cloths dryer, oven and even possibly a pool pump so try to keep your load usage down by not leaving things on that you really don't need.

[Mike90250]

If a generator has only 120V outlets, you can pull full power from any outlet (to the rating of the outlet)
If a generator is 240V & also has 120V outlets, you can only pull half power from any 120V outlet. The way the windings are in the generator, half feeds one outlet, the other half feed the other outlet, and 240V is developed between the two outlets.
Some generators have a Full Power switch, which disables the 240V and re-routes the full power to the 120V outlets. Your manual will tell you (or won't say) what you have.

[BigRich]

That's good news. This is my other generator.

http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/42/42ceb3ad-0597-461a-8941-c81bdcdb3ece.pdf

although it's smaller, the manual says it can supply 25 amps through the 220v receptacle. I guess I'll use this one instead.

Why can't we use a few extension cords and connect the 120v receptacle on the generator to a house receptacle and back feed the panel on those circuits too? Then we could use all the wattage from the generator. I'm sure that won't work but am curious as to why.

[sensij]

Simple QO breakers (no suffix in the part number) are bidirectional.

The 4 prong outlet on that inverter can only supply up to 20 A. You'll be ok with #10 wire. It looks like it will do what you want it to do, providing the 120/240 V output that will power your 120 V loads and your 240 V loads.

You can supply up to 5000 W through all three outlets, but no individual outlet may supply more than 20 A.

Perhaps someone with more generator experience will jump into the thread with any other suggestions.

[BigRich]

It's a 4 prong outlet that you can plug in a nema 14-50p plug into. It's got two hots, a neutral, and a ground. So does the generator. The generator says single phase. It's a Coleman Powermate 6250.

http://www.powermate.com/pdfs/2007/11/17/manual_pm0525202.03.pdf

I have another generator but it's also single phase and only 3000 watts. So I guess you're saying all of my 120v breakers won't work?

Do you know if square d QO breakers are bidirectional?

Thanks for letting me know about the safety concerns. Turning the main breaker off is the first step when setting up and the last step when tearing down. Also never touch the plug at the dryer outlet while the generator is running.

Thanks for your help!

[sensij]

It looks like this generator can handle 41 amps which isn't good because my wire can't. It's back feeding my panel through the dryer breaker which is a 30 amp but because the voltage is moving the opposite direction through the breaker I don't think I can trust it to trip.

Generator:
5000 watts
power factor 1
duty: continuous
voltage 120/240
amps 41.7/20.8

Whoa, slow down.

The 30 A dryer circuit is probably 240 V. Does it include a neutral, or is it just two hots?

You need to be careful here. If you are going to back feed through a load circuit like this, you need to make sure your main breaker is off first. The load breaker is probably bidirectional, at least, although you should still double check.

The voltage you back feed needs to match whatever the existing circuit was providing. If you try to put 120 V from the generator onto a 240 V circuit, you are going to have problems. If your generator's 240 V output is not split phase (three wire output), you would not be able to use it to power 120 V loads.

What specific generator model are you using?