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[Music] you [Music] okay all right so we're gonna go next into inverters and I'm gonna for the purpose of this section I'm gonna focus a lot on just inverters only but it would apply in some watts to inverter charges as well there are distinctions and it does make things a little bit more complicated but we're going to focus on inverters okay so inverter what does an inverter do the inverter is right here and you'll see what I'm trying to distinguish is an AC panel with non-inverter loads and an AC panel with inverter loads there's a little bit difference there's many ways of wiring an inverter this is probably the most popular weight most common way another thing to that I want to emphasize is notice how there's an inverter service disconnect 90% of you that have an inverter on your boat do not have that switch why because no one read the manual and because it will work without it like your car does not need a seat belt to bring you from A to B so anything that is safety on a boat generally that is done by a do-it-yourself or previous owner is done to the very least amount of effort possible okay hence the code absolutely stipulates that an inverter have a service disconnect switch which is different than the on and off button on your inverter charger okay completely different you need a battery switch you need a device that can actually disconnect your inverter from a power and the reason is is because if you ever go and actually touch your AC system and change an AC outlet there's this incredibly what was thought to be beneficial feature that can be life threatening your inverter has this mode called load sense what is load sense load sense is something that says if I don't have a load let me shut myself off you can on most inverters set what load sense will be five Watts 50 Watts whatever it is now you think you're smarter you've got this I will check if my inverters on you come in with a little magic wand that you bought at Home Depot you look around the AC outlet No 'we see you're like the i knew it was off i just confirmed it i'm gonna do second thing I'm gonna put in a small little plug the GFCI plug and I'm gonna see if I've got power there the lights don't light up done two methods practically genius I got this right take out the outlet now you're thinking my inverter is off I told it to be off it is off I'm good I checked now you touch the hot in the neutral your fingers is definitely more than five watt load here goes Oh someone wants us to invert suddenly the inverter comes on and you get electrocuted now if it was just being burnt honestly cuz I've actually put my hand on a stovetop when I was young more than once it's okay you'll live you know I mean like honestly you'll probably live it's gonna hurt a lot but you'll live but with AC it's more than pain right it's the fact that it's alternating currents right you could literally die that's why you need a inverter service disconnect okay so absolutely essential honestly ninety percent of you don't have one you just don't because you don't need one you don't need a seat belt to drive your car and the owner that put the inverter on board simply didn't read the manual because an inverter manual no joke is about 80 pages deep and anybody who looks at an 80 page manual that's a book it's a book takes time like it's a commitment to read an inverter manual and no one's gonna do that when they're tasked with doing a project so make sure that you have that alright so we're gonna go in so what is yeah go ahead yeah and and you know what and that's a good point let me bring that let me actually because this is life-threatening right safety right like I'm kind of crazy that way like I'm always worried about safety I asked this question I'm gonna ask the room if you're going to play with your you're gonna touch AC on your boat what would be show of hands or tell me anybody in the room what they would do before they chained and out a change an outlet an AC outlet on their boat anybody want to take a guess of what you should do before you change an AC outlet on your boat go ahead how do you disconnect what what do you do to disconnect short power what you would you do so you would actually physically disconnect the cable anybody have any other suggestion on how you would do that yeah would anyone be here satisfied with just turning a breaker off on their boat the AC panel breaker No No thank God yes sometimes about 1% of people say that's enough you're talking about your life here like look like I mean things if you go to boat things are pretty good like let's be honest you want to keep it that way right like life ain't that bad like you know it's not like you want to get out like things are good so when you have you're playing with AC you no one should ever go oh I'm gonna trust an AC breaker on my boat and I'm gonna disconnect it and I'm gonna assume that a my AC breaker that costs about ten dollars is functioning properly because I'm willing to risk my life for ten dollars no you're gonna be like physically disconnect first of all don't even leave it at the pedestal coil it back put it because someone could be walking beside your bow of thinking oh look the cord got disconnected let me be a good neighbor reconnected again right no like in the real world they have like service disconnect they put lockouts there's a tag like they go crazy because you can die right we're talking about your life so you disconnect the boat your problem with your inverter is if you press that little button off that little button goes over a telephone wire to another device that has to interpret that data and say oh the owner told me to turn it off now this is not like a nuclear launch code left and right where there's an authentication going back to the remote are you sure yes did you confirm yes it's off you're trusting a little stupid little switch it's probably worth 5 cents with your life over a telephone wire over a communications port that is gonna basically listen to your cat man it's almost like whispering inverter off please like no that's not good enough you need to disconnect your inverter from DC power because when you disconnect your inverter from DC power the inverter can't make AC and it's not my opinion it's in the bull it's in a byc and here's the reason why so you want to have an inverter service disconnect okay all right so what does an AC do on your boat an inverter you know common things that you're gonna do our microwave you're gonna do AC outlets run a TV I've could be a vacuum it could be anything right now there's no limit to what you can do with inverters I have a boater that has an inverter the size of their runs the whole boat I'm talking washing machine water maker I mean the inverters like 16 kW I mean no problem his inverter is literally off-grid it's it's like a camp it's like our work camp it's it's a full industrial inverter most voters are not gonna do that those borders have a reasonable size inverter 2,000 watts maybe a 4000 watt inverter 3000 watt a thousand watts and they're gonna say what are the essential things that I want to run off my inverter and I'm gonna choose those things and generally they're convenience items though they're gonna run because remember if you have a large inverter you need a large battery bank right it's easy to have a large low that's like having a black Amex it's one thing to have a black Amex you've got to pay the bill that comes with it so I had another owner Boehner he said to me says I want a a kilowatt inverter I'm like okay all right what are you gonna run with it had no idea he's like I just want a big inverter I'm like okay let's do that sure if that's what you want doesn't make any sense what about your battery bank and the battery bank was literally gonna be for golf cart batteries I'm like no no you can't have literally an inverter that needs twenty golf carts and have only for like it they work together so most people are choosing reasonable loads to run off an inverter reasonable loans so what does that look like right so you could have some boaters have AC fridges only it's possible some have dual purpose fridges they'll have a fridge that's DC and AC but some builders have AC fridges only household French basically big fridge but it does not power off direct current it only works off alternating current so they'll have a fridge they'll have outlets a microwave could be recharging power tools it could be whatever and then off there non-inverted load they're gonna have a hot water tank a charger you would never want a charger powered off an inverter but I've seen it where the owner leer Li would take power from the batteries to create inverting power inverting power would go to run a charger to recharge the batteries and it was a vicious loop that and the batteries not coincidentally would die it within two hours because you can't there's no such thing as a da Vinci energy machine right there's no endless energy source if you take something and you convert it you lose power there's a conversion power a factor and everything all right so what do you want to do when you're looking for an inverter you definitely like a charger marine model only absolutely essential you have two black and white no exceptions I have not installed a modified sine wave inverter on a boat in 12 years so if you have one or you choose one ask yourself why would I do that they were great before a lot of us have them on our boats they were affordable but nowadays considering that most AC loads that you are now running on a boat are what are called inductive loads there's really two types of AC loads there's AC loads that are inductive and resistive resistive loads a heater a light bulb a toaster now how many of us are gonna run heat off an inverter no one a toaster sure but let's talk about inductive loads a microwave power tools a computer a TV and the espresso machine coffee machine all those are inductive loads so when you are buying an inverter for your boat which inverter is most likely one you need you need a true sine wave inverter inductive loads need true sine wave not that it won't work on a modified sine wave it's just not going to work well and the other big the huge aspect is that old inverters modify sine wave inverter are about 35% inefficient so it's like going to the bank and saying I want you as dollars in exchange rate is let's say 1.3 the bank adds 2 points on the conversion 3 points this inverter at 35% so that's pretty significant 35 percent to convert from AC to DC or from DC to AC and so I have tons of voters that come to us and say Jeff for no reason alone I have an a/c fridge on my boat to change that fridge I have to literally disassemble the fridge the boat was built around it it's a massive deal and right now it's running off an inverter that's inefficient modified sine-wave it's less money for me to buy a true sine wave inverter than to change the fridge because the fridge is sort of built or the boats built around the fridge and so I've changed inverters for no other reason than going through sine wave and for efficiency gain because remember what I talked about with batteries batteries are like money it's a very rare thing for someone to ever say I have too much batteries or I have too much money they're very rare it happens but very rarely and it's a limited thing that it takes a lot meaning if you have a lot of batteries then it's a lot to recharge them away from shore power so since it's a rare commodity you want to be frugal and how you spend that energy and you do that by having a high-efficiency inverter okay the ability to control it remotely to turn it on and off is essential I've done a whole another video on YouTube about that about how do you use your inverter charger but that's having the ability to turn it on and off is really important and you don't want to go in the engine room or wherever it is analyzer at and toggle a switch so most of them don't come with the remote panel but it's I always install an inverter with a remote panel what are things by the way now remember what I talked about a little bit earlier and I said an inverter charger or an inverter manual is around 80 pages a hundred pages guess how many people read that manual practically none nobody it's crazy who would do that the inverter to your question in the back comes with just an inverter it's like a night keya table that only comes with a table no legs no chairs no nothing like it's not even the whole table it's just the tabletop and people then look at this they look at the manual but the manual side away and then they're going let me prove to myself that I am capable of doing something without instruction and they install the inverter and they put no fuse no inverter disconnect no chassis ground small wire and generally also they don't read the manuals so they put the inverter which is non ignition protected in a gasoline engine room I mean the strike rate on inverters the number of inverters I've ever seen properly installed it's probably less than one or two percent it is the most epic failure of all time on any boat is an inverter because the manual is just simply too intimidating and everyone simply wants to get it done so 98% of you have inverters that it's at least missing one of these things and all of those things are not my opinion they're in the manual and the manuals never haven't probably been open so absolutely essential that you have a fuse on the inverter that you have a DC service disconnect that you have a chassis ground and then the wire size is made to handle the inverter a lot of times what happens is they have an inverted a thousand Watts and they're like oh great I'm gonna change the 2000 and they just change the inverter they don't look at the wiring because it's just simply gonna work you can't do that unfortunately remember another rule at the beginning nothing's ever easy that's rule number one nothing is ever easy all the time there's always implications of a decision I want to reiterate an inverter unlike a charger chargers many of them are ignition protected and can be installed in a gasoline engine room inverters there is no such thing I cannot tell you how many inverters I've seen in a power boat gasoline engines in the engine room they replace the charger assume that a charger and an inverter charger are the same they are not and now they have a non ignition protected device in an engine room and I I want to emphasize builders of boats go to great lengths to make an engine room ignition protected on a gasoline boat like I'm talking not a couple dollars stupid to make sure that whole engine room is vapor proof in case of a gasoline leak the moment you put in a automotive alternator in there that's not initially protected or a inverter charger that is non ignition protected you defeated tens of thousands dollars of effort to make that engine room vapor proof okay so recap this is basically what you're looking at it's very essential to be conscientious about what's going to run on your inverter right it's not about bigger it's about what am I trying to do with my inverter and doing the inverter loads that are going to be running off the inverter so opening the floor to some questions about inverters anybody have any questions yeah go ahead absolutely the question is when you buy an inverter charger and for instance it's 2 K 2 K means 2,000 watts inverter and the charger what is going to be the charger the charger on a 2000 watt inverter is generally going to be pretty much 80 amps or on someone's a hundred your inverter can draw a lot more than 100 amps on a 2000 watt inverter the fuse are actually on a 2000 watt inverter is a 300 amp use so it can actually pull up to 300 amps and it can only give up to 100 so the question is no problem the charger will be able to charge on the same wires that was pulling 300 no problem whatsoever that is actually a common thing that we end up doing with other boaters is saying people might not care so much about a large inverter on their boat certainly I was one of them don't really care about it it's nice to have but not necessary I wanted a large charter so my inverter on my boat is 2,000 watts and it comes with a hundred amp charger and I really bought it for the hundred amp charger because it's an affordable way of buying a hundred amp charger to buy just a charger 100 amps is the same amount of money to buy an inverter charger 400 amps and the reason is there's simply more inverter chargers that are sold it's a more commonly used item than a hundred amp charger 109 Chargers are expensive and about the same price as a 2000 watt inverter charger that comes with a hundred amp charger so a lot of times we'll put in a large inverter not because the motor wants a large inverter but because they want a large charger any other questions on inverters yeah go ahead no the smaller ones don't you want to you want to have the breaker feeding like the switch small inverters like 300 watt 800 watt let's say don't have remote panels remote panels only go minimum a thousand and above yeah it's a proportion the larger the inverter the larger the idle draw is and so a small inverter like on my boat I have two inverters I have a large one that I never really use and I have a 300 watt that I use all the time my 300 watt inverter on my boat is left 24/7 when I'm cruising I just have it there anybody want to plug in a phone charger laptop whatever it is this kind of like small little appliance just plugs into a you know I have an outlet just for that and it's 24/7 my large inverter is a manual process like if we need to run the large inverter I'm actually gonna on the remote panel for the inverter charger turning on and off yeah you probably ideally yes yeah ideally yes but it's those inverters yeah ideally yes but it's not so big a deal because if it's a small inverter proportionally the idle draw is not as big if you have a 3000 watt inverter that's just on in the background that's bigger of an issue yes question in the back yeah the the big issue is actually well there's a couple of things marine inverters for one are gonna automatically especially inverter chargers and this is a big issue inverter Chargers marine inverted Chargers are going to be disconnecting the and the neutral and connecting it depending if it's on inverter or non inverter mode it's I could do a whole two-hour thing on this but there is a real difference and the problem is when you ground if their ground is permanently tied to your neutral and it's not a source of power the implications for galvanic Straker and corrosion are significantly higher and that's why you don't want that because a marine inverter will actually you'll hear a click and it actually when you enable the inverter it's actually grounding the neutral and the ground together because it now becomes a source of power and as soon as you disable it it actually opens the circuit just trust me on it I mean I don't want to get too crazy but just by marine there's a reason it's not a get it's not a gimmick yes yeah five huge I mean think about like I I didn't when we grew up our family was very frugal my mother acted like she didn't live the Great Depression but she acted like we did so it was crazy like it was money was always something she worried about and I when I think about boating I actually kind of live by her way on the water because you just simply don't have enough power on a boat you need to constantly be making decisions about turning things on and off being moderate with your usage because it even though you might have a large battery bank it's just so hard to make energy to restore that in a battery unless you have a boat that has generators then it makes sums a little easier right I mean you've got generators but for boaters that don't have a generator and you only have an alternator recharge your batteries it can be a challenge to get everything so that mindset of being frugal and thinking about efficiency matters when you have not a lot of money it really does and that's mindset I use on my own boat as all the time any other questions on inverters yes yeah that's different yeah because you're not integrating with anything else yeah yeah their little plug in 12 volt cigarette but also remember it sounds silly but that 12 volt cigarette lighter can be wired with 14 gauge wire I've seen it 16 18 gauge wire 18 gauge wires probably like a hair strand like I mean it is tiny it is not even spaghetti it's like yeah I mean it's nothing I mean if you didn't have a shield on it like you may is it there like you would even see it i see 12 volt cigarette lighters literally wired because an owner a lot of us are energy efficient trying to save money anyway well why would I buy a big wire that's 14 cents a foot when I can buy one for eight cents a foot it's a four foot run I'm gonna save six cents for four feet that's twenty four that's almost a quarter I'm gonna go with an 18 gauge wire I cannot tell you how many 12 volts cigarette lighters I've seen wired under wired and then people come in literally with a large 300 watt can you entire and they plug it in assuming that I someone that is always wearing is wiring everything for all permutations the person who put that 12 volt cigarette lighter didn't worry about anything they're just kind of lace links to this whole you know lay well whatever it happens I'm only charging my phone but then the next person comes in and they're charging they're using an inverter not unlike an iPad but literally a 300 watt inverter so that's the thing assumptions get you in trouble on a boat I've seen wires melt it's so deep so crazy like they're charcoal that's like like I'm like oh my god you almost lost your boat they're like oh my god I like ya because people take shortcuts yes that is an inverter yeah that that's anything that converts DC to AC is an inverter there's tiny ones there's nothing wrong with that it's you buy an inverter for the loads right give you the exact example I had another boater changed three Nespresso machines three on a modified sine-wave one Nespresso makes a terrible product how frustrating and it's a huge inconvenience right the owner thinks next brings it back blows again this is ridiculous like this is crap like what the hell third time oh I'm not that unlucky we get an electrical audit sure enough running modified sine wave inverter on a Nespresso machine which is an inductive load can't do it change the true sine wave no problem right so a lot of times looking inward right why would that happen am i unlucky or is it something on my boat it's easy to blame others but it doesn't solve your problem right it's always looking inward yes yeah it's good if it's true sine wave it's gonna say on top of it guaranteed and if it's anything not well not you could always take a picture if you're wondering send me an email I'll tell you right away or look up the model but most of them will brag about being true sine wave it's like there's no such thing as an AGM battery doesn't say AGM on it like you know it's not Mercedes doesn't build cars without their sign on the car like you know it's a Mercedes they're like the logos huge I want everyone to know the quality thereby nobody builds an AGM and says oh let's hide it from people in charge twice the price and anybody who's buy as a battery that has caps on it but has the sticker a GM that weighs half the battery I had another voter bought a battery deal from the trunk of a car great smoking deal half the weight it's an AGM battery with vent caps and it's an eight D and it was like crazy price well you buy it this guy's got a car it looks just right out of the car he's got no overhead just goes right it out is like direct from the manufacturer amazing oh my no you no no no sorry sorry buddy there's no such thing as a let app AGM battery that has actually maintenance caps and if it has to wait it's half the battery like there's no such thing as a miracle half weight lead acid battery like you're buying lead if it's half the weight you got half the battery I don't care it's in a big case it just doesn't work like that so there's no such thing again is too good to be true like I mean that's a good adage right on a boat too good to be true it probably is okay other questions before we dive in under something else you