BTW Don't forget to keep your receipts because you will get a credit on your income tax for installing solar on your home. As far as I know this is still a legitimate deduction. Tax Credits are always better than deductions.
The following is the information I have, based on a dual in and single out inverter charger. Mine was a Xantrex but a Magnum of the same caliber should be similar.
If you already have a generator you have a transfer switch. Your generator will feed into the transfer switch. The generator should be the default powersource for the transfer switch. Simple. both legs, the neutral and the ground have a place in the transfer switch. The bare wire or the green ground wire will connect to the system there. The output of the transfer switch is what the coach operates off of, regardless of the input source.
*Do not confuse the ground wires being attached to the chassis with the subject of neutral bonding, the bare or green wire will be attached to the chassis in multiple locations and will also attach to the bare ground inside the transfer switch, the factory made it that way so chassis grounds are to be ignored there is no relationship between chassis grounds and neutral bonding.
A neutral bond
would occur if you were to put a bare or green ground on a neutral bar or visa versa. You cannot let this happen in your RV. The neutral and ground do eventually get bonded, but only in one place and in the case of pedestal power it happens at the pedestal or in the service box for the pedestal system or even at the pole. The point being it does not happen in your coach.
The shore power is not run through the generator or inverter. The generator and the shore power lines meet at the transfer switch and the transfer switch chooses which powersource to use. The default position of the transfer switch should be the generator, meaning that; if you are on pedestal power and the generator is running the transfer switch will chose the generator to feed the panel/coach.
Up to now nothing has changed, you have two sources of electricity, pedestal or generator. And the transfer switch is defaulted to generator if the generator is running, if not then pedestal power. The sources are indistinguishable to the breaker panel.
Each power source bonds the neutral independently at the source. The code is that there can be only one bonded neutral. In the case of shore power it is at the PEDESTAL.
In the case your your generator, the neutral is bonded in the generator, thereby meeting the code.
Your inverter neutral is bonded in the inverter, thereby meeting the code again.
You must view your coach as an appliance, plugged in at the RV park. Just like your drill motor you keep in the garage, there is a HOT wire, an NEUTRAL wire and a ground wire. They stay separated all the way through your extension cord to your household breaker box, it is there that the ground and neutral are bonded. NOT within the appliance.
Each, the generator and the Inverter are separate power sources and when they are making AC electricity as a source their neutrals are bonded with the ground within them.
Now ADDING the inverter you will or should install a subpanel. Progressive makes a split panel in a configuration that you need. Its a good product in that it fits exactly where your current panel is now, so you dont have to cut another hole for a subpanel. The benefit of adding a sub panel rather than a split panel is that you will have additional room for breakers. My split panel used all the breaker slots so there is no room for additional breakers in mine. So its a matter of preference and I might be sorry for not choosing to install a subpanel, right now the split panel is great. I will refer to the split panel or subpanel as a subpanel from now on.
Installing the inverter; because you cannot run air conditioners or your aux charger off the inverter then neither will be on the subpanel circuits. You have to look at everything you want the inverter to run for you when you are inverting. I can't remember all the circuits or breakers I put on subpanel but you can make that decision fairly easily, I think that I put everything
except the aux charger, 120v water heater, air conditioners and other big power consumers. It was well balanced when I was finished. The microwave is the largest appliance on the subpanel. *as a side note the microwave does work but the Borgart Trimetric will show you the reason that you can not use it for more than 2 to 3 minutes, it is a serious power hog.
So doing this you will feed the inverter with 120v from each of your main breakers (dual input), then (in my case) you will pass through 120v and 30 amp back to the sub panel from the inverter (single 30 amp output.) This is your passthrough line, no matter the source of your electricity (gen or shore), you will be feeding 2 120v 30 amp lines, a neutral and a ground (regardless of phase) into the inverter unit and will output 120v and 30 amps to the subpanel. At this point nothing has changed for you except you have an inverter being fed by 2 120v legs, one from each of your main breakers, each main breaker is still feeding the air conditioning systems. The inverter now has two legs from which to choose power from. Configured like this it should automatically balance the draw as a call is made from the subpanel. Your inverter will not charge while inverting but if you have an aux charger it should be on your primary panel NOT your subpanel otherwise your inverter will be running your aux charger unless the breaker is off, i took my OEM charger out and put it in my garage, I sometimes think that i should have left it in, but like I said I don't have room for another breaker in the split panel, if you use a subpanel you will have room in your original primary panel for such a breaker.
Your inverter has an internal transfer switch, by default it uses the input, when no input is available then the inverter will operate otherwise it will not. Now when you start inverting, your inverter will only feed the sub panel. Mine easily operates everything connected to the sub panel.
Now lets go back to shore power or generator power, and lets say you are running your generator and the air conditioners are working full time AND your inverter/ charger is charging, you can hear the generator lugging now and then because two compressors kicked in at the same time, and the microwave was running. Your inverter will sense the current drop (in a split second) relieve the most loaded leg on the main panel and then feed the sub panel circuits, (not the airconditioner circuits) in this case the microwave. If its not enough the inverter will supplement the subpanel with inverted power thereby relieving main panel even further as a result the generator is also given an opportunity to catch up to load for a moment until it can wind up and take the whole load again. This system is not assisting the generator but rather temporarily unloading the main panel and the generator by outputting inverted power to the subpanel. This scenario applies to both shore and generator power as the main panel cannot distinguish between generator or pedestal power. Theoretically the shore power should not require this action, but might.
One thing you should keep in mind is that neither your generator or your inverted power are a concern as far as quality of electricity. Your EMS only needs to check the pedestal power for faulty wiring or what ever may be wrong with the pedestal. Your generator and inverter will always be wired correctly and need not be checked by the EMS, I recommend a permanent install of the EMS with a remote display. Both major brands are good, I chose the one I bought on price and availability.
Batt cable sizes are important and I would consider buss bars if I was doing it again. Keep your connections to a low number, for example I did not mount a fuse holder, I just put the fuse on the batt post, thereby eliminating one cable and a connection. I also learned that 4 awg is not 0000 or 4/0 wire. 4/0 welding cable is fairly expensive and you need to have calculated your batt cables length and sizes very closely in order to save space, weight, and money. Welding cables might increase efficiencies. There is little price difference and the welding cable is more durable. I could have saved a few bucks here and there and it added up in the end. To measure out my cables I used an old garden hose and I cut them to length as I simulated the routing, in this manner I came up with accurate lengths. DC breakers may serve better than fuses, because they can be used as switches, saving more connections. However you should never blow a battery fuse as large as the one you will be installing. If you do then something bad happened.
Take what I say with a grain of salt, but i just got finished installing mine and I had a great time doing it, my qualifications are a little understanding of electricity, AC and DC, being a good wrench, a passion for reading directions, and having good outcomes. Look at my photos and you can see why a solar installer complimented me on it, he quizzed me pretty hard on my install, I guess I passed. But I don't really deserve any compliments because there are much better installs that can be seen on YouTube videos or extensive articles on the net that helped me along.
One of the main things I discovered is that 6v golf cart battery series/parallel to form 12v and X amp hours, is not the
only way to go. Real lead acid
industrial RE (renewable energy) batteries are available in 12v. I have 300 AH on 2 12v batts. You have to have 4 6v batts to exceed that. But then I can exceed the 4 6v with 3 12v. Unless I have overlooked something, I think that 12v industrial RE batteries are the way to go, less batts = less chance of failure, less connections, less battery cables, and I think 6v batts should be going by way of the fin soon. I have asked on several blogs why six's instead of twelves, and no-one has ever offered me a reason. I wish someone would. I hope I have not overlooked some physical property of a six volt battery.
Sorry to ramble on but I'm reliving the past year of doing exactly what you are doing. I'm living vicariously through your project. So now let the fun begin, you are about to learn a lot from all the debate that will take place over my thorough explanation, to your simple question. But I think I have it generally right. Once you get to this level the solar is easy. You can look at my list of items to get an idea what might work for you. I highly recommend the panels I used, I don't think you can beat them.
Ok, so shore power is run through the generator and bonded there. Then through the inverter and bonded there.
