Cougar RV Inverter question

[ReadyToRoll]

Was wondering if there would be damage to the power inverter in our 2013 Cougar 5'er if it was connected to site power and also to the 12 volt system of the tow vehicle. Suspect that I may have even done it before without thinking about it but better safe than sorry. Reason behind this question, I want to be able to power the 110v outlets while going down the road with a 2000 watt power inverter. The inverter is on a separate 2 battery bank and from prior use, know that when using it, have to turn off the inverter breaker on the panel as it thinks it's on site power and will then charge the other 2 batteries causing a decreased battery life for the aux. inverter bank. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks

[hankpage]

Your Cougar has a converter that changes 120v ac to 12v dc. You have added an inverter to change 12v dc to 120v ac. If I follow your question ..... you want to know if being on shore power and connected to the tow vehicle will effect the factory converter? In my opinion the answer is no, but to play it safe turn off the new inverter before plugging into shore power since we have no way of knowing what safeguards are built into it. JM2¢, Hank

[arturob]

Curious about how you have tied your inverter to your system power. I have a similar setup to yours I think. I have two Rolls S550 batteries that I use to power a 3000watt inverter. The inverter has a 3 wire terminal block in addition to the standard 110v sockets and I wired a 30amp receptacle to those terminals. When I want to use the inverter to power the rig I plug a standard 30 amp cable from the rigs shore power input to the socket I wired to the inverter. Of course I cant use that while traveling. I have a remote inside the rig to turn the inverter on and off. If the inverter is off there should be no problem plugging into shore power.

[ReadyToRoll]

Well, having the genset in the truck bed, purchased another pair of 50A couplings from the dealer. (still will use the OEM 50A cable when on CG site power)I then ran a length of 6/3ga. wire from the plug in the rear of 5'er under the chassis through electrical conduit, and brought it out between the hitch and body. The gen set is only a 30a on each leg, which is large enough as I have no second ac unit, but can now be plugged in ( about 12' longer) than necessary, with the truck disconnected. Then, what I did, was wire my home site (120volt/20amp) 12 ga. wire into one of the hot wires on the new harness. I did run a 20a switch in series) and then also built a jumper wire that is connected to each leg of the 6/3 gen set end plug. That way, all the outlets can be hot, especially in the garage where I have improvised a 110 volt hoist to lift the loading ramp. I did fabricate a pvc cap to cover the 30 amp plug when this jumper is connected. Remove jumper when connecting to the gen set. What I planned was, to connect the home 20a cord into the 2000 watt power inverter if I wanted to power a small appliance (croc pot) while traveling down the road.

[Todd727]

Originally Posted by hankpage

Your Cougar has a converter that changes 120v ac to 12v dc. You have added an inverter to change 12v dc to 120v ac. If I follow your question ..... you want to know if being on shore power and connected to the tow vehicle will effect the factory converter? In my opinion the answer is no, but to play it safe turn off the new inverter before plugging into shore power since we have no way of knowing what safeguards are built into it. JM2¢, Hank

Technically, it's a transformer that reduces the 120V AC to 12V AC and then a rectifier that changes AC to DC.