question

cory-eaves avatar image
cory-eaves asked

Do I have the wrong Quattro?

My boat came from the factory with a somewhat unusual configuration. It's in storage for the winter and I plan to ask them to change around some of the electrical system.

It has a Quattro 12/5000/120-2x100 120V. The boat is 12V. I have a 50A 230V shore power connection. The Northern Lights 6 kVA generator can be wired to output 120V or 240V. I believe the generator can only put out 30A regardless of how it's wired (due to a certain circuit breaker). The boat has two AC panels--one for lower power circuits (outlets, fridge, etc.) and a high power panel with the AC and water heater on it. There are no 220V circuits or loads on the boat. It's not wired correctly right now, so I won't bother explaining how it's currently setup.

My question is how should it be setup?

With my current Quattro, I would assume I would connect as follows:

  • AC-in-1: Genset wired for 120V (would prefer 220V so a I can get full 6kVA at 25A?)
  • AC-in-2: Shore power, but what about both legs? Not sure what to do with Leg 2?
  • AC-out-1: Low power AC panel
  • AC-out-2: High power AC panel

I am wondering if I need to change to a different 220V Quattro? Or two 120V Quattros in some way? In a perfect world, when I am on shore power, I would like to be able to use 50A total across both the high and low power AC panels.

I hope this is clear and appreciate any advice or insight the community has. Thanks in advance for your help.

MultiPlus Quattro Inverter Chargersystem design
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1 Answer
Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

It is unlikely you'd be able to use a single Quattro or even a pair of them to accommodate 120 and 230 volt shore power situations without a transformer.

The 50 amp 230 volt connection is probably single phase (one hot and a neutral). Since your loads are all 120 volts, you need to transform the shore power down to 120 volts. It doesn't sound like the two load panels are anywhere near balanced so turning them into a split-phase (120-0-120) system is workable. You could use an isolation transformer to convert 230 volt (or 240 volt) shore power to 100 amps at 120 volts and parallel both load panels to that transformer output.

The Quattro could insert in the feed from the transformer to the two load panels as you describe however there is a limitation: AC-out-2 is limited to 50 amps.

A 120/240 split-phase output from the generator adds another variant to the system. Again, you'd need a transformer to convert 240 volts to 120 at twice the current. Some generators that claim to output 240 volts actually provide two IN PHASE 120 volt outputs which isn't useable in a split-phase system, again without transformers.

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