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johnm1 avatar image
johnm1 asked

How to know if you lost 120vac power

Through a now understood, and self inflicted, mistake, I tripped the breaker at the RV power pole but I didn't know it until we were going to bed and I happened to look at the VE Cerbo touch screen and saw we we're down to 31% SOC on the batteries.

We have ...
VE MultiPlus-II 12/3000/120-50 2 x 120V Inverter/Charger that powers the entire camper (all outlets and appliances are enabled while on battery)
VE Cerbo GX with touch screen
Progressive Industries EMS-HW50C Hardwired 50A RV Surge Protector
Other VE solar controllers and such

Since all outlets are "hot" all the time (even when on batteries) I can't just plug something into an outlet and say ... "hey, the 120vac light went out so I must have lost power to the camper".
We also camp in places that may or may not have cell service so using the Cerbo to email/text (whatever) me won't be reliable.

I'd like to have a single LED or diode light (as in: very low power draw) that is ON 100% of the time when running only on batteries and solar. My reasoning is if the light is OFF, I don't notice it but if a small light is ON, I (hopefully) will notice it.

I'm not an electrical/electronics engineer so ... is there a "simple" way to do this? Basically stated ... if there's no 120vac going to the camper, turn ON the 12vdc LED (or diode).

Thanks for any help with this

battery
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5 Answers
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@johnm1

Will the loss of grid alarm not work for you settable in the GX itself? You can have an audible alarm as well.

Settings - system set up- ... alarm...

The other easy way is small light wired onto the incoming terminals of the inverter, if power is lot there the light is out.

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mjs500 avatar image
mjs500 answered ·

remote console ------- to device list ------down to settings ------down to system setup you find monitor for grid failure you can enabled or disabled monitor will shown alarm on VE Cerbo GX with touch screen


are you using both relays on your VE Cerbo GX unit as relay are volt free and can be programed to provided loss shore supply alarm Led and with 12v wiring and fuse and a lot safer that an 120v AC 60 Hz and LED

and your VE MultiPlus-II 12/3000/120-50 2 x 120V has relay are volt free and can be programed to provided loss shore supply alarm Led and with 12v wiring and fuse

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johnm1 avatar image
johnm1 answered ·

I don't want to enable the alarms since we often camp off grid using the batteries. That's why I feel a small LED/diode light would work best.


And yes, I could always look at the Cerbo touch screen and it tells me exactly what I'm looking for, however, if we're plugged into shore power, I don't want to be worried about the system.

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Justin Cook avatar image
Justin Cook answered ·

Is the MultiPlus in a visible area? If so, that's an easy one: the top LED on the right side is the "inverter on" LED, which means you don't have mains if it's lit.

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johnm1 avatar image
johnm1 answered ·

Not really, it's in the front storage bay of the camper. It'd be way easier to just use the touch screen but that's what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to be "chained" to the touch screen to see if we still have 120vac power when using 120vac appliances.

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