Can Power Assist help with voltage drops in my campground power supply?

DIY
, ,
1

I have an Multiplus II 2x120 installed in my 50 amp RV and all power to the RV has been routed through the MultiPlus.

The campground I am in has a very old electrical system and I notice significant voltage drops particularly in the afternoon when everyone is running their ACs. Here are a couple of screenshots from my suppressor app showing a 5V drop on one of the input when I use multiple appliances on that line:

Running only the AC: 120 V at 11.4 amps:

image
image738×1600 82.7 KB

Running the AC and microwave: 115 V at 24.6 amps:

image
image738×1600 82.8 KB

And if I were to run a third appliance, the voltage would drop even further.

Note that this drop occurs on only the line with high current, not the other line.

Also: this occurs at only this campground. I have stayed at other campgrounds and run all appliances without any issues.

I have Power Assist turned off currently. Would it help at all with this situation? I would like to be able to run up to 4000 watts on each line for short durations, say 15 minutes at a time.

Any and all ideas are appreciated.

2

Power assist adds power from the batteries if you exceed the input current limit. It will not boost your input voltage as the multiplus matches the input voltage, it can not boost it. If it boosted the voltage it would export power. If tue voltage drop is camp site wide then there is nothing that power assist can do if you are able to get the amps in. The only way it can help is if the voltage drop is in your supply cable / wiring / hook up, you then set a lower current limit to reduce voltage drop and make up with power assist.

1 Like
3

Thanks, @pwfarnell

So another option might be to load shed the ACs automatically when the drawn power exceeds (say) 2000 watts or the input voltage drops below 115V.

The RV ACs do have a control wire that can be used for load shedding.

Any ideas on how to approach this from the MultiPlus side? I don’t have a Cerbo GX.

4

Not an expert on this. If your Multi has an auxiliary/ programmable relay then adding a relay assistant may do this.

1 Like