Power Inverter Install

[marine6805]

We are more "road trip" rather than "campers" with our travel trailer. We have traveled north of 46K hitch miles in the last 5 years and stay in actual camping/RV sites less than half of the traveled days.
My biggest desire is to have an inverter that will be sufficient to power only one appliance (once daily) to help my overall disposition...a Keurig Brewer for general "Life Support"!
We currently have a 2019 Imagine 2250RK . . . .I would like this to be a "neat" install, but with very limited use. I have 2 12V batteries on the front of the trailer and the use area for the Keurig would be at the extreme other end of the TT.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Actual Keurig Unit is K2.0-500 Has 1475 Watts on bottom
I would presume a 2000W Inverter is the most sensible?

[boyscout]

We are more "road trip" rather than "campers" with our travel trailer. We have traveled north of 46K hitch miles in the last 5 years and stay in actual camping/RV sites less than half of the traveled days. My biggest desire is to have an inverter that will be sufficient to power only one appliance (once daily) to help my overall disposition...a Keurig Brewer for general "Life Support"!
We currently have a 2019 Imagine 2250RK . . . .I would like this to be a "neat" install, but with very limited use. I have 2 12V batteries on the front of the trailer and the use area for the Keurig would be at the extreme other end of the TT. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

To get answers from people more expert than I am it would be useful to know what is the power requirement of your coffee maker? It's likely pretty high - 1,200-1,500 watts or so when it's warming up - so that's the starting point for determining what inverter you need to buy... its power rating.

Another suggestion I can offer is that the spacing between your batteries and coffee-maker is probably not the challenge you may think it is. You'll add the inverter near your batteries, and connect it through a transfer switch to the CIRCUIT that your coffee maker is plugged into. Chances are that you can do all that near the front of the trailer but I don't know yours - do you know where your fuse panel is located? That's where you'll probably connect your inverter output power, and the power will travel through the already existing circuit the rest of the way to your coffee maker.

The "transfer switch" is an additional device necessary to switch that coffee-maker circuit from your plug-in power to your inverter power when you're not plugged in. It can be automatic - when power is removed from the side of the trailer the transfer switch can flip to your inverter's power, and when you plug the side of the trailer back in to shore power the inverter gets disconnected.

You can think "bigger". I'd guess that you're going to need about a 2,000-watt inverter to fire up that power-hungry coffee maker. That inverter will power a lot of other things in your trailer as long as they're not running at the same time as the coffee maker. So in your shoes I'd install the inverter to power most of the 120-volt circuits in your trailer (though not the air conditioning circuits), and just be careful that no other 120V circuits are in use when the coffee maker is starting up. When you're not making coffee you can probably run a microwave or a razor or other 120V things.

Hope this helps. Others more expert may show up once the Grand Design national rally is over.

[ncitro]

To get answers from people more expert than I am it would be useful to know what is the power requirement of your coffee maker? It's likely pretty high - 1,200-1,500 watts or so when it's warming up - so that's the starting point for determining what inverter you need to buy... its power rating.

Another suggestion I can offer is that the spacing between your batteries and coffee-maker is probably not the challenge you may think it is. You'll add the inverter near your batteries, and connect it through a transfer switch to the CIRCUIT that your coffee maker is plugged into. Chances are that you can do all that near the front of the trailer but I don't know yours - do you know where your fuse panel is located? That's where you'll probably connect your inverter output power, and the power will travel through the already existing circuit the rest of the way to your coffee maker.

The "transfer switch" is an additional device necessary to switch that coffee-maker circuit from your plug-in power to your inverter power when you're not plugged in. It can be automatic - when power is removed from the side of the trailer the transfer switch can flip to your inverter's power, and when you plug the side of the trailer back in to shore power the inverter gets disconnected.

You can think "bigger". I'd guess that you're going to need about a 2,000-watt inverter to fire up that power-hungry coffee maker. That inverter will power a lot of other things in your trailer as long as they're not running at the same time as the coffee maker. So in your shoes I'd install the inverter to power most of the 120-volt circuits in your trailer (though not the air conditioning circuits), and just be careful that no other 120V circuits are in use when the coffee maker is starting up. When you're not making coffee you can probably run a microwave or a razor or other 120V things.

Hope this helps. Others more expert may show up once the Grand Design national rally is over.

In this particular case I could see doing it without a transfer switch. Given all he wants to do is run the coffee maker, I would wire in the inverter near the batteries as suggested, and then go one of two routes:

1. If the circuit that contains the outlet for the coffee maker does not have too much on it, I would put it on the inverter and just leave it on there with no transfer switch. This circuit will now always run off of the batteries via the inverter, but if its not too many of the outlets in the rig it should be okay.

2. If the coffee maker outlet is on a circuit with a lot of other outlets in the rig (probably the case), then I would wire the inverter as in 1 above, but run a new 115v run to the coffee maker area and feed a new outlet there. This outlet will then become your inverter outlet, and anything plugged into it will run off of the inverter. It should be easy enough to run the 115v wire back to the area and go up through a cabinet to that area.

This all avoids the transfer switch and eliminates that as a possible point of failure down the road.

[howson]

We are more "road trip" rather than "campers" with our travel trailer. We have traveled north of 46K hitch miles in the last 5 years and stay in actual camping/RV sites less than half of the traveled days.
My biggest desire is to have an inverter that will be sufficient to power only one appliance (once daily) to help my overall disposition...a Keurig Brewer for general "Life Support"!
We currently have a 2019 Imagine 2250RK . . . .I would like this to be a "neat" install, but with very limited use. I have 2 12V batteries on the front of the trailer and the use area for the Keurig would be at the extreme other end of the TT.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Given the very narrow requirement and that you won't be at a campground (so I *assume* no noise ordinance), I suggest getting an inverter-generator like the Predator: https://www.harborfreight.com/2000-w...tor-62523.htmlI'd modify it to run on propane so you don't have to worry about carrying unleaded gas.

Through a 30-15 amp adapter hook up the inverter-generator to your trailer just like you would shore power and use the wiring in your trailer to run the coffee maker. As previously mentioned, all other electrical items would have to be off (set Converter c/b "off", air conditioner off, set the hot water heater and refrigerator to run on propane, etc).

[marine6805]

The largest challenge (IMO) is that I have a rear kitchen, with the entire power management system in the rear, and the batteries in the extreme front.
Once again the only item that would be powered by this inverter is the coffee maker.

[Paul & Deb]

The largest challenge (IMO) is that I have a rear kitchen, with the entire power management system in the rear, and the batteries in the extreme front.
Once again the only item that would be powered by this inverter is the coffee maker.

In my last trailer, which was also a rear kitchen, I wanted to do exactly as you describe so I mounted a 2000 watt inverter next to the batteries. Then I dropped the coroplast on one side of the trailer and ran a heavy gauge extension cord from the inverter to the rear of the trailer. Then i pulled out kitchen drawers to get access and found a point of entry and fished the cord up. I purchased a new outlet from a mobile home supplier and cut a hole in the back wall and installed it. Then I connected it to the cord and, voila, I had a dedicated inverter outlet for the coffeemaker.

It was very simple and easy.

[ChangingLanes]

If you boondock a lot, you might consider a full rig inverter. Have power for anything and everything. With a full 50A passthru, the wiring is very simple. We've upgraded to 3000W since this video, but the wiring is the same...

https://youtu.be/1rPKWrXQYWA

~chad
Changing Lanes!

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[ncitro]

In my last trailer, which was also a rear kitchen, I wanted to do exactly as you describe so I mounted a 2000 watt inverter next to the batteries. Then I dropped the coroplast on one side of the trailer and ran a heavy gauge extension cord from the inverter to the rear of the trailer. Then i pulled out kitchen drawers to get access and found a point of entry and fished the cord up. I purchased a new outlet from a mobile home supplier and cut a hole in the back wall and installed it. Then I connected it to the cord and, voila, I had a dedicated inverter outlet for the coffeemaker.

It was very simple and easy.

This is exactly what I had in mind for him! Great job.