Thor Forums

[Judge]

So as I have been considering / planning changes to my Inverter setup. During this process I have discovered that Thor took other shortcuts with respect to the stock Xantrex 1000 Inverter setup.

Besides Thor cutting costs by not installing a breaker for the AC out circuit and choosing to use the internal breaker that was designed for the built-in GFCI receptacle, they did not wire the Inverter directly to the battery with both the positive and negative cables as recommended by Xantrex.

The Xantrex documentation states that the both the positive and negative DC cables should be connected directly to the battery terminals. Thor did not run a negative cable directly to the battery. They ran a short negative cable (~12") and grounded it to the chassis frame instead of running it all the way to the battery. This is not the recommended approach with any Inverter that has the AC hard wired based on everything I have read.

Xantrex also recommends keeping the DC cable length to no more than 5 feet from the battery. I have considered adding another Inverter and was worried about using as much as 15 feet of 2/0 AWG cable. Thor placed the Inverter about as far from the house batteries as they could. The positive cable they ran is probably well over 20 feet from the battery. It also doesn't look like they ran 4/0 or even 2/0 AWG cable for a run that far from the battery.

That's why they ran a short negative to the chassis ground. They didn't want to spend the money to run a 20+ foot negative cable back to the battery.

The more you look into the details of these rigs, the more things you uncover that you really should address if you want things done right.