I have an older RV without a transfer switch. I have a hard wired 30A cable in a compartment. It can be plugged in three ways:

1) to a shore power outlet
2) to the generator outlet
3) to the inverter outlet

My main power source is the inverter with the generator being my backup and shore power being a treat.

It is going to quickly become a pain to have to go outside to unplug the shore power cable from the inverter outlet and plug it into the generator outlet. Moreover, my electrical panel default position is a bunch of breakers off, so I have to switch them on before running the gen set. It is not good to use breakers as on/off switches with any sort of regularity.

So it looks like it’s time to consolidate all of that and get a transfer switch. I am looking at my options and see that most offer only two sources of power rather than three, and most are automatic. I also see that some electrically-minded folks have designed their own systems. I’d love to go that route.

What I am envisioning is something that would plug into both the genset 30A outlet and the inverter 15A outlet and into which I could plug the shore power cable. It would also give me an option of which circuits to have live.

The device would be accessible from inside and have a manual switch that would let me pick either the generator or the inverter, but would not start either automatically. So I could put it to inverter, walk to the living room, turn on the inverter, and only my inverter-friendly circuits would come on. If I picked the genset, I’d walk to the kitchen, flip on the remote generator starter, and all my circuits would be live.

Another thought is that surely a 30A splitter must exist? Something I could plug my shore power cable into and which I could then plug into two different outlets, only one of which would be live at a time?

I’m obviously not an electrically-minded person. 😀 But I’m starting to think I need to find myself an RVing forum so I can find some electrically-minded people to bounce ideas off of.

I wasn’t going to worry about the remote (kitchen) starter for the generator not working until I realised that the hour metre also wasn’t working. I went under the sink and discovered that a connection for the starter was loose and one for the metre was broken. L said he can fix the broken connection since he has his soldering equipment.

That left the starter. He went off to take a nap and I tightened the loose connection. I pulled out the multimetre and got 14.4V at the switch, which told me it was getting power and that the problem was at the generator.

I went outside, pulled the cover, traced all the wires, figured out which one went to the generator start button, disconnected it, cleaned off the corrosion, reassembled everything, and went inside.

Soon as I hit start, there was a rumble outside. Now, the genny won’t start since the choke needs to be manually activated, but this gives me hope that a bit of solder will get the hour metre working. No. Wait. I just started the genny from inside! OMG!

I feel pretty accomplished. 🙂