A friend of mine recently bought a DIY-converted Caddy camper, and we were testing the electrical setup. He put a decent load through his 2kW inverter with a toaster, which I think peaked at around 60A.
After a couple of minutes we got that unmistakable burning smell. A fairly panicked shutdown, we discovered the issue (We kind of knew it was coming hence the testing) the cables were undersized and the breaker was massively oversized, so the cables got very hot, very quickly.
I've since ripped that lot out and replaced it with correctly sized cables, the right-rated breaker, and a MEGA fuse.
It did get me thinking though. I'm running a 3kW inverter and I'm confident everything is correctly sized and fused. I ran my toaster and kettle back to back a few times and nothing got hotter than 35 (starting at about 28) but I don't really have any monitoring in place to warn me if something starts getting hotter than it should.
I've now added a few of these temperature sensors that connect to my WiFi
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermomete...e-Refrigerator-Compatible/dp/B0F386Q2PZ/?th=1
So far they've been surprisingly good. You can set high (and I guess low if you wanted for battery) temperature alarms, and they seem to match my point and shoot thermometer within about 1%.
I've set them to WhatsApp and text when there is a rise. Anyone have thoughts on what we would call worrying temps? Running 2AWG cable which is rated for 240amps and advised 200c temps.
I'm interested to hear if anyone else has done something similar. Are there any better monitoring options out there for keeping an eye on cable and battery temperatures before they become a problem?
After a couple of minutes we got that unmistakable burning smell. A fairly panicked shutdown, we discovered the issue (We kind of knew it was coming hence the testing) the cables were undersized and the breaker was massively oversized, so the cables got very hot, very quickly.
I've since ripped that lot out and replaced it with correctly sized cables, the right-rated breaker, and a MEGA fuse.
It did get me thinking though. I'm running a 3kW inverter and I'm confident everything is correctly sized and fused. I ran my toaster and kettle back to back a few times and nothing got hotter than 35 (starting at about 28) but I don't really have any monitoring in place to warn me if something starts getting hotter than it should.
I've now added a few of these temperature sensors that connect to my WiFi
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermomete...e-Refrigerator-Compatible/dp/B0F386Q2PZ/?th=1
So far they've been surprisingly good. You can set high (and I guess low if you wanted for battery) temperature alarms, and they seem to match my point and shoot thermometer within about 1%.
I've set them to WhatsApp and text when there is a rise. Anyone have thoughts on what we would call worrying temps? Running 2AWG cable which is rated for 240amps and advised 200c temps.
I'm interested to hear if anyone else has done something similar. Are there any better monitoring options out there for keeping an eye on cable and battery temperatures before they become a problem?
