Bus Victron Electrical Connection

Working to install shore power on the bus today. I wired up the following circuit

main --> 30A_fuse --> breaker_box --> outlet

After flipping it on I got not power at the outlet. The main tested working; there are no indicator lights on the fuse or breaker to help me debug. I have decided to try going through the fuse to the victron because it has indicator lights.

After inspecting the AC in & AC out connections it looks as though I need a particular type of connector. note: I later found this was not the case. The manual does not specify what kind of connector it is. In this forum post acs calls it a “GST18 connector”. I have the 50A variant of the multiplus-II with 4-wire split-phase connectors but all the diagrams and photos I am seeing have 3-wire; I have the wrong manual. I am feeling anxious about connecting the unit without the 4th wire; I do not know if it was designed to function this way. I found the right manual and it does indeed say “The AC input can be supplied from a split-phase 120/240V source or a single-phase 120V source.” A big sigh of relief for that.

wiring up ac in

I found a great install video here. Turns out these are “spring connectors” that the wire actually can go into directly.

Standard colored NEMA wires should be connected like so:

white -- neutral --> N
red   -- line 2  --> L2 
green -- ground  --> PE
black -- line 1  --> L1

wiring the plug and breaker

Next I need to talk about bonding the neutral and ground wires.

Neutral and Ground should be bonded in only 1 place to prevent ground loops. * neutral/ground is bonded at the shore panel, not inside the RV * neutral/ground is bonded at the generator, not inside the RV

So basically, the ground connects to the chassis, and the neutral is treated as an isolated circuit in the RV. Neither the ground nor neutral should be breakered, so I am using a 2-pole breaker to break the two hot wires coming in.

I want to add a housing around this; an old toolbox or something would work.

wiring the batteries

With default victron configuration I am uncomfortable hooking up my battery. The configuration is set for “Victron Gel Deep Discharge”, which works best for: * Victron AGM Deep Discharge * other AGM batteries * many types of flat-plate flooded batteries

I do not know the details of the “DEESPAEK 12V LiFePO4 Battery 200Ah w/ integrated BMS, 4k+ Deep Cycles” battery I purchased from amazon.

Victron operation

Now let’s get the victron running.

The unit has a switch with three settings: * I : on * 0 : off * II : charger only

To change configuration from the factory settings an “Interface MK3-USB (VE.Bus to USB)” is needed. These run about 70$.