I have a 2000 watt Coleman power inverter, it is not a special "marine" inverter. I use it for camping and household power failures. I have a new bayliner 285 w/o a genset. I wanted to have A/C power on the boat occasionally when not hooked up to shore power. I wired the inverter as I always do, pos to pos, neg to neg on the 12v battery. It also has a ground lug on the back that I have never used. I fired it up on the boat and it worked fine when single appliances(computer, cell phone) are plugged in. When I connected the shore power cord to it, the reverse polarity light in the main breaker box of the boat lit up. Everything still seemed to work(A/C and microwave,hot water) but the reverse polarity light scared me so I shut it off. I use the same cord as I do to hook up shore power and that works fine, so I know the cord isn't mis wired.
Is this a problem with the inverter, or possibly not having it grounded, or is this normal in this application? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Is this a problem with the inverter, or possibly not having it grounded, or is this normal in this application? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks