Automatic generator changeover switch (with schematic). 

Clive - thanks for this. I recently installed one of these for my motorhome to switch between mains and inverter. I was able to get a 4-pole version for the princely sum of £22. Your opinion on this equipment was invaluable. You made what could be quite a dry discussion both entertaining and informative. Great stuff!

The fact that if the relay coil fails it would automatically switch over to the generator, but not automatically switch back again, that tells me that it's a failsafe design. It will at least switch over automatically to the generator, but it won't automatically switch back, giving the operators the ability to at least make sure that mains energy is restored before manually switching back over to mains and cutting the generators off.

Am I the only one who just enjoys bigclives approach to everything could watch him cook, take apart, explain, make explosions , drink stupid stuff. Just enjoy the laid back atmosphere technically sound videos. The only thing bigclive misses is a playlist but that’s just nt picking

Thank you for a well presented and complete explanation of the system. I bought a switch from China but it came without installation instructions. Fortunately I found your site and the excellent explanation. Thanks again from South Africa where we have continuous power outages due to the unfortunate government policy of self enrichment rather than equipment maintenance. Yesterday (Sunday) we had 10 hours of no electricity during a 12 hour period and this has motivated me to connect the generator to the house. Power outages are a daily experience here. Thanks again

I never thought about the back-feeding on personal generators. As a note, I remember Reddit getting angry (so surprising!) about Florida not allowing personal solar installations running after the recent hurricane. I'm pretty sure that back-feeding is the reason behind that choice, and not many people were thinking about that on reddit. Very interesting and definitely something I'll remember!

Am I the only one who loves how smoothly that dial turns? I could watch that all day!

A very interesting and well presented explanation.....thanks. I have installed a manual change over system with manual interlock and have written a set of procedures to switch off load as I don't believe the Chinese breakers I bought can be relied upon to make or break load. So I change over off load. I found your explanation of back feeding the 11kv brought back loads of memories as an Operation Engineer on the Southern Board' hv networks up to 132kv Now I am talking of the 1960s/ 70s !! The standard was to test and Earth the lines at all hv levels of work before issuing a Permit To Work As indeed there had been fatalities. I recall testing at an old 33 kg sub station to find the back feed was from a neighbouring Lviv network back up through the 11 kg and finally back up to 33 kv. However later I experienced amazingly scary hv practices in Canada and the USA ...but that's another story.

When we had a generator (US here), we had a cord hardwired into the breaker box that would plug into the generator. In the breaker box, there was a sliding metal plate that would block the breaker for the generator if the mains power was on, and vice versa if the generator was on, so that they can't both be on at the same time.

I really enjoy your stuff Big Clive! Your explanations are always clear and unambiguous, and you manage to inject just the right amount of gentle humour into every post. I salute you!

Love your accent, but even more so your calm and measured approach, which keeps your commentary interesting all the way through.

Great warning. never thought of the danger from back feeding. This video should be shown to anyone who uses a generator for their home that was not installed by an electrician. Thank you. I know at least 3 people I will pass this on to.

Clive, I like your warning that if it wasn't approved by your jurisdictions and something went wrong you on the liability. There is a lot of things coming in from China to the US that's awfully smart if one only installs certified or listed products.

I only recently came across this video from 2017. About 20 years ago, a friend of mine who is an actual electrician, helped me (who is NOT an electrician) design a generator-based backup power system for our residence. Our residence is in a rural location and subject to frequent power interruptions during summer thunderstorms. These are typically brief (between 1 second and 1 hour). These are not really a huge concern. We use battery-bssed UPS on our computer equipment and flashlights ('torches' on your side of the pond, I believe). In winter, power interruptions are less frequent, but when these outages do happen, they can go on for days. This is because these outages are often caused by ice storms. These can do massive damage to a utility's distribution lines. Repairing these lines is much larger task than is typical with a summertime outage. When power goes out in the winter, you typically also lose your ability to heat your residence. This quickly makes your residence unlivable within just a few hours. We had been chased out of our residence several times by this. We had limited funds but wanted a way that we could ride out these situations in our own home. We knew we could not afford a backup power system that let us pretend there was no outage. We could have afforded a generator capable of supplying much more power but then we would not have been able to afford the other changes we wanted to make. We eventually settled on a 5kv Honda generator - gasoline driven. It was less than what we wanted, capacity-wise. But it allowed us to add a totally manual xfer switch, a recepticle on the back of our house,a second hand-pumped well, and a wood fireplace in our basement. These fireplace can heat our entire residence even on the coldest days. About 12 years after we completed work, we had a 13-day outage. Most of our neighbors were forced from their home. We stayed in ours the entire time. It was primitive but not terribly uncomfortable

A widowmaker lead, priceless comment Clive . We call that a suicide lead in New Zealand. The risk of backfeed does exist. but Testing and Earthing is mandatory as well as using PPE. Normally a private generator

Your videos are a great big manly comfort.

After watching this video I bought one of these and I must say it has worked extremely well. It is for my camper and switches between the solar system (inverter) and shore power. I forgot what the green terminals were for so I returned her to find out. Super glad I did. It is 3 years now and still works great. Not bad for $14. Now I see that the green terminals are just for indicator lamps. Perfect. That will go on my control panel which is remote to the switch.

Nifty device! Bought a rather more sophisticated (and more expensive!) one from the UK, but it's still in its box. Far easier to switch off the incoming power, and PADLOCK the distribution Board! The keys to the padlock are on the same ring as those for the Gennie - so anyone HAS to stop the Gennie (key-start diesel) to get the keys for the padlock - pretty much a fail-safe arrangement.

My friend in USA bought a more expensive version of this and he has a pretty good diesel generator, and it does it's job and switches with quite a bang! It's well made and works great. Power went out...BANG....generator started up and the lights and everything else came back on. :) Power came back on another loud BANG from the changeover switch and generator shut off, the sound is because of the GIANT contact points in this thing it's no joke.

Interesting Video. In the USA it is law with most utility companies that a mechanical interlock has to be installed on a panel which is connected to a generator. The generator is generally connected to a 40 AMP or more breaker that is in one of the top positions. When mains is turned on the interlock prevents that physical breaker switch being turned on unless the mains power is turned to the off position on the panel.

Happy to see that I‘m not the only old man still having the 12y old „let’s ripp it apart“ mentally. At least from time to time. But at least for cars I‘m saved by a company car. 😎

Thank you, very well explained. Simple, plain English and a demonstration anyone can follow and understand 👍

Man Big C you da man I'm currently an apprentice auto mechanic and as a hobby I do minor electrical stuff and man I feel like I'm in a classroom when I watch your videos SO much know how you're passing on to people keep doing the vids I love watching you tear shit up and reverse engineer it.

I've got one of these auto transfer switches. I modified it slightly, so the green terminals on the bottom are to enable switching in either direction rather than output signals. I mounted a relay board right off the terminals and from there goes to an arduino outside of that box. this way, I can have the arduino decide when to transfer power to or from the generator with a delay. transfer doesn't happen until power is stable from utility or from the generator.

A great sports commentator is able to describe the action so well you can watch it on your radio, well you are that good, I watched the whole thing being away from the screen, by just listening to your great commentary! I’m sure the video is just as good! Awesome

When I build my own house, I’m totally putting one of these in there. Too cool.

Not quite what you are showing here, but it brings me back to my apprenticeship and having to manually synchronize three-phase generators with the main incoming 415 volts supply. We, as in a VERY large factory and very large generators, would sometimes back feed AC back into the grid as a load test of our standby generators, this was all done with the electricity supplier's agreement and I think the company got paid for the electricity it supplied back into the grid. While we were being educated on how the principle worked by sinking a small three-phase generator to the main AC supply, I remember one prat of an apprentice deliberately switching over when the generator/mains were not synced and boy was there a loud bang and the generator/mains fuses were blown, I don't remember what happened to the generator, but nothing good that's for sure. With the very large generators, I can't remember how it was done now, it was 45 years ago, but the system we were being shown and educated with was using was very crude, but worked. There were three incandescent lamps, and all three lamps had to be of equal brightness before you threw the switch to sync the little generator to the mains. I'm sure the very large generators were not synced by using incandescent light bulbs, but for the life of me, I can't remember how that was actually done now, old age catching up. Regards, K Watt and yes that is my name and yes I was an electrical engineer

That's clever, and the use of ordinary breakers makes it quite safe :-D No microcontroller or any other junk required :-D

So relevant now!!! There are a bunch of these on ebay. All look like 63A! A lot of folks are gonna be running their generators this winter when the blackouts and Brownouts kick in. Welcome to 2020+2!!

You should keep the camera on any time you sit down so we can see you getting zapped

I was just asked to do a video on the transfer switch for one of my recent backup power testing videos. I couldn't have done a better job than bigclive! Big thumbs up!

That's one thing I want to buy. Not because I could use it but because the mechanism is awesome. The problem is 28 bucks are not in the price range of "Ill buy it just because" things.

3:50 I'm slowly shaking my head. Why am I surprised though? People are amazing when it comes to "innovative solutions".

Thank you clive. Interesting tear-down. I hope that who ever designed this one day sees your video.

As far as preferred source, like you mentioned in the entertainment industry. Most decent, new transfer switches allow for settings that monitor the primary source (utility) quality. If it has transferred to emergency/generator after a utility outage, it will monitor the utility (for over/under voltage and frequency, as well as phase imbalance) once power is available again. Then once the power quality settings are satisfied, a transfer delay timer starts. If utility falls outside of those voltage, frequency, or balance parameters within the delay timer (say 15 or 30 minutes), it will reset the timer, monitor for correct quality again, then repeat the cycle.

Wow, in the US and have had a generator for years and not once have I thought of back feeding the entire house through the 220v dryer connection. Scary. And no, not gonna try it, no way. I'll let you do that one so we don't have to...

this guy is awesome...a complete explanation of how these transfers switches work. this is where you learn!!!!!!! Thank you Big Clive from California

When I was growing up my dad backfed the house. He had a padlock on the breaker panel and during generator operation he kept the key on his person at all times. Not completely foolproof but pretty idiot proof.

I installed my own wiring and generator inlet and ran it to the electric panel with an interlock kit, you just have a metal plate that physically blocks you from powering the panel with the generator until you switch off the main. Simple and cheap like $45 or so and practically accident proof from back feeding. The down side is that the generator will not power on by itself when the power is out but for me it is a rare event to lose power, a bad snow storm in 2018 and 2019 left us without power for 1-2 weeks and always ready in case of an earthquake.

For our American panels, you can get what is called a generator interlock kit, where you have the breaker from the generator input (and also a proper twist-lock male power connector on the side of the house that actually plugs into the generator), as well as a piece of metal that will go on the main breaker and the generator breaker, and prevent both from being on at the same time, so you can't backfeed and can't get a shock from the exposed metal on the male power connector.

We don't have many power failures to worry about, but boats is need to switch from shore supply to generator and even a battery with inverter. Usually we get no more than 10amps coming in. The usual approach was to have three switches with a sliding panel that prevented more than one being used at any time. We would start the generator and warm it up before switching off the shore supply and switching on the generator. In the same control panel we had switches for all the loads. It was common practice to flip them all off before the switch over to generator, and then switch each back on in sequence, allowing each to settle before adding the next load. It sounds complex, but if you understood what was happening it soon became second nature. We would have to think whether we really needed the water heater or air conditioner or battery chargers. I love automation but sometimes it's sensible to make your own decisions.

That's a genius of design.

I used to manage the IT operations of a small company that hosted everything onsite for compliance reasons. Our automatic generator cutover switch was poorly installed and almost never worked, probably the worst event coming when it couldn't make up its mind if the mains power was back up or not, leading to a situation where it just flapped between mains and generator until I manually killed the generator. Finally, after three visits from our "qualified" electricians, culminating in a full day-long shutdown of the facility the issue was resolved. These were the same electricians who wired 220 to an unmarked NEMA5 outlet, leading to my AC guys plugging a 110v appliance in to it and throwing a breaker.

Thank you i have installed like over 40 but i never get intention to open it to see the mechanism inside the item. Watching from Kenya

I've trained as a Canadian Electrician so I'm not familiar with the USA's NEC. In Canada, ALL Residential Generators MUST be connected to the Circuit Panel (Breaker Box) with an Interlocked switch that physically disconnects the City feed when the Generator feed is active. This prevents the Generator from back-feeding into the City Grid and thus keeps it from Electrocuting any Hydro Linesmen (the Electricians Licensed and Trained to work on the multi Kilowatt Power Lines). I believe the NEC has a similar Regulation.

The only thing I don't like about this unit is the "break before make" is very slow, it would be nice if it switched over quick enough for the devices connected to it would not lose power. However you could solve this problem by using a UPS (battery backup) in between the ATS and the connected devices.

This Tomzn transfer switch looks economical. I know installing a turn key auto transfer switch to your house is quite expensive and involve adding several more control boxes outside. In case you want to know , for Canada, the high voltages outside on the pole starts at 4160V, then double that to what we call 8000v and double again to 13 -8V etc. The dryer is not the biggest power outlet in most homes at 30 amps , most homes have stove outlet rated at 50 amps that we put on 40 amp breakers. But some who have gas ranges had the outlet removed or converted to a regular 120 V outlet. A gas stove still need 120V. In UK, when power is available (had to put that line in) it is 220 v with one line to ground, or neutral. In Canada , you need 2 live lines together to get 208 or 240 V The neutral is necessary if you want 120V from either voltages. Many motors or heaters will just work without the neutral. being a electrician for decades, it is against my religion to shell out big bucks for a transfer switch. I can use a "suicide" cord, or I just back feed the breaker, but I highly doubt I get zapped. Linesmen working on outside lines either assumed the line is live or they been grounding it for decades. It is extremely rare to see one of them hurt on the job.

Wow I still remember watching this the day you uploaded it can’t believe it’s been that long already time had gone so quickly

Hi Clive, yeah we across the pond call it a 'suicide cord'. I do this Clive, BUT before I even go to the shed where the gen is, I go to the pole and beneath the meter is a double breaker. I shut it off and put a lock on the box. I also shut off MAINS in panel in house. This way there is NO way to backfeed to the grid. ALSO some utility companies might decide to to NOT give service to that house if they find a gen improperly hooked up, backfeeding into the grid.

I wish that you had pulled the breakers apart to see whether or not they were indeed MCB's or not. I shouted at my screen, but I don't think you heard me. :(

Clive, I work in the Genset Industry, we would not allow that type as ATS without feedback validation to validate That the switches are in the correct mechanical positions.

Phenomenal as ever Clive. Love your teaching style.

Clive, thank you do much, nice to see the detail in it, nice and neat little design. I really enjoyed the The breakdown of it, And yes the case was a joy to watch come apart with the removal of the keystone screw.👍 Oh and I might add there was a day of power issues a while back that had people coming into the supply place where I worked and asking for a heavy double male plug for their generator. Their anger and hostility that we didn't have one on the shelf was amazing to me, because I would've never done this, I was a bit oblivious to what they were doing Until I worked it out later. But in the interim I stopped explaining any of it to them, and just suggested they talk to an electrician. The guff I took from them was amazing, and pushed me into a posture that if they were too stupid to figure out how to build the cord, and we're angry because we didn't start such a thing, I wouldn't tell them how to do it, and ended my assistance. Sometimes it would come Knowing they shouldn't have such a thing or do such a thing, I will try and avoid telling me what they were doing. They really didn't care about the workmen, and weren't smart enough to shut off the main. Serve like an old boss of mine the thought his friend was such a genius because he where is his garage with the supply from the house as a single wire (single conductor), he thought the guy was genius, when in reality is money saving technique ordered on some insanity level. All it takes is one loose thoughtless day of him Dragon aluminum extension ladder through his yard or or some other site not realizing that electric mouse trap was there waiting for them and Presto, dead guy. Thanks Clive, another great video.

You must have come across JIS screwdrivers, Clive? Japan Industrial Standard. Much better fit for far eastern screws also work well on Philips screws. No climb out. You can get Vessel brand JIS drivers of all sizes on Spamazon. Not cheap, but a real investment.

I wired a farm building once using a 240-drop (out of the circuit box) and a 50-amp breaker. To resort to your 2nd input, you had to turn off the main, then turn on the 50-amp breaker (which acted as a 2nd main for the generator)...no harm, no foul, and gets around having to buy a $150 transfer switch....that said, it is NOT TO CODE in the U.S. (don't let an inspector or electrician see this barn-burner circuit!) A far-easier way to do this is to simply drop a circuit to a small box and use a 3-position rotary switch rated for the circuit to act as a transfer...which in circuit, would replace the breaker in my example. Again, MUCH TO BE SAID FOR RELAY-DRIVEN TRANSFERS where you have a 'dead pole' at midpoint, so that you cannot have BOTH SUPPLIES HOT at the same time (bad, BAD news for the power company, your home, etc....because they are not in sine polarity with each other!

where is the other video gone? I just watched it half way through...

The sound this thing makes in operation is so satisfying - clunk! It's a very sumptuous bit of kit, so mechanical and uncaring - clunk! I get the feeling it would gladly twist my head off given half a chance. I'd be begging "Noooo, naaaaaw, thaaaaaw! Nah mah heeeead! Dun twerst awrf ma heeeeeeay! Waaah-ah-aaaah!". It'd be like a saw trap, you can't bargain with a machine this cold and uncaring. You thought it loved you but no, it has no emotions, no feeling, it just clunks and nothing gets in its way. It will destroy anything that gets in its path, like big Arnie. This is the big Arnie of switchgear - you hear me, Clive? Then answer! Nobody will stand in the way of this switch, you cannot bargain with it, you can't reason with it...do you understand me? It will destroy us, and everything we hold dear... Et-cet-er-a. ETA - in retrospect I feel I got slightly carried away, I apologise. I have a fertile imagination. I'm sure the motor has a wonderful, caring personality and I meant no ill will towards it. Please...you gotta tell it, Clive! You gotta TELL IT!!! And so on...

I’ve always heard of the double male cords called “suicide cords”

touching the leads while both the plugs are unplugged.... You're a daredevil! even though I'm quite confident in my knowledge of "low" voltage circuits and electronics in general... I'm always assuming that I'm delirious and that I might have forgotten to unplug it.

You might as well pull one of those "circuit breakers" to bits now you've already bust the circuit board for the relay .....

Entertaining, informative and even a bit charming.... not a term usually applied to men who have favorite soldering irons :)

You raise the issue of backfeeding the incoming supply from a generator during a powercut. Of course, sometimes this is desired - eg solar panels or other local generation - so are there systems which will prevent these from feeding in when the mains power fails? But of course it would be neat to continue to be able to access any power they are generating despite the mains supply having been dropped.

a neat trick for hot melt glue that's in hard to reach places you can't apply much force or heat is to give it a shot of freeze spray makes it hard as a rock and allows it to crack off the surface of things easier

In the US backfeeding into your home without disconnecting it from the mains will result in huge fines and possibly jail time depending on if you get caught. Though getting caught will be pretty easy with the new smart meters that consumers has installed. They monitor for blackouts and record if and how much power is backfed into the system from your house in real time via two way link. There is some leniency in the system for a noisy computer or sump pump backup or things of that nature where you might get a couple watts of energy, bot something large and they are going to send a hefty fine your way. We are in a trial area for the smart meters, they also have the added feature of daily usage reports through the online portal.

Is it bad that my first thought at 4:39 was I like where this is going and at 4:46 that thought evolved into a full-fledged plan accompanied by a joker smile.

I was thinking about how that transfer switch could have a breaker instead of just being a switch myself because the motor wouldn't necessarily allow it to turn off. It dawned on me at the end of the video that, in the event of an overcurrent, the breaker would move to the trip position and not the full off position, which of course, theoretucally, wouldn't affect the position of the motor arms at all.

bigclivedotcom , Had to pause at ~ 5 : 00 and compose a comment here - from across the pond - to say that you are another one of those high value propositions, high ROI of my time watching your videos - right up there with Techmoan, the Essential Craftsman and so many others I'd have to take more time to recollect; yet, and still there's not seemingly enough of the like and wanted to tell you your content and its presentation is top notch as I don't give a hoot about production value near as much as the message content and spirit, diligence on practice of topical scope and relevant theory infill , perspective and therein a richness and whether or not I came away a better mind for the experience. Can't say enough without droning on - thank you! I appreciate your preparation and explanation / teaching methods!

I'd be worried about that relay being mounted hard against the PCB. Depends on the construction of the relay, but that's almost certainly a bad idea. With the relay mounted hard against the board, even if it's a single-sided board, as the joint cools the relay pins will contract slightly as they cool. This puts strain on those leads which, in that style of relay, means it can cause slight contact misalignment and/or loosening of the entire structure. It also means (going by how you drew it) that pads on the relay base are in contact with the PCB leading to moisture traps (which encourage corrosion and fungal growth). Don't mount components hard against a PCB if you want the design to be reliable. As an aside, wicking of the solder up the through-plated hole is not only normal, it's *desirable* in high-vibration environments because it stops both pushes and pulls on the component leads peeling the track away from the substrate. In aerospace applications you may find PCBs with all the tracking on one side but still using double-sided board with TPHs just for vibration resistance. BTW, I find a good solder sucker is better than braid for removing components on double-sided or multi-layer PCBs. It sucks the solder through the hole, removing it from both sides of the PCB.

I've designed, wired and tested dozens of changeover systems, typically 2000A 400V or 10kV, with up to 6 timing relays, voltage monitors, trip contact supervision, 20 aux relays. This one is clearly done as simple and cheap as possible. Fun to see.

"This is neat so far, I am liking this inside"

Have a look at the Hager double pole change over switch. In industrial situations. A-B relays are used.

Great video. Something that would be interesting to take a look at would be those 3000w 230v solar power inverters. Can they really deliver 3000w without noise etc?

Wanted to say that I watch every video you make.... but the ones that include "(with schematic)" get top billing in that evenings selections.

Very cool device. I have no need for it, but I want it 😜😺. Another very interesting video

On boats I just use one relay with 2 x NO and 2 X NC. The two NC contacts are used for the inverter power, the NO are used for shore power. In also feed the relay coil from the shore power. This makes the ship run on its own power unless the shore power is connected. Switches fast enough for computers to keep running.

If you use the wrong plug, You turn into fanny flambo. LOL

You also have the phase shift. Most standard generators do not try to sync the phases. So then you normally have a boom as well.:)

got a vid notification went to watch it and its not there ? im confused what happend?

Great video. I just might buy one to play around with. I do wish you had dismantled one of the switches to see if a) these are circuit breakers or just switches and b) the contacts are even close to adequate for the current rating. The Chinese are notorious for claiming a 20A switch contact can handle 40 or 60 A. Of course, they soon burn up.

Good work Clive... Could a guy use a double pole double throw switch ? By connecting the two ( P ) terminals to the INPUT side the the breaker box, and then connecting the two ( T 1 ) terminals to the main feed coming from the pole transformer, and then connecting the two ( T 2 ) terminals to the generator. That way the house can only be feed by either the mains or the generator,,, but not both... I was going to do this to feed my furnace. I have a 3kw inverter, and a very large motor home battery. But , alas, , once I figured out that it could be done,,, why do it... Keep up the good work. ..

Good advice to add extra 63 Amp MCB's in series with the transfer switch unmarked MCB's. It worries me that the manufacturer doesn't label those MCB's, they could easily be cheap unbranded knockoffs. We are talking mains supplies here so the equipment has to be safe. I prefer always a dead or zero position when changing over a transfer switch. (generator - zero - mains). With that double 3 kA rated MCB at the end, under fault conditions and arc flash could easily happen with serious burns to the unexpected home owner, who is usually not an electrician.

What did u do to ur thumb? It keeps distracting me 😂

I am looking for something alike, to install in my flat to power 3kW storage heater using night tarrif as main, and normal (day) power as backup. In my mind backup will always be on, but "night/main" power will be switched. Great videos Clive, like watching and picking up knowledge.

We just lost power in my house, and we had to manually run an extension cord from our generator to a power strip in the kitchen which we plugged the refrigerator to, and then we ran an extension cord from there to the freezer across the room, and we had to move the microwave to plug that in, and had to get a standing lamp for light, and everyone had to be in the room to charge their laptops and phones, and it was aweful, so sad. We need to get one of these, but unfortunately I don't think our insurance will like it if we got it from eBay.

I’ve done something similar with a solar water heater changeover switch using two motorised valves, to switch between a combi boiler and a solar heated water tank dependent on water temp. My relays are off in the default state which is predominantly solar tank is hot and I can turn off all power to save the relay coils. I also have a manual override for winter. I think the design of the power transfer switch could be improved by only energising the relays when the generator comes on, and use a normally closed relay using no power when on grid power. Love your tutorials btw you’ve been an inspiration albeit mostly above my level of knowledge.

speaking of breaker failing dramatically ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gOUSDDLKICk.htmlm30s

So glad I found this video, I was looking at buying one of these to have my fridge switch back to mains when my inverter drains the solar batteries

What happened to the other vid :(

Searched RU-vid for your video on this transfer switch. (bought one on Amazon from china, curious to how its engineered) sure enough here it is. Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to send you one for a video 🤣

Chinese characters and safety equipment. Those don't go together. I wouldn't install that in my house.

Would love to see you do some hydroponic equipment. Im sure hobbyists using that kinda stuff could learn alot from a break down like this.

My grandparents backfed (probably still do) their house through the 220v dryer plug here in the US. I was taught once when there was a power outage to disconnect the main breaker to keep the generator from blowing up.

Yesterday I was looking for a schematic of these and today you put up a video about them... Coincidence?!?!

This transfer switch Works great in my RV. Thank you for the recommendation.

Liking the fact it uses a motorised manual switch. The ones i've studied in the past use interlocked contactors and i didn't like the fact that I had to rely on a contactor being energised all the time for normal on mains supply - despite working in IT where such devices protect significantly more important stuff than my house! I went for a manual changeover in the end for the sake of simplicity and avoiding spikes and surges swapping between genny and mains.

One of my jobs many years ago was pat testing within the company .in one department was a very nicely made bench on wheels so it could be used within the lab.Anyway pat testing must have been lax in the past because when i unplugged the plug connecting it to the mains (it in reality was just a extention lead but with conduit feeding several sockets along the back ) i unplugged it from the supply and plugged it into the pat tester and everything went black!Once the power was restored i noticed the problem the designer had in his wisdom fitted a clone lead on the other end !!!!Ofcourse i was lucky i didnt inspect the first plug or i would have found to my dismay the pins would be live fed from the other plug .Repremands were made and i left with 6ft of wire with a plug on the end and the knowledge to look a bit harder in the rest of the building

clive, if u can get an old lister startomattic control box i think it would create a good video, they are interesting in the way that they sense a load and start the generator

Thank you so much for the precise to-point informative orientation. Can you also do the practical video clip of the wiring process from the panel control to the generator auto battery connection for ATS

Indeed, nice design, kudos to the reverse engineer on duty :D

I install these in a clear faces (hinged door) plastic cabinet and add in timers to control the length of time between change over to give mains/genset time to stabalise.

Interesting thank you, I may use this information with my solar system. Thanks for all of your videos.... also for your brother's... love the spirits!!!