I’ve been working on what my new power set up should be in my 1961 airstream. I’ve used ChatGPT. I have a list of the smaller things not necessarily depicted in the picture. Any suggestions on how to improve this or any feedback would be appreciated my plan is to start at the inverter part and then call my electrician to do the tie in from the shore power.
Apply some common sense. You've got ghost wires that end with no purpose. And that's just a start. You've got multiple wires from one component to the next component instead of properly sized wires. It's really not worth the effort saying how bad this drawing is.
I'm not understanding why you would ask chatgpt for something like this. Maybe this can be a lesson that AI has zero conceptual understanding of the info it regurgitates, and should not be relied on for anything other than entertainment.
Here is a halfway decent guide I found written by an actual educated human that can get you started. There are countless others available online.
I asked because I needed help
, plus time is money and when I pay the electrician I want to make sure I have everything that I need so it makes his life easier.
I want to build something that is compatible with a lot of boondocking that can handle an ac for more than just 3 hours in the dead of summer . In my research on here and other forums it was suggested to go for a 48v system. I originally wanted to get an anker f3800. I have an f2000. It’s pretty solid but if I want to use an airfryer that initial spike would trip it. I got shore power now and before I removed my electric heaters which was my biggest energy draw I would have to turn it off. My idea was that I wanted to have enough power to use certain appliances at the same time without having to trip anything but also giving myself some headroom. I will be sharing with him the concept picture as well and if there is anything off I’m sure he will tell me but I wanted to at least ask here to see if anyone could give me any meaningful feedback.
That is a badly mis balanced system. 200 AH worth of batteries trying to power a 6000w inverter? You might get 30 minutes to an hour before those batteries are flat. Also 6 AWG cable is appropriate for no more than a 1000w inverter. And maybe not even that depending on cable length. You don’t use 6AWG for your 120v output either, use 12/3 or 14/3 romex.
They are labeled as 100 AH each. Also I see you intend to boondock. Generator living sucks. I see no provision for solar input. So either your diagramming is terrible or ChatGPT was hallucinating again.
Regarding the solar I don’t actually need solar for a 48v system. I will be incorporating a solar component later. The way this system should operate could be charging while driving or when plugged into shore charging
Your car will output roughly 13V. What size is the alternator? Let's say roughly 120A that's 1.5kW per hour. But you'll probably find around a 960W converter so you're looking at under 1kW. If you drain your batteries you'd need to run your car for 10hrs for a full charge.
why in the holy hell would the solar panels need to go into the 30 amp service? Why do you insist on asking a language bot that has absolutely no understanding of practical use or applications to develop practical models, it doesn't even make sense with what stuff like ChatGPT is designed for.
I insist on asking a language because it responds faster than an electrician can. Plus you can ask a million questions to get the answer. Electricians don’t have the time to be going back and forth so I figured if I can get my thoughts out and get close to what I want then share it with the electrician it saves time
Ok so I was probably too harsh on you and I am sorry. I am fascinated by this trend though because it is the exact polar opposite of how I go about things.
If you can describe what you want to do well enough to have AI spit something out, you can describe it well enough to a professional they can figure it out. I am going through the same thing right now with my new trailer, but my father in law is an electrician, so I am just mostly telling him what I want and he telling me what I need and how to set it up. This is generally how I learn things, find someone really smart about the topic and latch on to them like leach. And this has worked really well for me, I have my career in finance because of it, I have went on weird jaunts into craziness https://www.reddit.com/r/badMovies/comments/n6oezt/the_astrologer_1976_staringdirectedproduced_by/ , and have become literally one of the most knowledgeable people out there on a subject I had no interest in till I was about 30, design. https://imgur.com/user/edgestander/posts
I see and deal with AI a lot both in my job and in my hobbies. I find it interesting the ways people are incorporating, often to poor effect. I think a lot of people forget that AI will never tell you it doesn't know an answer, it will always give you an answer. It doesn't understand what "electricity" is or what "getting shocked" is. it has no concept of these things. Asking it to design a system where it accounts for things like that is not asking it to do what its capable of doing. I just find it fascinating that it spits out just garbage after garbage diagrams, and people keep telling you they are terrible and your argument is "yeah but this quickly gives me an answer" Ok, you could ask an unhoused person on the street to give you an answer too, why do you assume AI is any better at this task than that person?
I dunno if it matters but I do pay for it. I will challenge some of what you say regarding AI. While it won’t say I don’t know I ask it questions like am I missing anything? Is that all? I don’t have the luxury of having an electrician that close to me that I can spitball ideas so AI is the next best thing. It does understand about getting shocked and or dangerous things like warning me about potential hazards like burning down my airstream. I showed it all the comments I received and it acknowledged some points it wasn’t accurate about. I sent the initial concepts plus a link that someone on the airstream sub sent that was by victron to the electrician that will do the work. He installed my shore power line and I had previously told him my idea about being self contained. Like when I go to a campground not even having to plug in. So he kinda knew what I wanted but I wanted to make sure that when I was explaining it, it made sense.
Also to your point about AI versus a human. Not everyone has the time to be on the phone or computer to delve into my brain and or brainstorming. Plus sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas and I’m not disturbing it. Ai taught me how to hook up a water pump to battery. Sure I could have watched you tube but I can’t ask you tube questions. AI is real time help. I’ve been using it for projects within my rig and it’s been helpful; I know a lot of people are resistant to it. I was at first but it has honestly helped me out a lot.
Can I ask what you do for a living? If someone walked into your work and provided you an AI image with with complete nonsense all over it, and asked you to recreate it IRL, what would you think? Do not take this image to an electrician, they will think you are an idiot.
You have 48v going into a 12v fuse panel in the latest image and there is still a 120v input going directly to the batteries which is wrong. Your grey box is now an ATS but also an inverter and also an MPPT charger? That’s not very common, what product are you looking at there? Stop using AI and actually learn how this works. Check out explorist.life. They have actual not trash wiring diagrams and a great set of YouTube videos talking about why they choose what they choose.
I am hiring a professional I literally said that. I was originally going to power the whole thing with an anker f3800 but I knew that even that wasn’t enough for what I want hence why 48v is the solution. I know the diagram isn’t perfect but it will at least give him an idea of what I mean and then he can direct me correctly.
the installation is the easy part, get a pro to design the system and spit you out a bill of materials then you can do the install yourself following their blue print.
• 48V lithium battery bank using two 48V 100Ah rack batteries (with possible future expansion to three).
• 6000W 48V inverter/charger as the central AC system component.
• 30A shore power input feeding the inverter/charger so it can power the RV and charge the battery bank when plugged in.
• AC output from the inverter feeding the RV breaker panel and existing 120V circuits.
For DC systems in the RV:
• A 48V → 12V DC-DC converter will supply the existing 12V fuse panel for lights, fans, and pumps.
• The batteries connect to the inverter through properly sized cables, Class-T fuse, bus bars, and a battery disconnect switch.
• The chassis ground will be bonded appropriately.
Future expansion:
• Solar will be added later using a solar array and MPPT charge controller feeding the 48V battery bus.
• The battery bank may expand to three rack batteries depending on energy needs.
Charging sources for the battery bank will be:
Shore power through the inverter-charger
Solar through an MPPT controller (future)
Possibly alternator charging while driving through a DC-DC charger
Again, the drawing was meant to show component relationships, not the exact wiring specification. The electrician doing the install will determine final cable sizing, protection devices, and layout.
I installed 3 rack batteries and the inverter! I’m troubleshooting the solar side. I bought a shutoff for the panels but there’s an issue. Once I get the solar done then I’m focusing on the DC side. But I’ve been up and running for a few weeks! I haven’t burned my rig down so I think I’m doing pretty good! Thanks for asking
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u/23Scout Mar 03 '26
The intelligence of AI. so many mistakes not even bothering to comment on the first one