Not being rude but I think someone should mention
DC is harder to get through a wire than AC.
And lower voltages are harder to get through a wire than high voltage.
The larger the wire the easier the power flows.
The longer the wire the harder it is for the power to flow.
Based on the beginning of this post and other comments I think that should be explained also perhaps. I did it as simple as I could.
So a long wire for 120VAC can be very small compared to a short wire for 12Vdc, even though basically it's almost the same 2400watts total, the power itself is not the same.
2400watts at 120Vac is 20amps AC, it's 200amps at 12Vdc, or 100amps at 24Vdc, 50amps at 48Vdc, but it is all still 2400watts. A different wire size would be required for each though.
"my inverter manual's wire sizing chart says to use 8 gauge wire for connecting the batteries. i'm assuming this is for connecting between the batteries AND the inverter? what gauge do i use to connect the inverter to the breaker box?"
I beleave from that statement before doing anything else alot of research is needed, and some advice.
Do you know anything about neutral and ground bonding? Stop right now if the answer in NO is my advice! If you don't know about it then you don't know if it will fry your particular inverter either probably.
You have stated straight out yourself you don't know the first thing about inverters.
"i thought all inverters gave out 120 volts, so i figured every inverter used the same gauge of wire to the breaker box. i also didn't see why you'd need the power specs to tell me whether or not the connection between batteries and to the inverter needed the same gauge."
As others have already mentioned it's not just 120 volts that matters.
Inverters come from 75watts to 5000watts, actually well over that also but not normally for home use. My big one is 5,0000 watts with 10,000watts surge. It is not just the 120V that matters it the watts/amps also on the AC side and how long the wire will be. And the power specs are super important for the battery wires. It could have been 12V, 24V, 48V, as the 3 most common made voltages. How many watts and at what voltage determines how many amps the wire must carry at full load, very small wire for a 12V 75watt inverter, very large wire for my 12V 5,000watt inverter or I can use two sets of cables of a lesser size but still large.
Also inverters are not all 120V, they do make 240Vac inverters also. I think the AIMS I was thinkng of buying was 12Vdc to 220AC and 3750watts.
All of the above does make a large differnce on many things. Then there are also Modwave inverters and Sine wave inverters, but that does not matter much as far as wires sizes.
Again not being rude to you, just pointing out the many things about inverters you don't know based on what you said.
Such things do make me wonder though how you decided to buy a 2400watt inverter in the first place. You probably do know more than it sounds like, often hard to tell just reading postings.
Have you checked the loads you want to run, sized the battery bank to supply the power to run that load? Or did you buy a couple batteries and a salesman hand you an inverter he wanted to sell and you just figure it will run your house without checking anything?
Just buying a couple batteries and a decent inverter is fine to get started and just use a few items, but you want to connect to your house, that may not be fine.
Are you going to run the fridge, how many amps is that? What's the start up surge amps.
A coffee maker? Thats maybe 1500watts for the coffee pot while cooking or heating.
How about a micro wave?? What size and power used, not cooking power as stated on the box, that's allot less than really required to operate it.
I point such things out not to be rude but maybe save you some problems if you hadn't checked it out yet. AFTER you re-wire your house is not a good time to find out it won't work as planned. Well, unless your without any power anyway, then it would be some power which is better than none.
I had a freind that saw what all I was doing with inverters about a year ago, so he went out and bought himself one. He was complaining about his being junk, it did not work right, and all kinds of problems. Well I checked it out for him. The problem was he had a 300watt inverter plugged into a cigarette lighter socket with a 12' extension cord and his 1/2" drill would not work.
Other than that he was a pretty smart person.
