I have my Florida home wired with an outdoor socket that allows me to connect a gasoline generator to run the whole house except the central AC. We have natural gas for our water heater, stove and clothes drier so the 220 volt power for the house is only for the central AC.
The purpose of our AC200 unit is for emergency use at home mostly so I wanted to test our AC200 running the whole house just like a gasoline generator would. I have a four prong 30 amp electrical inlet socket wired to the main electrical disconnect box outside the house. I connect a 4 prong to 115V 15 amp adapter cord to the socket on the house and then connect an extension from the adapter cable to the AC200 for power.
Here is the process in a power outage.
1-turn off my AC circuit breakers amd my refrigerator breaker at my breaker panel box.
2-open exterior electrical disconnect box outside and turn of main electrical 150 amp disconnect breaker.
3- lift silver interlock piece and turn on 30 amp inlet power breaker. (This insures that main ac power snd generator power cannot be used at the same time)
4-close main power disconnect box and insert adapter cable into inlet box entrance (just plugs in and can only go one way)
5-run a regular extension cord of your choice to where your AC200 is located and plug cord into the AC200. Turn on the AC200 power and AC sockets and you have power inside your home.
6-After verifying that I have no high draw items turned on in the house, I turn the refrigerator breaker back on. Everything is working well and with every single light on, I was consuming around 300 watts. With normal lights on, wifi, fridge and all the standby electronics loads I am running a around 475 watts. Just for fun, I connected a River 600 and Jackery 300 and noth functioned perfectly with the same set up.
Update…after running over an hour we were washing clothes and turned on the clothes drier and the breaker tripped. The drier only uses around 275 watts running but has a high starting load. I found out the issue was the two 25’ 14 ga extension cords I was using from the house to the AC200. I would recommend a single 12 or 10 ga. extension cord to handle to the load better. I changed the cord out to a 12 ga cord and the drier started fine and is still running 45 minutes later.
Thanks again for sharing @Scott-Benson. Good to see you on here as well. Bit of a little learning curve for me as I’m new to this non-Facebook forum stuff. Haha but I dig it. 
I’m having a very difficult time navigating this non-Facebook forum myself. I don’t really see it as an improvement
Yea it’s definitely different @Scott-Benson, but I think it’ll pick up and also become more easy to navigate with time. Least that’s what I’m hoping! Haha
This looks great and I would love to see if I can provide a similar hookup to my main panel. Just wondering what happens once the power comes back on. I’m guessing what the Bluetti is hooked up to is separate as you probably don’t want both power sources on at the same time? If it is separate, how would you know when your utility turns the power back on? Besides looking at your neighbors house to see if their lights are on!
Only one power source can be switched on at a time. That is the purpose of the funny shaped silver metal plate in the incoming power box. You are correct about how would you know when the power comes back on. No way to know unless you switched back over. I only use this for extended power outages and the equipment I have is mostly for hurricane preparedness. In those cases you can be without power for a couple of weeks. There is a unit that installs behind the power meter , switches automatically and communicates when the power comes back on. It was around $800 or so though so I did the cheap way considering my purpose and all.
Thanks Scott, much appreciated!
I think I asked this before on the Facebook page but I have a sort of different angle now.
Wondering if I can hook up 2 Bluetti AC200’s (actually 1 AC200 and 1 AC200P) to my electrical panel. Not where one feeds the other, maybe 2 separate feeds into my breaker panel so that if my power goes out I have almost 4000 W available. Of course I would have an interlock or something to that affect to make sure the main power isn’t on at the same time.
And I realize the more gadgets I use the more it is going to cost.
Just brainstorming as next year I am going to get my panel upgraded so I might as well do everything at the same time.
I have my home input cable so that both 120 volt legs are connected together to allow all my 120 volt circuits in my home are live when connected. I also have the option of connecting a 220 volt genset to my input if needed. The only item in my home that needs 220 is my central air so 220V really is not needed. I suppose its possible to make a custom input cable that is fed by one 120 volt hot leg from each AC200. Both nuetral wires would have to be connected and I’m not sure what that would do to the AC200s. I do think though that one AC200 is sufficient for most needs if you wire it to have all 120 volt circuits in your home active. The second AC200 could be utilized when the power ran down in the first. The other thing you could do is connect the second AC200 directly to the Microwave and refridgerator circuits and use it exclusively for those. Or you could just plug them into the second AC200 seperately inside the home.
Thanks.
I think you are right as I don’t really have a large home. Hook one up to the panel and more power is needed, just plug those items in to the other generator.
I have been able to power everything except AC. Microwave, fridge, washer and drier (gas) all lights (all led) and tv, fans and internet. The gas drier has a high startup wattage but uses less than 300 while running. With my setup, I have been able to connect the whole house to my Jackery 300, ecoflow R600s, AC200 and my wall mount 1000 watt inverter in the garage connected to a single 100 amp hour lead acid battery. I would suggest you get at least one small unit though. The AC200 is great, but if you are running a very light load you will be more efficient using a smaller unit for those times
I know that I can’t do this … who would I hire and pay to do something like this for me? An electrician … would any electrician be able to do anything like this?
Yes, an electrician would be the correct individual to perform the work
Not sure how this applies here but when reading the back page of the User’s Manual under !5 - FAQ, the last questions is - “Can I connect the product to my home circuit breaker box”. The answer as written is - “Can not”.
You are correct, that is what the manual says
Okay…
But obviously you are connecting it to your main panel.
Maybe it means directly?
I think they dont want someone that is not qualified to connect or understand power loads and circuits to connect. If you have the knowlege and ability, obviously it can be done, but must be done correctly. Most small gas generators state to not connect to household circuits as well. Understanding how to energize all the 120 circuits in your house and not having 220 available is necessary as well
Absolutely!
I wouldn’t even attempt to do anything myself. Anything done would be by a licensed electrician only.
Thank you.
It is totally doable and works well but you need to have a basic understanding of your electrical system and how to operate it. It takes me about two minutes to perform the changeover
Than you Scott fir sharing. Ultimately I would like to tie this into the house. For now (when I receive the AC200P) I will be using extention cords so appreciate the comment on 12ga.
Does that mean you don’t use ant of the other 5 outlets?