Welcome to the Moose Stop, Our Log Cabin in Medicine Bow National Forest, West of Laramie, Wyoming

Because the cabin is off-grid, the cabin was originally powered strictly by generator. Usually we were running a small portable gas generator. This provided enough power to run the lights and pellet stove. When we needed to run the water pump or water heater, we would use the larger 12kw propane generator. Unfortunately, this meant that anytime we wanted electricity, we were running one of the noisy generators. It also meant that when we shut off the generator at night, we didn't have any heat.

The first step in our process to move away from the generators is to install batteries and an inverter. The battery bank consists of 8 Surrette 6v batteries connected in series for 48v. The batteries are connected to a WSS Mini-Magnum MS4448PAE Power Center. This controls the charge of the batteries by the generator and the conversion of the 48v DC battery power into AC power. The inverter generates 220v AC.

Based on our usage, fully charged batteries should last about 3 days.

The power center was amazingly easy to install. It was well documented and labeled. It only took a couple of hours to install. First I removed the direct connections from the generator box to the main box. I ran one of the 220v breakers to the power center. I then ran the 220v AC output from power center to the main breaker on the main box. The connections from the batteries to the power center were well labeled and easy to install. Once connected, everything worked exactly as expected. At first I tested the inverter it worked right away. After running a few of the appliances, I then tested the charging. Once again, it worked perfectly.