Inexpensive Transfer Switch?

kaipo_boy
kaipo_boy Solar Expert Posts: 143 ✭✭
I have a very small system, 4 golf cart batteries for 24v, 210 AH system with a Midnite Kid controller and 3x 285w panels. I use the grid for backup but find that during the summers I can JUST keep a chest freezer and a fridge running in good weather.  (summer production at noon is about 27amps on a sunny day... in the winter I am lucky to see 12amps at noon, with much reduced, shorter hours) Now that it is winter in Hawaii, I have only the freezer hooked up, production is too low to keep both running. But on cloudy days or when I want the 4 batteries to top off, I have been switching the freezer back to the grid simply by moving the freezer power cord from my inverter to the house outlet.

What would be a simpler way of switching the freezer (and during the summer months, adding the fridge back to the system as well) back and forth between the inverter and the wall socket? I have been eying the battery isolators that boats use, because they are robust and inexpensive, but I have reservations about hooking 120V a/c into that type of switch... but its getting old moving the power cord back and forth whenever there are clouds.

Thanks for any help!

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