Plug RV into an invertor.
Hi. New camper is on its way soon. I pick up in a couple of weeks.. Man I cant believe all the stuff I had in the old camper... he he. I finally sold the unit in my sig.. Anyway Ill have to rein...
Forum Discussion
mikestock wrote:
"Rule of thumb is watts divided by 10--so 100 amp draw."
That's a new rule of thumb to me. Since, current (amps) = watts/volts, I=P/V, I used the rule of thumb that, volts = 12.
Your rule of thumb works if the inverter is 100% efficient (and the input voltage to the inverter is precisely the nominal system voltage of 12V). In practice, inverters are not 100% efficient, and the actual input voltage can vary depending on the quality of the wiring, the battery state of charge, and its rate of discharge. The divide by ten rule works out pretty decently in practice, at least closely enough for any rule of thumb.
Battery capacity is also dependent on the rate of discharge. You'll get more power out of a battery with long, slow use than with a short, high power use. Look up the Peukert effect for details. For typical RV applications with smallish battery banks, this can reduce the usable capacity of the battery for high power inverter usage by quite substantial amounts (maybe 40% or so for a theoretical 200 Ah battery, specified at the standard 20 hour rate, discharged at 100A).
