Choosing and installing an inverter
Background: New 21' Fiberglass FW, all power related equip under the rear dinette seat. 2-6V Interstate GC batteries 232A 160w 12v flat mount solar, will add another 100-160w this spring/summe...
Forum Discussion
Padlin wrote:
Looking to add a decent inverter to power an electric blanket or heat pad, and charge the laptop and camera. I currently use a cheap, noisy, 400w portable for the laptop and camera.
For what it's worth .... all that can be replaced with 12 volt versions for powering and charging, so no inverter is necessary for those tasks. Since inverters waste energy performing their conversion process, more power is needed from your battery bank using an inverter than what is really necessary do do the things you want to do. For best drycamping power management, one should stay as much as possible in the inverter-less world.
In our RV we:
- Use the main batttery bank and 12 volt devices as much as possible.
- Use a small, fuel sipping, very quiet 650 watt four-stroke generator for every 2nd or 3rd day main battery bank charging.
- Use a quiet built-in generator for the microwave and air conditioning.
- Carry a small 300 watt pure sine wave inverter the we rarely use anymore for anything ... used to use it for the laptop and other small battery charging tasks until I converted the laptop to direct 12 volts and now use USB outlets for other small battery charging.
