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Bluebeard's avatar
Bluebeard
Explorer
Apr 28, 2016

Inverter question

The DW needs to have a working hair dryer when out boondocking. I am considering adding an inverter to ensure a happy wife (happy life). I get it that it is easier to have its own circuits coming off the batteries, but was wondering what you guys do to hook it up beyond that. I am thinking to stick it in a cubby hole and run extension cords from the plug outlets to specific wall plugs. Is this common? or am I missing something?
  • Most hair dryers have several settings so although it may take longer ask your wife to only use the lowest setting. I do and my 1000 watt PSW inverter handles the task without any issues at all running by just one 8 yr old G27 battery. :)
  • Bluebeard wrote:
    The DW needs to have a working hair dryer when out boondocking. I am considering adding an inverter to ensure a happy wife (happy life).


    better have a good bank of batteries for that kind of power drain.
    i prefer to have an inverter generator for that and the microwave.
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Power Inverters are indeed battery hungary... A 1500WATT Power Inverter will want to draw over 120AMPS from your battery bank when fully loaded. You will have to increase your battery bank alot to maintain something like this...

    Have fouond here the best Power Inverter is a smaller PSW type just to run a few low wattage things like the Home Entertainment setup, a fan, computer and cell phone chargers etc...

    If you need to run something like the High wattage microwave or Hair dryer the 2KW quiet Honda EU2000i Generator is your best choice. That has its drawbacks as well as most pubic campgrounds have generator run time restrictions in place. Where we camp here on the East side of the US there are very few DISPERSED campong locations so we end up at public places alot with these restrictions in place... Even our local National FOrest places have Generator run time restrictions...

    Roy Ken
  • My wife hasn't used the inverter to power up her hair dryer, but we have used the microwave. Both use about the same amount of amps. The microwave is only on for a minute or less, generally 15 seconds or so. The micro was wired that way when the coach was built and I never changed it. But, we use the micro very sparingly on inverter power.

    Hair dryers can take up to 1,500 watts, or about 12 amps at 120 volts. That is a lot of power. Now, if you have four (or more) house batteries and an inverter that can provide at least 15 amps at 120 volts, you'll have enough for a few minutes of hair drying time. Your wife is probably wanting to use it for several minutes or more, which could really draw down your batteries. But, then you'll have to recharge the batteries anyway, so why not just run the dryer off of the generator?

    Good luck. (And, and you indicated, happy wife equals happy life.)

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