Inverters

Crockpot? Batteries? Inverter? While driving? You're doing it wrong.

I have the old fashioned Crock Pot and for the life of me the high setting is almost useless. Too hot and spatters escape the lid. The low setting is a bit less than 100 watts. I set mine in the sink for no tipovers. Remember "Shaken Not Stirred"

brulaz wrote:

GordonThree wrote:
I run mine sitting on the floor of the trailer while towing quite often, it works really nice to have dinner ready when the day's drive is done.

Great idea, but some of the roads we drive on ... :E

:)

The bumps help keep the juices mixed in. My pot has little latches that hold the lid on. Nock on wood, no incidents yet.

Our crock pot is rated at 240W on high, and prolly 120W on low, although I've never tested it. Say 150W on low considering inverter efficiency.

Not sure if the OP has solar, but for us it would typically be best to start it before or around noon, when the battery bank is close to being charged up and we're throwing away solar energy anyway.

Yum, Mississippi Roast in the slow cooker is great. Ours has a removable Al pot that I can sear the roast in first, using propane.

GordonThree wrote:
I run mine sitting on the floor of the trailer while towing quite often, it works really nice to have dinner ready when the day's drive is done.

Great idea, but some of the roads we drive on ... :E

Just Curious - How many hours are you traveling? How many and what kind of batteries are you using? How many amp hours of battery are you figuring you'll need?

Hi,

The freezer may kill this idea. Duty cycle, start up surge and running watts need to be known.

I have successfully run a crock pot which draws 300 watts, while trundling down the road. That represents a load of 30 amps @ 12 volts to the battery bank.

There are 12 volt crock pots--quite small but a much lower load.

Since your ride is a motorhome you may want to consider running the inverter from the chassis battery rather than the house. But make sure the alternator is able to support that sort of "extra" demand.

BFL13 wrote:
An inverter draws amp hours from the battery bank. A high amp item can only be run for a short time, but a low amp item can be run for a long time for the amp-hours. A crock pot is a slow cooker--high amps, long time. Not good.

I'm not sure that all crock pots fall into "high amp"? I have a small 6qt, it draws a few hundred watts on high. Certainly not the draw of an electric kettle, microwave or toaster.

I run mine sitting on the floor of the trailer while towing quite often, it works really nice to have dinner ready when the day's drive is done.

An inverter draws amp hours from the battery bank. A high amp item can only be run for a short time, but a low amp item can be run for a long time for the amp-hours. A crock pot is a slow cooker--high amps, long time. Not good.

"Gee, if I had a 400 lb pro-wrestler son-in-law, just think of how much help he could be with the chores"

A monster cheapo pseudo sine wave inverter would be like the pro wrestler. He'd pick up your refrigerator and empty it onto his plate and after finding out you need a stake bed truck to grocery shop you would rue the day you went the route of overkill.

Inverters have a specification that shows their efficiency at different levels of loading. And I have news for you. An inverter that is loaded to ten percent of it's capacity is like that pro-wrestler.

It would be better to size a RELIABLE BRAND of pure sine wave inverter to take the combined load of both appliances then add 30% for start up of the freezer.

A poor choice can DOUBLE the drain on your batteries.

Example my then $1,800 Trace inverter demands 410 watts max from my battery bank to run an older PC computer the girls use for the x-box.

It was damaging my sense of calm rationality.

I substituted a SAMLEX 300 watt pure sine wave inverter and whoopee, the battery drain is now 88 watts.

How much energy ($$$$$$$$) this has saved in five years, scares me.

Thank you, just edited my post. 2000 watt.