Plugging shore power into inverter

352W fridge on electric AC makes sense. That's why nobody runs them on inverter.

172W in converter can't be for just TV and thumb drive. Looks like he is charging the batteries and trying to estimate DC loads at the same time - possible thing to do, but not by measuring converter draw.

Almot wrote:

JRRNeiklot wrote:
Yep I did what I was afraid of, forgot to flip the breaker on the converter, It's drawing 172 watts on its own. I'm going to wire a big red switch up right on the wall so I won't forget. SO, the correct numbers are, with tv playing video, and the fridge running via ac, 2.99a or 352 watts, according to my kilowatt meter.

352 watt for TV and thumb drive? This is still abnormally high.
2.99A - is 12V DC or 110V AC? If it's 2.99A DC, then it's only 40 watt.

Fridge on electric. My fridge is rated at 300 watts AC, I'm not sure about OP's but a similar rating would make sense of the killawatt reading. OP mentions running fridge on electric rather than propane when he has the capacity to.

JRRNeiklot wrote:
Yep I did what I was afraid of, forgot to flip the breaker on the converter, It's drawing 172 watts on its own. I'm going to wire a big red switch up right on the wall so I won't forget. SO, the correct numbers are, with tv playing video, and the fridge running via ac, 2.99a or 352 watts, according to my kilowatt meter.

352 watt for TV and thumb drive? This is still abnormally high.
2.99A - is 12V DC or 110V AC? If it's 2.99A DC, then it's only 40 watt.

No need to use propane when solar is free and it is a PITA to refill a propane bottle. I often will use my electric kettle on inverter instead of a pot on the stove when there is sunshine to recharge the battery bank or I will be doing a generator/charger recharge anyway. It is easier to refill the generator than get propane in my case.

The OP is allowed to do whatever he likes--it is his rig.

ewarnerusa wrote:
I'm all for having excess capacity ...

There's "excess" and there's EXCESS, which is clearly what the OP has needlessly gotten himself into for the sole reason he wanted to include powering a microwave oven which is a hugely high draw appliance in that list of otherwise small draw items he has. :S RJsfishin is right on the money with his observation - "Your problem is that you really don't know how much battery power it takes to run 120v stuff that is really made to run on shore power. Then having said that, you don't have any idea how much charging power you will have to produce to replace all the power that you are going to consume if you power what you think you want to.

And to the OP, I never said you would draw 615 amps, merely that with that large amount of battery reserve any idle draw imposed by whatever inverter you choose will be insignificant in the overall scheme of things, regardless of how much or how little the inverter is drawing from that battery bank at any given time. You've got a gas absorption fridge but are running it on 120 vac shore power supplied by an inverter that in turn is supplied by a huge bank of SIX 12 volt batteries that in turn is relying on solar for recharging?! Why? :h Your fridge was designed to run on gas, use your battery reserve to power the fridge's electronics, just as it was intended to be used. Conserve your battery power for those items that absolutely require it and you wouldn't need anywhere near this amount of EXCESS battery reserve.

JRRNeiklot wrote:
...Edit: I just tried running the furnace fan (which I don't plan on doing) and the tv shuts down when accessing the semi smart features, though just watching over the air television seems to be okay. At this point, I think I'm going to return the inverter and opt for the 2000 watt version.

The furnace runs off of 12V DC only and the television on 120V AC. Operating the furnace shouldn't have any impact on the television, except for potentially creating a voltage drop that went low enough to trip the inverter on low input voltage. That seems unlikely on a 6 battery bank though. How is your inverter installed? Wire gauge? Wire length between inverter and batteries? How is it connected to that bank of 6 batteries?

Yes, the fridge will be on propane most of the time, but if I have the amp hours to spare and can keep my batteries above 50%, why not run it on electric now and again?

Almot wrote:

ewarnerusa wrote:
You installed 600+ Ah of battery and 500 watts of solar and that's all you run?!

If I read him correctly, he is already running a heck of loads:

"With the digital readout on the microwave, tv playing a movie off a thumb drive, and the fridge on, I'm pulling just under 600 watts".

600W is a lot. At this rate, his 600AH battery will drop to 50% in 6 hours. Can't be TV with thumb drive and standby MW with LED clock. Haven't read all 5 pages (I confess), but I don't understand where this 600W could come from. Is the fridge in 12V mode?

I was being a little silly for sure. But OP said, "I'm honestly not going to be running that much, I just wanted to be able to if the need arose,hence the large battery bank. I'll generally run the tv, maybe the fridge on occasion to save propane, a laptop, run a fan or two, and charge some usb stuff." That is what I was replying to. That sounds very similar to us and I have 1/3 the batteries and 1/2 the solar. I'm assuming the fridge on inverter AC was just a proof of concept test and that normally it would be on propane. I did read that it would be to save on propane, and I guess with that much battery and solar why not?

I'm all for having excess capacity, I've been a mouse click away from ordering two more panels several times because they are always on sale and I've got the controller capacity and roof space. But I don't have room for more batteries, or really a need for it. So I back away from the computer.....

Almot wrote:

ewarnerusa wrote:
You installed 600+ Ah of battery and 500 watts of solar and that's all you run?!

If I read him correctly, he is already running a heck of loads:

"With the digital readout on the microwave, tv playing a movie off a thumb drive, and the fridge on, I'm pulling just under 600 watts".

600W is a lot. At this rate, his 600AH battery will drop to 50% in 6 hours. Can't be TV with thumb drive and standby MW with LED clock. Haven't read all 5 pages (I confess), but I don't understand where this 600W could come from. Is the fridge in 12V mode?

Yep I did what I was afraid of, forgot to flip the breaker on the converter, It's drawing 172 watts on its own. I'm going to wire a big red switch up right on the wall so I won't forget. SO, the correct numbers are, with tv playing video, and the fridge running via ac, 2.99a or 352 watts, according to my kilowatt meter.

ewarnerusa wrote:
You installed 600+ Ah of battery and 500 watts of solar and that's all you run?!

If I read him correctly, he is already running a heck of loads:

"With the digital readout on the microwave, tv playing a movie off a thumb drive, and the fridge on, I'm pulling just under 600 watts".

600W is a lot. At this rate, his 600AH battery will drop to 50% in 6 hours. Can't be TV with thumb drive and standby MW with LED clock. Haven't read all 5 pages (I confess), but I don't understand where this 600W could come from. Is the fridge in 12V mode?