solar power for dry camping & cpap machine

12thgenusa wrote:
You need to ditch the idea of a 3k inverter. There is no way to power its capacity from a single battery. If you really need 3k watts you need a much larger battery bank, many more solar panels and a knowledgeable person to install it all properly for you.

A 600w inverter will power cpaps and computers.

12gen,
I am with you. I would like to go with a smaller inverter, then I could stow it in its own battery box with the controller. But If I did that, I would have to be really careful about what I plugged into my abundance of AC outlets in my trailer. And for that matter if someone turned on the Air conditioner, it would trip the inverter. Oh, and there is the microwave.

Whereas, if I go with something that will put out close to 30 Amp, 120 volt, then I would not have to be so careful. (my controller supports 4X100W panels). I plan to add a couple of more batteries and panels in the future. So I am thinking that making everything capable of supporting 30 Amp 12 Volt will be a better solution long term. I used to design and build IT, and we always had to be careful about bottlenecks. I don't want my inverter to be a bottleneck. Now my assumption has been that if I had the 3000W inverter plugged into a 12v 100amp/hour deep cycle rv battery ... and I ran the Air Conditioner, that it would drain the battery and do no harm. I saw a post from someone with a configuration similar to mine and that is what they said their did. If I am wrong, I would sure like to find out before hand! :)