Thinking of going solar...
I have a 2000w inverter and currently have a small panel on the roof to keep the batteries from topped up I guess when not plugged in. I have a home business so I've not really considered this until n...
Forum Discussion
Joel_T wrote:
The 6v vs 12v answer is up for grabs...that's a whole separate thread. Generally speaking though, actually specifically speaking, true deep cycle house batteries with few exceptions, are 6v. Marine batteries and 12v batteries are not. They all come with different amperage ratings with 6v tending to have more capacity.
You likely have a converter/charger (not converter/inverter) that your shore cord is wired to. It feeds all your 120v circuits. It converts the 120v to 12v to feed all your 12v circuits. It also charges or maintains to some extent your 12v batteries. That charger has a breaker you must turn off if your using your inverter for 120v circuits. Your batteries feed your 12v circuits. Your inverter inverts the batteries 12v to 120volts to feed whatever 120v circuits the inverter is wired to.
You need (I think) a battery monitor that will tell you how many amps are going in or out of your batteries and the state of charge percentage ...50 percent 100 percent or whatever. That way you know when to charge or when to ease up on use or when you're in good shape and can live it up.
I have 2000w Xantrex Freedom Combi inverter/charger. The inverter fried once and the charger went with it. The charger is the only way (aside from the tiny panel on the roof) to charge the batteries in the rig. It was on life support for a while while I got that unit fixed (exterior battery charger).
I do have to light meters inside the rig in the control panel. On shows the current state of the battery charge (when I unplug is starts at 13.5 then slowly drops) and the other shows "DC Amps". Still trying t figure out if that's how much I'm drawing or how many amps (or amp hours?) are available.
