Why won't my inverter put out?
I feel there should be a 'That's what she said' joke in here somewhere... I booked a camping site that I thought had hookups, but when I got here: no hookups. I needed more juice than my house ...
Forum Discussion
Does your multimeter measure amps? You really need to determine the charging current, before anything else.
Then, if you know the batteries are in fact being charged, then you can confirm (roughly) their state of charge, at rest, with an ocv (open circuit voltage) reading. Should be around 12.8-13v on a full bank; after the surface charge has been burned off, using a small load for a few minutes.
Next, you check each load, individually, only for about 10-30 seconds, noting how much peukert effect each load has on the bank at that particular soc.
Then start pairing loads to see the peukert effect.
This is where a power audit comes in real handy. A Kill-A-Watt meter is very helpful in this regard. It will tell you ac line voltage from inverter, amp and wattage draw of 120v loads, and even accumulated kilowatt hours consumed. All relative to your situation.
Then, if you know the batteries are in fact being charged, then you can confirm (roughly) their state of charge, at rest, with an ocv (open circuit voltage) reading. Should be around 12.8-13v on a full bank; after the surface charge has been burned off, using a small load for a few minutes.
Next, you check each load, individually, only for about 10-30 seconds, noting how much peukert effect each load has on the bank at that particular soc.
Then start pairing loads to see the peukert effect.
This is where a power audit comes in real handy. A Kill-A-Watt meter is very helpful in this regard. It will tell you ac line voltage from inverter, amp and wattage draw of 120v loads, and even accumulated kilowatt hours consumed. All relative to your situation.
