Power supply & Power inverter for boondocking
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RoyB wrote:
A 3000WATT load will drain around 250AMPS @ 12.2VDC from your battery bank. Thats a bunch... I imagine the 3000WATT Inverters will require a 400AMP protection fuse be installed between the Inverter and the battery.. You will need a bunch of batteries to sustain this.
We camp alot off the power grid and our biggest load of course is between 8PM and 11PM watching HDTV etc... We use a 600WATT PSW Inverter. We do just about everything we do at regular electric sites except no air conditioner or no high wattage microwave when camping off the power grid.
We will draw around 20AMPS for these three hours from our 255AH battery setup. This along with the usual 1AMP or so draw for parasitic drains all day long will run down our battery bank to around 12.0VDC (approx 50% state of charger) by 8AM the next morning. This is when we will re-charge it back up to its 90% charge state by connecting the 30AMP shore power cable directly to our 2KW Honda Generator. Using smart-mode charging technology this will take around three hours to do which fits into the times allowed by most boondocking camp grounds to run a generator.
We can do these 50% to 90% charge cycles with our battery bank for 12-14 days before we must re-charge the batteries back up to their 100% charge state otherwise it will start doing damage to our batteries. Using the 2KW Honda generator to re-charge to the 100% charge state will take around 12-13 hours which most boondocking camp grounds will not allow you to run the generator this long of time here on the East side of the US so this is usually when we head for the house.
Of course all of this does not include use of Air Conditioning or high wattage microwave.
Usually lots of shade so don't miss the air conditioner anyway...
Roy Ken
Roy, what exactly are you running for a battery set up? Two group 27's or two Trojan 6V golf cart batteries? How many amps at 120v are you drawinng while charging the batteries for 3 hours? Is a Honda EU2000i mandatory to charge your battery system, or would a Honda Eu1000I get the job done?
How long idling a V6 TDI with a 185amp /hr alternator would it take to bring those batteries up to 100% charge every 12-14 days?
