Is it possible to run 110 outlets off of the battery

[kandkbrand]

Hey everyone, I am very new to RVing as in November I purchased my first Trailer. We have taken it out a couple of times just to shake it down and see what is what. I have not had a chance to use the hot water heater or plumbing as I live in Colorado and will not de-winterize it until May. My question is about the electrical system. I know you can you lights, water pump, radio and such with the battery, but is there any way to use the 110 outlets in the trailer off of the battery. I understand that you can run a generator, but I was just wondering if there is a way to use the 110 outlets just with the batteries. Do i need to purchase an inverter to do this? Still trying to get my head around all aspects of the unit. Thanks for the help.

[time2roll]

Yes

Also need to disable the converter, make sure the fridge and water heater are set to propane only, A/C off, no microwave but the clock may run(or unplug).

Generally LCD tv is 30 to 75 watts same as laptop.

50 watt load is about 5 amps out of the battery.

[kandkbrand]

time2roll wrote:

kandkbrand wrote:
Do i need to purchase an inverter to do this?

Yes

Easy with 150 to 300 watts rated to run or charge small items.

Big stuff like coffee maker, hair dryer, microwave will need 2000+ rated watts and 4+ batteries to drive it.

Either way you need to then charge the battery with generator or solar.

I understand I can't run big things, but like a laptop or tv or something small. So with the inverter, would I just hook it up to the 2 batteries in the front of the trailer and run the 30amp power cable up to the front and plug into an adapter that fits into the inverter?

[RandACampin]

Yes you can get 110 from batteries.

[time2roll]

kandkbrand wrote:
Do i need to purchase an inverter to do this?

Yes

Easy with 150 to 300 watts rated to run or charge small items.

Big stuff like coffee maker, hair dryer, microwave will need 2000+ rated watts and 4+ batteries to drive it.

Either way you need to then charge the battery with generator or solar.

[Guy_Roan]

You asked a simple question, and the simple answer is no, you cannot get 120 volt outlets to operate just off your 12volt battery.

Guy

[azrving]

As said above, you will need an INverter to convert 12 volts dc to 120 volts ac. It takes a lot of battery to invert to large load appliances like a micro wave. Smaller 120 volt items like a television, laptop etc can be powered with much smaller INverters. It's all about putting together YOUR energy management plan. There is not one answer for all rvers. In short if you want to spend the least money and effort for limited camping you are probably better off to use a small generator to power the heavy loads. If you want to make life easy on yourself and not be considered a jerk, you will want to buy a quiet generator.

After that, if you want the ability to stay off grid longer on your general 12 volt items you may need to up grade the amount of battery capacity on hand. For example if your rig came with a group 24 marine/rv battery it is the smallest size available. Group 27, 29 and 31 go up in capacity. If a gp battery has 85 amp hour capacity only about half of a batteries amp rating is available for you to use or it will be too deeply discharged. When you use your 12 volt items they are pulling amps from the battery. Each item requires X amount of amp draw. If an item uses 2 amps and you run it for one hour you have used 2 Amp Hours out of your battery. If you ran that item for 20 hours it would use about 40 AH. It's common for an rv using it's propane frig to use about one or more amps to just sit there without turning on any other items. This means that an rv could discharge one group battery in a couple days. If you then start using lights, pump, tv, fans etc it could easily use that battery in one day. Some people who camp for a weekend could increase the battery bank and recharge when they get home.

If the same person wants to stay out and boondock they now need an efficient means of charging the battery. RV factory converters often dont provide the quicker charging that is needed when using the rigs CONverter and a generator. It common to replace the CONverter with a unit of higher charge voltage and sometimes higher amperage depending on how many batteries you have added.

LED bulbs are a good upgrade. Choosing a generator is divided into two basic sizes. If you ever want to run the AC it will usually require a somewhat larger model or you can sometimes modify the ac unit to be able to run on about a 2000 gen. 2000 watt is probably the most popular size. There is a lot of reading on here about that issue.

[Y-Guy]

There is a whole lot to understand about batteries, inverters and what you need. You can run things through an inverter from your battery but you really need more then one battery and you need a way to replenish the battery bank. Some good comments already posted, you can search for more topics too.

Here is a good resource to learn about batteries and your RV power.

12volt Side of life

[jplante4]

OP. Welcome to the forum and RVing. If you go to the top of the page and select MyForums->MyPreferences, you can put the description of your TT in your signature and it will be added to your posts. That will help other members to answer any questions you have.

[RedRocket204]

kandkbrand,

As mentioned, it would be best to understand what it is that you are wanting to run via 110 AC. Something like a coffee maker uses a lot of amps to run so trying to just use an inverter with your current batteries is not necessarily your best option.

If you are planning on boondocking multiple days, you will need a way to recharge the batteries. You mentioned a generator. That is very common but beware if you are planning on boondocking multiple days at altitude here in CO, you will need to look into what your needs are for amp usage and then increase the generator size to compensate for the decrease in generator power when at altitude, say altitude at around 9000'. For an example, I have a Champion 2000W (starting watts) generator and when I run it at 9000', it will not run my coffee maker, so forget trying to run a microwave too. I would need two of those generators running in parallel to run that coffee maker. Could I run my air conditioner at 9000' with that combo, unknown at this point.

Solar is a great way to go but you also need to size that appropriately too. That means a good amount of solar panels along with an adequate battery bank, charge controller, inverter, etc.

Just some additional concerns to think about.

[fitznj]

If you purchase an inverter, you can connect this to your battery and then connect your 110V "shore" power cable to the inverter.

HOWEVER......
- You have to figure out the size of inverter - don't expect it to run the AC or other high power consumer items.
- Your battery will be depleted very quickly

What 110V items do you need? I rub if 12v most of the time except deep winter when I run a 1500W electric heater to keep warm

[evanrem]

Inverter is what you will need and depending on how long and often you boondock you may need multiple batteries. In turn you will need a generator to charge them backup if out for multiple days or using alot of power.

[troubledwaters]

You will get 12V only off the battery. Your lights, water pump, furnace, stove, refrig, and water heater will all work off 12V. Your Air Conditioner, microwave and outlets all require 120V, which won't work off the battery unless you install an inverter. In 12V mode your water heater is actually running off of propane and your refrig is running off of propane but needs 12V for the controls.

And also note, one cold night running the furnace will probably deplete your battery. We can get about a week running off our battery providing we don't run the furnace, and any lights or anything unnecessarily (and that is using lanterns and portable battery operated lights mostly and saving the house battery as much as possible).