Couple of Inverter Questions

There is no specific answer available on your question, but if this helps consider,,,,
2 12 volt batteries likely 85 Amp hr each so 170 total.
You shouldnt let batteries go below 50% charge so 85 available.
2.5 amp hr use for fridge,
So possible 34 hrs use for fridge alone,,,, but
You then mention the additional uses of boom box, phone chargers, I assume lights, water pump, TV and the booster, and all the small phantom loads.
So you make the call as to how much to shorten your time from the 34 hrs, nobody else can really tell you, but yeah, after day 1 you will have to run the genny a few hours a day at best.

That's 2.5 amps at 120 volts- more like 30 amps at 12 volts, so like 3 hours, using the above figures.

Chris Bryant wrote:
That's 2.5 amps at 120 volts- more like 30 amps at 12 volts, so like 3 hours, using the above figures.

Thanks both for the replies.

Yes - forgot to convert back to 12V.

They are 109 amp-hour batteries. And yeah, with the other phantom loads probably a lot less time available. I guess long story short I shouldn't depend on the inverter for the fridge. The TV is LED, and the satellite receiver can't draw much...but it all adds up. The big draw would be the fridge, which I'm thinking I'm going to forget about. I'll just run the generator if the propane fails.

The inverter on with no load will draw 1 to 2 amps from the battery.

From what you describe a 300 watt inverter would have worked just fine. Really need 4+ batteries to properly drive 2000 watt inverter close to capacity.

The lights do not work right because either the MSW, split potential to ground, or no neutral/ground bond.

Fridge on battery? Not long, maybe 3 to 5 hours.

Good time to review your battery charging system. A few converters will charge in 2 to 4 hours while most take 8 to 24+ hours to charge the battery.

Your owner's manual will say its idle draw.

This tutorial may be of some help to figure this stuff out: 12v side of life.

Hi,

Sounds as if it may be a MSW (modified sine wave) inverter. Hence the circuit for powering the led lights on the octopus cord don't work.

For the small stuff get a 300 watt PSW inverter. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE MSW INVERTER WITH APPLE PRODUCTS.

If you have a battery charger, I would drag it along and use it in conjunction with the converter to reduce generator run time for battery charging.

Have a great time at the races.

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

Sounds as if it may be a MSW (modified sine wave) inverter. Hence the circuit for powering the led lights on the octopus cord don't work.

For the small stuff get a 300 watt PSW inverter. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE MSW INVERTER WITH APPLE PRODUCTS.

If you have a battery charger, I would drag it along and use it in conjunction with the converter to reduce generator run time for battery charging.

Have a great time at the races.

Thanks! It is a cheap MSW inverter. I do have a battery charger but I didn't bring it. We had a great time. This is our 4th time out and the weather got worse each year, culminating with a microburst last year that nearly toppled the camper and sent sheets of sideways rain shooting through every vent and crevice on the rig. But - this weekend was near perfect. We had a little rain early Saturday morning and that was it.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand. I ran the fridge on propane all 3 days. I couldn't get the ignitor to stop igniting at first. After a few hours of click click clicking, the wire started to melt. I repositioned the probe and tightened a loose connection and it was fine. So that removed a big part of the electric equation.

time2roll made a comment about a 300 watt inverter. I forgot I had one - I found it in a cabinet just before we left. It powered the boom box, phone chargers, satellite receiver and TV - *almost* all at once. I got an over-voltage alarm when I first fired up the TV but it didn't shut off. Removing the boom box made it happy again.

I ran everything off that little inverter - never got the big one out. On the 2nd day the girls needed to run hair dryers and whatnot so I fired up the generator. The batteries had only gotten down to 3/4 and that put them back up to 100%. And this is obviously after use beyond just the inverter like lights (I've gone 100% LED), water pump, bathroom fans, etc. When I left yesterday they were 3/4 again. I fired up the generator anyway because I wanted to run the rooftop A/C on the way home.

So long story short, there's a decent amount of electrical capacity when being sensible about what I'm using it for. I guess using the fridge on 120V was never a realistic option with my setup, and I'm glad I didn't try.

Thanks all!

One word SOLAR!
Mel

Mel B. wrote:
One word SOLAR!
Mel

Yes I'm going to look into that next. I've had some success at home with outdoor surveillance cameras and a 100W panel charging a smallish 12V battery. I have a stepdown transformer to go from 12V to 5V for the USB. I'd have to do the math on my boondocking usage, but I'm thinking that 100W panel would keep the batteries charged with our somewhat limited usage.

Hi turbojimmy, You may wish to surf here: https://freecampsites.net/adding-solar/