Powering Your Camper With An Inverter?

[longislandcampe]

We are going dry camping next week and were interested in using an inverter. Sure, we've used a small inverter inside the camper using the 12V outlets to power things like a TV, a laptop, a CPAP, etc..... We'd like to take it to the next step so that we can get electric at all of our outlets.

I don't know the rating, but my brother has an inverter that will hook up directly with alligator clips to a separate large battery he is bringing. Is it as simple as clamping the inverter onto the separate (not the TT's) battery and then plugging the camper power cord into the inverter? If not, what else is required?

[mlts22]

An inverter is just a piece of a complete setup. The biggest limitation will be the ampere-hours on the batteries, followed by how one gets the batteries recharged, be it solar or a generator.

If you want to power the outlets, you need an inverter with a transfer switch. That way, when plugged into shore power, the inverter is switched out, and the outlets are directly connected to the incoming 120VAC.

Regardless of size, I'd probably pony up for a decent PSW model. MSW ones can cause things to run hotter or give strange/unknown malfunctions of appliances that are connected.

There are some workarounds though. I bought for fairly cheap a 20 amp/hour "external battery" from Amazon which puts out enough juice to charge up to six amps at once, with up to four devices. It definitely will charge an iPad and iPhone to full and keep them topped off over a weekend. I use this at night when I need to keep my phone charged, but don't want to run a 3000 watt generator to charge a phone which only accepts 1/2 an amp.

I wonder if one of the "power packs" which is a small battery, charger, and inverter would be something useful for the CPAP. Ideally, the best thing would be to have a CPAP that takes 8-12 hour batteries, and at least 3-4 of those, but those are fairly expensive.

[timjcarter9]

skipnchar wrote:
IF you're powering everything from your inverter you need to EITHER carry a truck load of batteries or be running your generator MUCH of the time. Might be easier of you need that much power to just run off of the generator and forget the inverter.

Don't think he said that. Just wants power at all outlets.

So op be sure to know what you want to power. The less the better. If you can get away with a 300 - 400 watt inverter life is much easier.

[Mremdal33]

You probably need to put a list together of what you want to run, then itemize the stuff that will be in use at the same time. Then make sure you have the right inverter to run all that gear. You may want to read through this article on choosing a RV inverter. It has a table with how much amps and watts common items use.

[skipnchar]

IF you're powering everything from your inverter you need to EITHER carry a truck load of batteries or be running your generator MUCH of the time. Might be easier of you need that much power to just run off of the generator and forget the inverter.

[Peg_Leg]

Try it at home in the driveway first. You don't want the Cpap running out of juice at 2 AM. My 2000 watt inverter use up 2 amps just being turned on. One fully charged battery will only make 2 1/2 pots of coffee before it shuts down with the low voltage alarm.

[timjcarter9]

Sandia Man wrote:
When plugging the shore power cord into an inverter, it will provide 120VAC to your entire rig. You will want to turn off breakers to your converter, AC, and even microwave oven as these will require an extra large battery bank and a sizable inverter. Additionally, fridge and water heater should be set to propane mode to keep from running your battery bank down quickly.

Exactly right and what I do. First turn off the breakers, put the fridge and hot water on gas, then plug in shore power to inverter. Works like a charm.

I have even done this with my 300 watt tailgating rig. 300 watts is plenty when used this way.

[ktmrfs]

your better off running the CPAP off the battery if it has a 12V input, it will draw significantly less watts on 12V than the inverter.

[Sandia_Man]

When plugging the shore power cord into an inverter, it will provide 120VAC to your entire rig. You will want to turn off breakers to your converter, AC, and even microwave oven as these will require an extra large battery bank and a sizable inverter. Additionally, fridge and water heater should be set to propane mode to keep from running your battery bank down quickly.

I have both a large whole rig inverter and a smaller 350 watt inverter for our entertainment center and can say that it is rare that we use the whole rig inverter with all the precautions that need to be taken.

When drycamping or boondocking, We use our genny for high current items mentioned above and the smaller entertainment center inverter for HD sat dish and receiver, HDTV, DVD, Laptops, and video game systems.

[longislandcampe]

smkettner wrote:
That is all there is to it. Just don't expect to run the air conditioner. Also the inverter will burn a lot of power running the fridge on 120v (300w), the electric water heater (1440w), and the converter charging your existing battery. Best to put the items on propane or turn them off.

Nope, no intentions of running the fridge, air or water heater using the inverter.

We'd really just be using the devices I posted above and also possibly a small fan if we get stuck inside on a rainy day.

[longislandcampe]

We used this method last year in our small hybrid and it worked well because all the devices we wanted to use reached the inverter location without a problem. Now that we have a larger camper, it's not so easy to run things because then we'd need to run some extension cords.

We'd like to power the TV in the living room. We also need to power a cpap in the bedroom at night but there's no way to do that since there are no 12V outlets in the bedroom. Sure, we can use the inverter being used by the TV in the living room but then we're running extension cords down the hall. Lastly, charging a phone and ipad is much easier since we don't have the 12V adapters for those devices.

[time2roll]

That is all there is to it. Just don't expect to run the air conditioner. Also the inverter will burn a lot of power running the fridge on 120v (300w), the electric water heater (1440w), and the converter charging your existing battery. Best to put the items on propane or turn them off.

[hmknightnc]

Before we can provide you some real answers we need a little more information. You are already successfully using an inverter to power the stuff most people use them for. What are you looking to power by changing this method?