Coffee maker off inverter and battery in a truck camper

[jaycocreek]

We all like our coffee and a recent post about using a coffee maker and an inverter with 100 AH battery got some negative opinions about if it even would work.

So I did the test with a 1002 Watt hour battery and a 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter..This battery has less watt hours than a 100 AH battery..The Jackery has 1002 watt hours and a 100 AH battery has 1200 watt hours.

This is the new coffee pot I bought to use in my TC..Mr. Coffee 5-Cup Programmable Coffee Maker, 25 oz. Mini Brew, Brew Now or Later, Black..So here it goes!

I charged big Jack to 100% for the test..



I plugged in the pot and took the reading on how many watts it was pulling..539 watts and it never went over that at any time..



6 minutes later I had four cups of hot coffee made and it only used 6% of the 1002 watt hour battery..



And the clock on the coffee machine shows the time it took to brew up a pot..



I hope this helps someone who like me,likes a hot pot of coffee out of a coffee maker..No generator required with an Inverter and a good battery..

Next test is with a 3qt Instapot off the same setup..Don't take me wrong,I like my little generators but sometimes there a pain and noisy pulling a big load for there rating.

[2oldman]

naturist wrote:
when your most limited power source is an 80 AH battery, propane, either to run a percolator on your range top or a French press makes a lot more sense.

We all know how to make coffee now, which is kinda beside the point. I think it's commendable the OP had the wherewithal to do this. I certainly learned something. The only other test I might want to see is a not-so-new battery after a night's usage.

I'm bookmarking this thread for the next guy who wants to invert his coffee..or his toast, or whatever else may be similar.

[naturist]

2oldman wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
Making a pot of coffee off your battery is not the end of the world.

Nope, we just thought it was the end of the battery.

Yup.

The original poster of the most recent inquiry of which I am aware was thinking about a coffee maker on an 80 AH (ie, 960 WH) flooded cell lead acid battery using a 2,000 watt inverter. Such a battery is capable of at most 480 WH of power before you start drastically shortening its useful life. The combination of that battery, that inverter, and a coffee maker is, um, less than ideal.

Just for what it is worth, there is nothing magical about electric coffee makers. And when your most limited power source is an 80 AH battery, propane, either to run a percolator on your range top or a French press makes a lot more sense. You can do either of these for around $30 and have coffee out the yin-yang several times a day, every day until the cows come home. Or you can upgrade your battery, buy an inverter, spend your $500 more or less and use that electrical coffee maker to your heart's content. Your money, your choice. Choose wisely.

[2oldman]

mkirsch wrote:
Making a pot of coffee off your battery is not the end of the world.

Nope, we just thought it was the end of the battery.

[mkirsch]

If it's any consolation, I understand your point here: Making a pot of coffee off your battery is not the end of the world.

[adamis]

I like another poster don't drink coffee but my wife does. On our recent road trip she even bought the smallest coffee maker at Walmart because she doesn't like to use the French Press.

We actually have a great real world example of the abilities of these batteries. To start with, we have 200w of solar on the roof coupled to a 100AH Battle Born LiFePo battery. I also have a 2000w inverter wired up with some very short and very thick cables.

Our usage was determined by our twin girls who needed milk about every four hours. We had two bottle warmers (but for space reasons eventually just used a single warmer) that pulled about 350 watts each. Each bottle required about 4 minutes of heating. That is 8 minutes times 5 feeds per day. The wife also ran her coffee maker once per day and that was somewhere around 500w I think for maybe 7 minutes. That is 47 minutes a day of heavy draw on the battery and we did this for nearly three weeks straight. We only had one time where the camper battery got low on us and required use of the DC to DC charger from the truck (normally not connected for reasons behind this post). We did stay at sites with hookups when possible but it wasn't all th time.

My take away is these heavy loads work just fine on a good battery. I think I will add another 200w of solar to help with charging as I think in cloudy or shady conditions, the panels would have a tough time keeping up. Note that because we had hookups from time to time, our experience isn't the same as someone boondocking for three weeks but then I don't think many other people are warming two bottles every four hours in addition to their coffee.

[time2roll]

jaycocreek wrote:

2oldman wrote:
Excellent.. good job. My only question would be that a battery doesn't usually rest at 13.1 volts. And as another poster suggested, your battery isn't going to be freshly charged in the morning.

Anyway, good work.

I had just taken the battery off of my Noco Genious 10 charger/maintainer so that's probably why on that..And I do things differently than most,my TC only came with one battery so I keep a fresh group 27 as the house battery and I have stand alone batteries I use for TV/Movies/cpap/charging phones and laptops and my Engel compressor refer/freezer..

I use the motobat agm in a smart battery box for the engel cooler and the jackery for all other stuff because it is portable and at 22 pounds,easy to put wherever I want it or need it, in the TC.

So you have 3 batteries? Of course that works fine.

[Kayteg1]

Talking about used batteries.
In the past my bus conversion had 4 golf-cart batteries for house bank.
At the time I was making 1l of coffee (over a quart) every morning, we used the power for water pump (decent showers with 100 gallons tanks) and old-fashion lights with fridge and w/h control boards.
The batteries needed recharging on day 3 or 4. I had $2600 inverter/charger in the bus, who was doing excelent job and in 12 years I remember adding water to batteries twice.

[jaycocreek]

2oldman wrote:
Excellent.. good job. My only question would be that a battery doesn't usually rest at 13.1 volts. And as another poster suggested, your battery isn't going to be freshly charged in the morning.

Anyway, good work.

I had just taken the battery off of my Noco Genious 10 charger/maintainer so that's probably why on that..And I do things differently than most,my TC only came with one battery so I keep a fresh group 27 as the house battery and I have stand alone batteries I use for TV/Movies/cpap/charging phones and laptops and my Engel compressor refer/freezer..

I use the motobat agm in a smart battery box for the engel cooler and the jackery for all other stuff because it is portable and at 22 pounds,easy to put wherever I want it or need it, in the TC.

[2oldman]

Excellent.. good job. My only question would be that a battery doesn't usually rest at 13.1 volts. And as another poster suggested, your battery isn't going to be freshly charged in the morning.

Anyway, good work. And now we know another 50 ways to make coffee.

[jaycocreek]

JimK-NY wrote:
The logic of all of this just eludes me. The Melitta is overpriced at $10. But it appears that an alternative is a 110v coffee pot with a $1000 lithium power supply.

I don't understand..Yes.the first test was done with a $1000 Jackery power station with a built in 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter but the second test was done with a group 24 agm battery(brand new thids year $200) I already had in the TC and a very old inefficient $39 Coleman inverter..

Yes,there are other ways to make coffee..I have three percolators and a pour over just like yours only porcelain. The wife prefers coffee from a coffee maker and if the truth was told,I do too..The coffee maker was $17 from Walmart yesterday,so that price is not bad in my opinion..

We all have choices including how we like our coffee..I just showed how most can use a coffee maker with an inverter..I used that old inefficient Coleman for the test because that was all I had over 500 watts..I am looking hard for a 1000 watt pure sine wave but have not decided yet on which one to get.

[jimh406]

I was more thinking this was more about if you are going to have an inverter of big enough size any way, you could also run a coffee maker.

Fwiw, I bought a 2000 watt inverter with the thought that I could run a 900 watt heater if I really had to for a little while, but usually just use the 300 watt for tv/etc. With modern TVs/DVDs even 300 more than enough.

Still, this thread is interesting to me.

[valhalla360]

jimh425 wrote:
Interesting that the mini pot uses so little power. I guess all of the power usage charts need to be updated. 😄 I usually boil water and then use a pour through filter. That works for me since I rarely drink more than one cup in the AM.

Not just the mini-pot.

We just have a cheap old Mr. Coffee and it's rated at 600w (50amp @ 12v). Never plugged it in to verify actual wattage but very much in line with what the OP found.

100amp-hr 12v battery holds 1200 watt-hr.

600w for say 10min is 100 watt-hr used or about 8% of battery capacity (and this is conservative based on the OPs test numbers).

Obviously, needs to consider what else is running but that's well within the capability of a modest battery bank and inverter.

[JimK-NY]

The logic of all of this just eludes me. The Melitta is overpriced at $10. But it appears that an alternative is a 110v coffee pot with a $1000 lithium power supply.

[BurbMan]

Good info and thanks for posting those details!

[jaycocreek]

2oldman wrote:

jaycocreek wrote:
Everything is changing and effecting responses to questions on this forum..And why I did this post as several said it could not be done, to someone who asked about an inverter with a coffee maker and it changed the ops mind,unfortunately!.

I'm glad I told that poster that a lithium could quite possibly do it.

You should try this with a acid battery. Nobody is going to have a Jackery.

Be glad too...

I have a Motobat Group 24 90 AH battery and I thought I had a 750 Watt inverter,don't know where that went so I went to the garage and got my ancient 1200 watt Coleman..

The battery in the battery box hooked up to the inverter(The big wires lol)..



My ancient Coleman inverter.



Freshly charged agm battery shows 13.1 volts but when I plugged it in without a load,it showed 12.9 volts..





Plugged it into Mr Coffee and again it took 6 minutes for it to finish..I already had my coffee so I just ran water through it.



After the coffee was made, my Motobat Group 24 showed 12.7 volts left still hooked up to the inverter and power on,I then shut everything off and the agm battery popped up to 12.8 volts left in it..





So the moral of this story is..Yes, a battery and inverter can run a coffee maker and battery type does not matter as I showed, a lithium(Big Jack/Jackery 1000 Lithium) and a lead acid(Motobat) group 24/90 AH both making the coffee..The op in the other thread had a 100 AH group 27 battery while mine is only 90 AH and a group 24 battery.

Running the lead acid group 24 battery had 12.8 left in it to use on whatever or the doubters could say it only had 12.7 left but that was with a minor load,the 12.8 was with no load after the test..