? power surge with inverter?

[barngal]

I'm a new camper owner and admittedly don't know alot of stuff yet.
We have what I was told is a power inverter installed on the floor of our camper under a cabinet.
I tried using it to charge my phone (the gen was running; I think the gen needs to run for the inverter to work?)
The phone continuously turned on and off, so the power was not being supplied consistently.

Please can someone tell me how this is supposed to work? I havent tried running a vaccum cleaner or anything from it yet...
thanks

[Freep]

In general, the generator is used to either run the microwave, run the air conditioner or charge the batteries. A separate inverter will allow you to use AC rather than DC appliances and it will likely drain your batteries faster.

Do you have a solar panel on your TC?

Do you plan to do any cold weather camping?

[barngal]

Great info thanks!
I will try plugging in a light or something, or just trying to charge from an outlet with a usb converter.

I will report back how it goes, thanks again

[naturist]

Kayteg1 wrote:
Whole idea of having inverter is so you can have 120V without running generator.
Obviously it comes with limit.
Why your charger was coming on/off might be what was explained above, but most of phone chargers go with USB outlet, meaning 5V.
You can buy small 12/USB adapter for pennies.

X2

[Sam_Spade]

Kayteg1 wrote:
Whole idea of having inverter is so you can have 120V without running generator.

Or to put that a different way......IF you are plugged into shore power OR have the generator running.....there is NO need for an inverter.

IF you have mostly the stock configuration that came with the RV, there is little need for an inverter.....because you probably will need to run the generator a couple of times a day for a couple of hours just to recharge the batteries. With just a small amount of planning ahead, you can also charge your phones, cook breakfast, cool down the beadrooms for night time, etc. at the same time.

It's pretty obvious that he doesn't understand what he is dealing with......but we've all been there at one time, to some degree.

[Freep]

Also depending on the setup, the generator itself will have an inverter so simultaneously running the generator and using another inverter could have weird results since the generator is charging the battery.

Try using the inverter without the generator running to see if you get any power from it. Something small like a fan or a lamp is an ideal appliance to test.

You're going to learn a lot about truck campers and their systems. 🙂

[towpro]

I have an android (uses a different charge standard) and wife has Iphone (uses standard USB charge standard) I bought one of these
bottom jack for android (quick charge 2) top jack for Iphone or any other USB device.

this skips any inverter as your charging direct from 12V batteries.

[time2roll]

Some phones do not like modified sine wave.
May was well post the brand and model number of the inverter for best answers.

[HMS_Beagle]

You need to find the documentation for the inverter, but here's my guess: many inverters have a "power save" mode which cycles the 110V power on and off. It does this looking for a load to power. If it doesn't see enough load, it shuts down again for a period of time (a few seconds). It does this to save power when nothing is plugged in. Your phone charger has a very low load, not enough to tell the inverter to stay on. Try plugging something more in (a table lamp would do), then try the phone charger also. It should now stay on.

Of course that isn't a good solution to charging the phone. But most inverters have a setting to turn the power saving feature off as well. Then it will power the outlets regardless of load as long as the inverter is on. The downside is the constant draw on the batteries is higher (this is referred to as "idle current" in the inverter specs.).

[barngal]

Thanks for the info. I'll try it from the batteries and usb.
And I'll figure out how to add my sig 🙂

[Kayteg1]

Whole idea of having inverter is so you can have 120V without running generator.
Obviously it comes with limit.
Why your charger was coming on/off might be what was explained above, but most of phone chargers go with USB outlet, meaning 5V.
You can buy small 12/USB adapter for pennies.

[Freep]

As a rule of thumb, power everything you can from DC(battery). Especially small electronics like phones.

It would help to know the year and model of your truck camper.

Electronics turning on and off while using an inverter is a symptom of having a modified sine wave inverter rather than a pure sine wave inverter.

[Sam_Spade]

YIKES !!

You need to have someone who is familiar with the equipment LOOK at it and tell you exactly what it IS and what it can be used for.

A real inverter takes 12 V battery power IN and produces 120 VAC out.
It kind of replaces the generator or shore power for SMALL appliances.
The generator does NOT need to be running.......if it really is an inverter.....but the 12 V batteries do need to be in place and functioning.

You NEED a multimeter to make basic tests on things like this.