I have traveled for many years in RVs and always have hated generators. Many of us escape to the out-of-doors to relax and for some peace and quiet. Generators ruin the experience for me. I am relatively high tech and can run everything I need on battery power.
Over view of running on batteries.
Most RVs today run the essentials on 12 volt battery power. Adding any 110 volt device will require a power inverter. Today’s 12 volt DC to 110 volt AC power inverters are quiet, inexpensive, about 85% efficient and easy to use.
Selecting a power inverter.
Begin at the end! How much power do I need to run all this stuff?
You will need to address two power issues.
Continuous power output (continuous watts of power).
Peak or surge power. All electronic device need an extra boost to get them stared. That boost is called peak power and lasts for mil-seconds. However that peak power must be addresses and an inverter selected that will handle that peak power.
Gather your power hungry devices and group them by task, e.g., to view a DVD you will need a DVD player and TV. Add up the total watts needed to run your devices (most devices list power requirements). If the power usage is listed in amps, multiply the amps times 110 volts (amps x volts = watts). Note the task with the largest watt usage. You will need an inverter that will output more power than the largest task.
What you have just done is to address the continuous power consumption of your devices. To find the peak power consumption you may need to go to the operator’s or owner’s manual. You will not be able to find the peak power listed for all devices. A good starting point is twice the rated watts but 4 times or more is possible.
When using more than one device at a time; turn the devices on one at a time beginning with the device with the highest PEAK power.
In my case the goal was to run a laptop (65w) and printer (20w) total 85 continuous watts.
Hey, why not watch some TV too! TV (54w) and VCR/DVD (30w) total 84 continuous watts. I like to listen to TV while using my laptop (169 w) but to prolong battery power I will do one at a time.
I could get by with a 100 watt inverter and use it to the max. I know better. So I went with a Black & Decker 400 watt 800 watt peak output inverter.
The saga begins!
I setup the inverter using the cigar lighter adapter supplied with the inverter. I plugged in a fan and it worked. I unplugged the fan and plugged in the TV. The internal circuit protection feature shutdown the unit. I did not even turn the TV on. Must be a faulty unit…right? Returned it and same thing happened with the new unit. Conclusion; this inverter is not compatible with the TV. Returned it.
Purchased a Die Hard 400 watt inverter. It was very noisy but did not shutdown…until I turned the TV on. Conclusion; my little 13” 54 watt TV peaks at more than 800 watts. I returned the Die Hard inverter.
As the Die Hard inverter was very noisy, I decided to go back to Black & Decker and I purchase a 750 watt inverter.
This 750 watt Black & Decker inverter did not come with a cigar lighter adapter but must be clamped directly to the battery. This unit was quiet and worked well; all I needed now was a table next to the battery for the TV and a lawn chair to sit on. Solution; make my own cigar lighter adapter. The inverter did not like my idea and shutdown when I tried to use it. It wanted nothing less than 8 gauge wires to feed it over the starting peak even though the continuous draw was only 54 watts. Working Solution; hard wire the 5th wheel with an 8 gauge direct battery feed to the inverter.
Moral of the story.
Get a larger inverter than you think you will need.
Use the largest wire possible for the Battery to Inverter connection.
Until the next post, don’t get your wires crossed!
OR_M
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