Journey Inverters for our Journey 19-61.3

Check out the wattage of your microwave - our 3000w inverter won't drive the standard microwave in our Sterling 21'!

We have a Genpower 2500/5000w pure sinewave inverter permanently mounted. Cheap, cheap and been working fine for 4 years

Purchased a pure sine wave of ebay (1500W) - runs microwave ok and find best result if you run microwave at 50% (which is just a duty cycle)
PS - we have the sphere microwave - 900W I think.

slachlan said:

Thanks @Crusty181 can I ask what you can run off that? Simple install?

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Sorry @slachlan, didnt see the question. Hairdryer and microwave, and i have started the aircon ... just to see if it would roll that over.

Pure Sine Wave inverter is the one to buy. Also there is two trains of thought with inverters. One is; buy a real good quality one (Victron, Redarc, Enerdrive) and they will be able Start and run the rated wattage. The second train of thought is; buy a cheapy off ebay and hope it has enough copper in it, to do the rated wattage. Its hard to know which way to go, but you could probably buy three of the cheapy ebay ones, for one "Quality" one.

slachlan said:

Thanks @Crusty181 can I ask what you can run off that? Simple install?

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Very simple install

Crusty181 said:

Very simple install

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Crusty 181, did you earth the inverter in any way? Some discussions elsewhere are between earthing and not earthing. Just thinking of an inverter but not yet decided about earthing - likely to be a eBay cheapie as it will not get a lot of use.

Dozer54 said:

Crusty 181, did you earth the inverter in any way? Some discussions elsewhere are between earthing and not earthing. Just thinking of an inverter but not yet decided about earthing - likely to be a eBay cheapie as it will not get a lot of use.

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Mines not earthed, short of belting a rod into the ground im not sure how to achieve that. Maybe its a potential issue, but im 100% sure no-one ever grounds thier generators and ive not ever heard of a death associated with either due to lack of grounding. I usually fake a broken arm and alway try to get a grey gonad thats wandering past to switch the inverter on and off ... just in case. @Drover? You busy?

I found this solution on the InterGoogleWeb

They haven't wet the dirt, give a poor earth at the moment.

Crusty181 said:

We have a Genpower 2500/5000w pure sinewave inverter permanently mounted. Cheap, cheap and been working fine for 4 years

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Thanks Crusty - I have bought a 1500/3000w pure sinewave inverter and have twin 100 ah batteries in my Journey. Do I need to upgrade the wiring connecting each battery to the other?

Ollie

@peter olson have a read of this article , https://caravanchronicles.com/guides/how-to-connect-two-batteries-in-parallel/

it shows the correct way to have your batteries connected so you will get maximum from them and also allow them to charge fully.....use of appropriate sized cable is a must.

peter olson said:

Thanks Crusty - I have bought a 1500/3000w pure sinewave inverter and have twin 100 ah batteries in my Journey. Do I need to upgrade the wiring connecting each battery to the other?

Ollie

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Hey Ollie, replacement would depend on the size you already have. A 240v appliance with the losses consumed by the inverters conversion will require close enough to 10% of the 240v appliance's Watts in Amps from the battery. ie a 1200w microwave will require 120amps from your batteries. Your inverter is 1500w max continuous power with 3000w spike, at say startup. Constant draw above 1500w will trip the overload (at least you hope it does) So running the max 1500w appliance will pull 150amps from your batteries, you should now be seeing running a 1500w appliance from 2 x 100amp batteries for any extended period isn't ideal and will hammer your batteries mercilessly and substantial reduce there capacity and life expectancy, but thats a seperate issue and something just to bear in mind.

150amp from the batteries over a relatively short distant would require a cable size of B&S 1 (7mm core diameter), although you'll likely get away with B&S 2 (6.5mm core diameter) if your only using it on lighter loads ... both big sucker of big car starter battery cable kinda size. The cable between the batteries should be bigger than the cable to the inverter, you don't want the resistance to be between the batteries

Download this Redarc cable gauge. Its a little under-welmed for your question, but its generally a very handy reference to have

slachlan said:

Hi Everyone

Getting a little restless waiting for late October delivery to come around and have found myself investigating many mods! haha

Started looking into inverters so we can run some small appliances like the coffee machine or maybe the microwave when we’re on battery/solar.

Does anyone have any advice? Size of inverter, type of inverter, etc....
Maybe any other advice surrounding this also

Thanks in advance!

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Hi all; First post, As with inverters, pure sine wave is the go and forget the rest, you are only asking for trouble if you want to use sensitive electronic equipment. I would go for over kill in the size of the inverter 3000/5000 watt in size.

The main problem is battery capacity and the wiring from your inverter to the battery. Expect a draw of around 150 Amps with aload of that coffee machine or the microwave. 200/400 Ah of battery capacity ( lithium batteries would be great ) would be a minimum requirement and the wiring from the inverter to the batteries would look like welding cables and also have circuit breakers to mach.

The other thing is the weight of the batteries inside your caravan. Charging your house batteries would also be a issue and with the matching of the size of batteries to the capacity of your solar array ( panels ). Do you have the roof space ?? a fold up panel on the ground would also help

I just finish wiring up a mobile home ( bus ) for 12 volt requirements, a 5000 Watt pure sine wave inverter + a small 300 Watt inverter for running the main fridge and supplying 240 volts to the instant on demand gas hot water heater. That with 6 x 220 Ah agm batteries and 2000 watts of solar fitted onto the roof of the bus and a solar controller that also handles the capacity of the solar panels. Very heavy cabling, connectors, fuses, change over relay ( inverter to mains power installed by the local sparky that and along with all of the 240 Volt side of the wiring for the bus ) and a second alternator to charge the house batteries as the bus was 24 volt start and run. Battery mounts all add to the weight. Space was not a issue and all of the house batteries and equipment were mounted in one of the underfloor bins that this bus had. Volt /current and state of charge monitoring from voltage from the solar input to current drawn and to the current being supplied by the second alternator came next and was done with all of the meters down in the battery bin, Low voltage cut outs are also installed. We have not tried it as yet but it will be interesting to see id we can run the A/C from the inverter, start up current may be a issue though !! This bus will also have a 3000 Watt diesel backup generator just in case with remote start !!

Next on the ajender is fresh, gray and black water tanks and a couple pumps for water supply. That and a gas hot water heater.