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!
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.