1000 Watt Converter (Inverter really) general questions

[TitanMike]

I thought it was law that chicken either be cooked in skillet or on bbq.[emoji16]

Originally Posted by Flybob

Yes for popcorn, but in OP he says" He was talking about cooking a chicken in the convection microwave!?!"

[Flybob]

Originally Posted by TitanMike

I thought it was law that chicken either be cooked in skillet or on bbq.[emoji16]

It is but remember this was a quote from an RV Salesman.

[chriscowles]

Originally Posted by TitanMike

... Two 2,000 watt units will add up about the same weight including the parallel kit so there's no savings on total weight. ...

If the weight of a single 3400 is manageable for you, great, but for some, it's not. While the total weight of dual 2200s may match that of a single 3400, the weight of a single 2200 may be manageable by someone who can't (or shouldn't) lift a 3400.

None of this is intended to be argumentative. We both are providing useful information for other readers who may not have that knowledge.

Judging from Mrprovy's response to my comments, his choices are well-considered.

[Hclarkx]

Originally Posted by Mrprovy

I'll be following as I will be picking up my 16BH in less than a month. My plan for it is to spend weekends on the beach during the summer in addition to some trips every year.

I'm already planning on a pair of 100ah lithium batteries, but not sure if I need to change anything else out in the unit or just drop them in; advice?

Also want to pick up a 3400w dual fuel inverter generator plus a soft start for the a/c.

I think we are hi-jacking the thread here but since this is related, I'll respond. Others have addressed generator size so I'll focus on the pair of 100 ah LFP batteries. They ARE drop-in but only physically from my experience. Because LFP voltage never drops down into the range of a 50% discharged lead-acid battery, your converter may never sense a low charge and so won't shift into bulk mode (its initial high current mode). You can plug the RV into your generator but you may only get 8 amps to the batteries (the second constant voltage stage) or maybe less in float mode (the third stage). As such getting 100 AH may take 12 hours. On my first outing with LFP, I learned this.

Do give it a try, see what your converter will do. Mine was typical I think, rated 35 amps (bulk) but never got over 8 with LFP. At 35A it still would have been three hours to get 100 AH. Painful even if it had worked. So, be prepared to change out the converter to one design for LFP or one with an LFP mode. And maybe one with a higher rating, maybe 50 or 60 amps. LFP can charge safely at currents well above what you would want to put on most lead-acid batteries. And be sure it is not a single mode LFP charger like some of the Progressive Dynamics ones. They will charge quickly but also will sit at 14.6 volts thereafter (floating) which is not good for LFP (and will void the warranty on some LFP batteries).

60 amps is about 800W so well within the capability of the generators others have recommended.

[Steve W indy]

1000W inverter pulling on a 12V source = 83 Amps

Yes, that's a bunch of amperage and it will melt undersized wires. You're gonna want at least 4 Gauge wire between the batt and inverter if you plan on max draw. Copper is not cheap. You want your inverter AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to your battery. If you upgrade the batteries and have to locate them 10 feet from the inverter, that's expensive and you'll have a voltage drop....

....just saying. You can DIY this pretty easily, but you have to use properly sized components.

https://www.bluesea.com/resources/1437

see amp length chart here

2 golf cart batteries are relatively cheap and get you close to maybe 200Ah, or a big honking marine 4D for about $350. That'll cook a turkey. 200AH divided by 83Amps is a little over 2 hours run time, but closer to 1.5hours. The 200Ah rating is a C/20, i.e. a 10Amp draw. An 80Amp draw might get you 100Ah or so, so a little over an hour. Make sure your inverter has a big heat sink or fan and it's not in an enclosed space.

[Hclarkx]

Originally Posted by Steve W indy

1000W inverter pulling on a 12V source = 83 Amps

Yes, that's a bunch of amperage and it will melt undersized wires. You're gonna want at least 4 Gauge wire between the batt and inverter if you plan on max draw. Copper is not cheap. You want your inverter AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to your battery. If you upgrade the batteries and have to locate them 10 feet from the inverter, that's expensive and you'll have a voltage drop....

....just saying. You can DIY this pretty easily, but you have to use properly sized components.

https://www.bluesea.com/resources/1437

see amp length chart here

2 golf cart batteries are relatively cheap and get you close to maybe 200Ah, or a big honking marine 4D for about $350. That'll cook a turkey. 200AH divided by 83Amps is a little over 2 hours run time, but closer to 1.5hours. The 200Ah rating is a C/20, i.e. a 10Amp draw. An 80Amp draw might get you 100Ah or so, so a little over an hour. Make sure your inverter has a big heat sink or fan and it's not in an enclosed space.

Steve, you make good points and also bring up some huge advantages of the LFP that the OP is considering. Not only does the 50% discharge rule not apply, but large loads like 80+ amps do not measurably waste AH. Losses in an LFP are 1% or less compared to 15% or more in a wet cell lead acid battery. Hence 80 amps for an hour is not much different than 20 amps for four hours in terms of AH usage in an LFP.

Also, because voltage never drops below about 12.8 or 12.9 volts (under very heavy load with battery down around 25% SOC) the LFP has ample voltage margin for voltage drop in the wires between the inverter and the battery. While up to one volt of voltage drop would be workable with an LFP, voltage drop of more than about 0.1 volt can be problematic with a lead acid. Still, keeping voltage drop to a minimum saves precious AH and even with LFP less than 0.1 volts is desirable.

What I like most about LFP is not wasting 15% of the energy in heat when serving load and as well saving 15% when charging (i.e., less charge time) when compared to wet cell lead-acid.

Note that I referenced wet cell lead acid above. I've not studied them but I understand that AGM lead-acids are considerably better than wet cell in terms of voltage drop and losses during heavy load and charging. They are not as good as LFP but certainly less problematic than wet cell. I'm not up to date on AGM characteristics, but from what I've seen, they seem to be the solution where LFP is too costly.

[Steve W indy]

One of right and honorable colleagues reminded me that LFP batteries are being considered. I may have seen something about Golf Cart batteries and assumed the system was going to Lead-acid batteries.

To clarify. The degradation in total AH capacity at high current draws experienced by Lead-acid is not a characteristic of LFP batts.

I don't like to think of the different amount of total AH at high current as a "degradation" really, it's just the nature of the beast. The mfg's could have rated AH at C/20, C/10, C/5 or C/2 (total AH capacity over 20, 10 ...hours). Since lead-acids do a little better at lower amperage, they choose to rate them there; they also last a little longer at lower current draws.

So at 10A draw, a 200AH battery will last 20h;
but at 20A draw, a 200AH battery will last a little less than 10h. That's all normal.

It's kinda like your car engine is rated at 150hp, but only AT 3650rpm (or whatever rpm); they rate them at their peak hp.

The concerns about high current are pretty valid. Keep your wires short. I buy 10 or 20' of red and black 6Ga wire and copper lugs and make my own leads, I typically torch solder the lugs on and keep distances min for really solid connections.

out

[dlambers]

Ok, so we are actually talking about an "inverter" here which take 12 volt dc from your batteries and changes it into 120 volt ac for outlets. Take note of the two numbers, one is ten time the other (convenient, really). In electricity power (P) = Voltage (E) x Current (I), P=IE. If your microwave draws 10 amps of 120 volt ac it's going to take at least 100 amps of battery power to create it. If you have a 450 amp hour batter then you'll have it dead in 4.5 hours.

Answer, leave the screens at home, take a book.

[ependydad]

Originally Posted by dlambers

Answer, leave the screens at home, take a book.

But, this is my home.

And even before I fulltimed, I still had to work while camping.

So..... yeah.

[Slow N EZ]

Originally Posted by Flybob

If you have the ability, I strongly recommend you do a dry run in your driveway. 100W of solar is essentially going to provide you with enough charging capacity to run the basics and nothing fancy ( microwave, A/C etc), but don't take my word for it try it. Charge the batteries, try running what you think you will need to run, check the batteries then allow it a day of charging and check batteries again. a 100W panel is going to provide about 5 AHr in full sun, if you have an 8 hr day you will get approx 40AHr or 500WHrs. A 1000W microwave uses 500WHrs for less than 30 minutes of use.

Thank you FlyBob for this picturesque clarification! Visualizing watt consumption via a lightbulb and the microwave example is spot on. Followed by your 100 watt panel storage capacity description, I can now clearly see my little 100 watt suitcase can easily provide for my minimalist nomading. By learning to incorporate the many uses of my new Sun Oven (keeping water hot for daily needs without the need for the hot water heater in the rig except to shower, and even that I am switching to solar) plus the solar suitcase, my capacity for boondocking will only be based on my water capacity and waste.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by ependydad

But, this is my home.

And even before I fulltimed, I still had to work while camping.

So..... yeah.

If one full time "camps", then how do they take a "camping vacation"?

[kwindrem]

A couple of things not mentioned already:

The Geo Pro inverter setup only powers the outlets circuit that starts in the bathroom. So the Microwave and Air Conditioner do not receive inverter power.

The built-in inverter won't run larger appliances. I tried running a Keurig Mini and it only made it about half way through the heat-up cycle before the inverter tripped.

The Geo Pros come with the inverter installed with proper wire gauge and fuse inline connected directly to the battery. If you go with multiple batteries, make sure you use heavy gauge jumpers between them.

100 watts of solar through the PWM controller supplied with the Geo Pros will produce FAR ness than 100 watts even on a good day. A MPPT controller will increase output substantially, but for real boon docking, additional panels will most likely be necessary also. I ended up with 4 100 watt panels on the roof of my Geo Pro 19QB with a Victron MPPT solar controller

These limitations are why I ended up upgrading the inverter to a 2000 watt Victron and two 100 AH BattleBorn LFP batteries. The inverter hooks in before the AC power distribution so all AC loads get powered by the inverter. I can run the air conditioner on inverter for an estimated 40 minutes in a pinch. That's enough time to get the generator running. With this setup, you still need to manage power, choosing which high current device you run. You can NOT run the A/C and microwave at the same time for example.

I've also added a number of 12 volt to USB charger stations around the trailer. The ones built into the 120 VAC outlet next to the bed are AC powered. Having USB charging power available without running the inverter saves energy.

The Victron inverter has a very low idle consumption. In fact, it consumes less than most smaller inverters I looked at. Victron also provides a couple of mechanisms in place to reduce idle consumption this further but I choose to turn the inverter off when I don't need AC power.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by kwindrem

A couple of things not mentioned already:

The Geo Pro inverter setup only powers the outlets circuit that starts in the bathroom. So the Microwave and Air Conditioner do not receive inverter power.

The built-in inverter won't run larger appliances. I tried running a Keurig Mini and it only made it about half way through the heat-up cycle before the inverter tripped.

The Geo Pros come with the inverter installed with proper wire gauge and fuse inline connected directly to the battery. If you go with multiple batteries, make sure you use heavy gauge jumpers between them.

100 watts of solar through the PWM controller supplied with the Geo Pros will produce FAR ness than 100 watts even on a good day. A MPPT controller will increase output substantially, but for real boon docking, additional panels will most likely be necessary also. I ended up with 4 100 watt panels on the roof of my Geo Pro 19QB with a Victron MPPT solar controller

These limitations are why I ended up upgrading the inverter to a 2000 watt Victron and two 100 AH BattleBorn LFP batteries. The inverter hooks in before the AC power distribution so all AC loads get powered by the inverter. I can run the air conditioner on inverter for an estimated 40 minutes in a pinch. That's enough time to get the generator running. With this setup, you still need to manage power, choosing which high current device you run. You can NOT run the A/C and microwave at the same time for example.

I've also added a number of 12 volt to USB charger stations around the trailer. The ones built into the 120 VAC outlet next to the bed are AC powered. Having USB charging power available without running the inverter saves energy.

The Victron inverter has a very low idle consumption. In fact, it consumes less than most smaller inverters I looked at. Victron also provides a couple of mechanisms in place to reduce idle consumption this further but I choose to turn the inverter off when I don't need AC power.

A word of caution for those upgrading 12 v systems. Installing larger converters, with more batteries, and larger inverters, also requires a proper upgrade to the 12 v wiring connecting converter to battery bank.

Not taking this into consideration is leaving a major wealth link in the system.