# Which Power Invertor?



## Traveling Tek (Oct 15, 2010)

I am interested in adding a power invertor to my trailer. Something big enough to power a couple laptops, tv, and small stuff like that. We are starting to boon dock more as the project I am on winds down and I find myself wanting to use my laptop, but not wanting to run the generator and be obnoxious. I have two 6 volt batteries already. I was thinking of adding a couple solar panels (or 4 or 6) to keep those batteries charged up and also have a tad more power during the day.

I am not looking to run my a/c off it or anything crazy like that. I had a 1200watt inverter before, but it was older and not smart. It would basically sit there and drain my batteries dead even if nothing was using it. Are there better ones then that now? I see some at the truck stops, but they don't have much information with them and I just don't even know where to start my research.

What do you all use and what is recommended? I am willing to add two more batteries also if any thinks it's necessary. The idea is to be comfortable and self contained.


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## Insomniak (Jul 7, 2006)

Traveling Tek said:


> I am interested in adding a power invertor to my trailer. Something big enough to power a couple laptops, tv, and small stuff like that. We are starting to boon dock more as the project I am on winds down and I find myself wanting to use my laptop, but not wanting to run the generator and be obnoxious. I have two 6 volt batteries already. I was thinking of adding a couple solar panels (or 4 or 6) to keep those batteries charged up and also have a tad more power during the day.
> 
> I am not looking to run my a/c off it or anything crazy like that. I had a 1200watt inverter before, but it was older and not smart. It would basically sit there and drain my batteries dead even if nothing was using it. Are there better ones then that now? I see some at the truck stops, but they don't have much information with them and I just don't even know where to start my research.
> 
> What do you all use and what is recommended? I am willing to add two more batteries also if any thinks it's necessary. The idea is to be comfortable and self contained.


I've always used Xantrex in my permanent installations, other brands for portable use. The true sine wave models are more expensive, but electronics and motors work better, without humming and buzzing. The models with automatic transfer switch only draw about 25 watts in standby mode, and 1.5 watts in power saver mode if I remember correctly. You'll need heavy duty wire to connect to the batteries, a battery cutoff switch, in-line fuse and about 1/2 day to hook everything up. Lots more info at http://www.xantrex.com


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## Traveling Tek (Oct 15, 2010)

Insomniak said:


> I've always used Xantrex in my permanent installations, other brands for portable use. The true sine wave models are more expensive, but electronics and motors work better, without humming and buzzing. The models with automatic transfer switch only draw about 25 watts in standby mode, and 1.5 watts in power saver mode if I remember correctly. You'll need heavy duty wire to connect to the batteries, a battery cutoff switch, in-line fuse and about 1/2 day to hook everything up. Lots more info at http://www.xantrex.com


Sweet, checking into that. I read on here about someone who had theirs setup to auto run when the shore power cut out. What that you? I know the other guy can run his a/c on his. I am thinking of having it setup, so when I am home I can use it as a backup power source for my freezers if the power goes out. Maybe a 3000 or 5000 watt job?


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## Insomniak (Jul 7, 2006)

Traveling Tek said:


> I've always used Xantrex in my permanent installations, other brands for portable use. The true sine wave models are more expensive, but electronics and motors work better, without humming and buzzing. The models with automatic transfer switch only draw about 25 watts in standby mode, and 1.5 watts in power saver mode if I remember correctly. You'll need heavy duty wire to connect to the batteries, a battery cutoff switch, in-line fuse and about 1/2 day to hook everything up. Lots more info at http://www.xantrex.com


Sweet, checking into that. I read on here about someone who had theirs setup to auto run when the shore power cut out. What that you? I know the other guy can run his a/c on his. I am thinking of having it setup, so when I am home I can use it as a backup power source for my freezers if the power goes out. Maybe a 3000 or 5000 watt job?
[/quote]
I've done a few different installations with and without transfer switches. Inverters with an auto transfer switch will instantly provide power from the batteries when shore power is turned off or is disconnected (if the inverter is turned on that is). That feature can come in handy if your campground has an unreliable power supply, otherwise it's something that just adds to the price. The problem with inverters is that they can really use up your batteries quickly unless you're good at conserving power. To run a freezer from a 3,000 or 5,000 watt inverter, you'd need some serious battery banks. I have no idea how many watts a freezer is, but take a 1,000 watt microwave oven for example. That oven would be pulling about 100 amps from your batteries. If you had a couple of Trojans with 240 amp-hour capacity, you could run that oven for about an hour before needing to recharge the batteries (if you adhere to the "rule" of not discharging the batteries below 50%). Say your freezer (or any other load) uses 250 watts on average. With continuous use, in a 24 hour period, it would consume around 600 amp-hours. That would mean you'd need 1200 amp-hours of battery capacity just to make it through one day. That translates into ten Trojan T-125's, almost 700 pounds, and over $1,000!! Best to save the inverter for occasional use while dry camping - it's something that's much easier to accomplish.


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## Traveling Tek (Oct 15, 2010)

Awesome. I have never been very good at understanding all that. The hope is to someday stop full timing and have a house, and run it on solar or wind or both. So I thought I could start with the trailer as a way to start learning all this.

Do you know much about the truck stop inverters that they sell at Pilot and Loves? I would imagine a 1200 watt would probably run a couple laptops and a tv just fine. I might want one big enough to occasionally run the toaster since we like a bagel for breakfast.

I had an inverter before, but I couldn't find it in storage anywhere, so I may have given it away. :-( Some Kmart 600watt cheapy thing.


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## TwoElkhounds (Mar 11, 2007)

I have a 1000 Watt inverter and love the convenience when we dry camp.

One note of caution if you plan to run a toaster or a coffee maker. The DC load will be quite large when you run these items. You will need very large cables in order to ensure they do not become overloaded. In addition, if you mount your inverter any distance from the battery, you will see a significant voltage drop in the cable at that load level. I have my inveter mounted next to the converter under the sink and I cannot run our coffee maker off of it because the standard DC cables between the battery and the converter will not support such a large load and the voltage drop is significant. I have considered upgrading these cables or moving the inverter.

Best way to avoid these issues is to mount the inverter as close a possible to the battery.

DAN


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## TwoElkhounds (Mar 11, 2007)

Traveling Tek said:


> I had an inverter before, but I couldn't find it in storage anywhere, so I may have given it away. :-( Some Kmart 600watt cheapy thing.


I have used some of those cheapy inverters and have not been happy with them, you get what you pay for. I would get a more durable unit. I have a 1000W TrippLite I purchased from Grainger and have been happy with it. I think I paid around $250 for it. Much beefier and more features than the cheapy models.

DAN


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## vdub (Jun 19, 2004)

I went about my "boondocking" effort a little bit bassakwards. I bought the batteries and the inverter before I bought any solar panels, fuel cells, or wind gen. I already had my Honda 2000 gen, so I will use it to charge my batteries before making any more of an investment. I want to do that so I can get some idea about the scale of power needed and whether I will like boondocking at all.

I calculated my power requirements as follows using a "Kill A Watt":









Theoretically, the two batteries will give me enough power to operate 19 hrs. But then if you throw in a light or two, maybe 16 hrs -- that's part of this test phase. All normal 12v lights and the heater fan are unchanged. I could put in 12v lcd light bulbs, but not right now.

http://www.wasem.com/rv/inverter.jpg

I bought a Go Power 1750 HD ($250). It's about as big as I could afford to buy or carry enough batteries for. And, important to me, it has a remote control. I also have two new Interstate 6v 220ah golf cart bats ($114 each). I replaced the cell caps on the batteries with Water Misers ($36). I monitor my batteries with a Save A Battery monitor ($40). I got it because it has a "low power" alarm that activates at 11.9v.

In the picture, you'll notice that I had to slightly modify the bat compartment in my 28FRLS in order to accomodate the extra height of the bats. I simply cut off a portion of the lift off panel, repositioned the hinge, and then put in a bat cover using velcro. I reused the "carpeting" to cover the new piece of basement flooring. Also, not in the picture, the big cables and big fuse. You definitely want to fuse the system and you definitely want big cables as close to the bats as practicle, bot no longer than 3' total.

The part of my installment that is a little bit backwards is that the inverter output is not directly hooked into the RV 110v panel. Eventually, it may be, but for now, all I have done is installed two new 110v outlets where I will power my 110v items; laptop, tv, router, sat receiver, etc. The new outlets are essentially 14gauge extension cords with an normal outlet stuck on the end. The two extension cords plug directly into my inverter. In this way, things are pretty well isolated and easy to control the drain on the batteries.

When needed, I will simply start my Honda gen, plug my normal rv power cord into the Honda, and let the on-board converter charge my bats. Most likely, I would do this during mid-day so as to not disturb anyone -- especially me.....


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## TwoElkhounds (Mar 11, 2007)

vdub said:


> I bought a Go Power 1750 HD ($250). It's about as big as I could afford to buy or carry enough batteries for. And, important to me, it has a remote control.


My inverter also has an option for remote start/control which I am considering to purchase. After having an inverter, I agree this would be a very nice feature.

DAN


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## Traveling Tek (Oct 15, 2010)

Good good good info. I already have two 225 6volt golf cart batteries. My router is already on 12volt. I just use the lighter plug behind my tv. I would be putting the inverter in the front understorage so that my cable would be as short as possible and as heavy gauge as possible. So a remote deal would be good. I figured I would wire some sort of extension cord from the inverter to an outlet then I could just plug into that outlet as needed.

Currently I only would need this for a night or two to power my laptops and maybe a tv. We have been moving every day so the vehicle recharges the batteries, and then we stay at normal campgrounds when ever possible so they would recharge then.


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## TwoElkhounds (Mar 11, 2007)

Here is how I wired up my inverter to power TV's or electronics.

LINK

I basically used appliance cords of the appropriate length and ran the cords through the cabinets to dedicated outlets. I used a different color for the outlets to identify them as being fed from the inverter circuit. This really easy to do and has worked very well.

DAN


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## vdub (Jun 19, 2004)

> I used a different color for the outlets to identify them as being fed from the inverter circuit.


I want to do the same thing, but I haven't been able to find any other color than black. I want green or even red. I will keep looking and if I don't find anything soon, then I'll use plastic paint to paint them.

Another I want to do is put an in-line fuse on each outlet. It actually shouldn't be necessary to do that because the inverter is fused, but it would make me feel better.... I'll probably fuse for something like 5 amps so that if a mistake is ever made and someone plugs in a coffee pot, my inverter won't be blown or the bats drained or whatever nasty stuff might happen.


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## TwoElkhounds (Mar 11, 2007)

vdub said:


> > I used a different color for the outlets to identify them as being fed from the inverter circuit.
> 
> 
> I want to do the same thing, but I haven't been able to find any other color than black. I want green or even red. I will keep looking and if I don't find anything soon, then I'll use plastic paint to paint them.
> ...


You may be able to find orange outlets at an electric supply company. I think they use these for UPS circuits in hositals and such? Our Home Depot and Lowes did not have them, so I just chose black.

My inverter has an overload alarm that will start beeping before it trips. It is a nice feature, but can be anoying at times!

DAN


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## Jewellfamily (Sep 25, 2010)

vdub said:


> > I used a different color for the outlets to identify them as being fed from the inverter circuit.
> 
> 
> I want to do the same thing, but I haven't been able to find any other color than black. I want green or even red. I will keep looking and if I don't find anything soon, then I'll use plastic paint to paint them.
> ...


This site looks like it offers multiple colors in the Luttron receptacles.

My link


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## vdub (Jun 19, 2004)

Outstanding! You saved me some work. I'm going to order a couple. Now I need to decide what color -- sea glass? plum? Whatever happened to red or green? Oh well.... Thanks!


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## ZHB (Mar 17, 2009)

We dry camp about twice a year......I was debating before this past weekend's trip about an inverter. I picked up a 1000-watt NPower unit from Northern Tool & equipment. It worked beautifully for the Margarita machine, and an outdoor fan. For our rare needs, it was perfect.

2 points from above though: an inverter this size needs to be connected directly to the battery, even for occasional use. The cigarette-lighter adapter can only pull something like 5 amps. Also, an inverter just isn't well suited for loads like a coffee maker or curling iron. Heating elements consume quite a bit of power and will drain your batteries very fast.


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## Traveling Tek (Oct 15, 2010)

Orange are normally used for Isolated Ground, like for computer circuits. You can find Blue some places. Which is what I might use when I finally do this.


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## mena661 (Feb 9, 2010)

I have a Go Power 300W inverter. Don't have a transfer switch as I just plug in the shore power cord directly into the inverter. Of course, if you do this you MUST turn off your rigs converter!!!!! I have mine on its own circuit breaker. Some people put it on a on/off switch. You might get a low voltage alarm on your inverter when running the microwave on those two 6V's. I would just get a smaller wattage model to run your laptops and TV on. Mine runs two LCD TV's (26 and 23 inch), Sat dish, and blu-ray player.


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## KTMRacer (Jun 28, 2010)

TwoElkhounds said:


> > I used a different color for the outlets to identify them as being fed from the inverter circuit.
> 
> 
> I want to do the same thing, but I haven't been able to find any other color than black. I want green or even red. I will keep looking and if I don't find anything soon, then I'll use plastic paint to paint them.
> ...


You may be able to find orange outlets at an electric supply company. I think they use these for UPS circuits in hositals and such? Our Home Depot and Lowes did not have them, so I just chose black.

My inverter has an overload alarm that will start beeping before it trips. It is a nice feature, but can be anoying at times!

DAN
[/quote]

I just mounted a transfer switch to the back of the WFCO charger (WFCO and others sell one that clips on), Transfer switch input is shore power and inverter. then connected the transfer switch output to a subpanel with two dedicated breakers. One breaker is the trailer GFI outlets, the other the trailer recepticals. Now, when plugged into shore power everything runs off shore power (or external generator) which feeds the transfer switch and main panel , and when I don't have power the inverter (1000W sine wave) is only connected to the recepticals so don't have to worry about someone trying to run the fridge, microwave, water heater, AC etc. off the inverter. No messing with different outlets, cords etc. and it's automatic. Once shore power is connected, the transfer switch waits 15 seconds then drops the inverter and routes shore power to the outlets.


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## vdub (Jun 19, 2004)

That is the ideal way to do it and eventually how mine will be done. I'm still in a learning/testing mode.


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