Power Inverter/Converter?

[BIGNASTY]

Looking into putting a small microwave and refrigerator in International Truck before the interior and sleeper are reupholstered. How do you figure what size of Inverter or Converter is needed? Take the wattage of both appliances and get one with enough to take care of both or how much bigger size is needed for both. And will I need more batteries to do this or will the 4 get it done?



Thanks

BIG

 

[Big Red 94Ram]

I would look at how many watts your appliances require and size an inverter bigger. Most Microwaves are about 1500 watt. Refrig; I'm not sure on the average wattage. Or if you need help, try contacting this place--> http://www.powerinverters.org/ This is where I bought my 600watt pure sine wave converter from. Decent prices and good warranty. Hope this helps.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Thanks for the info

BIG

 

[CKelley1]

the starting current for the refrige is 3x the average draw on determining size. wire the two with a two way switch so that both can not come on at the same time. a 2,000 or 2,500 should work just fine. as big red stated stay with the true sine inverters. the microwave or any inverter power supplies for computers, shavers etc does not like quasi square wave or modified square wave as it is some times called. also look at this example. if the refrige takes 2,000 watts to start 2,000/ 12= 167 amps. you need to run #2 or #1 gage welding cable from both the negative and positive sides of the batteries because most trucks do not have a good frame ground. also you must use a 200 amp fuse at the battery

 

[Newt]

Big, check out Jacks website. It has a lot of info to help you make a good installation. http://www.jackdanmayer.com/

Newt

 

[BIGNASTY]

Big, check out Jacks website. It has a lot of info to help you make a good installation. http://www.jackdanmayer.com/

Newt

Newt
I think you see where the wife and I are going with this, We are not going to go full time but we thought in this very long winter that we are experiencing now that it would be nice to take a month or two maybe split up by a month,and go south to see some of the southern states in the less heat,humidity stressed time of the year and !!! get warmed up before heading back to our beloved MT.

The site you gave has some answers to questions that I WAS, going to throw out on this site and hopefully NOT start a war :-laf:-laf (I know but one could hope yes?) I think that the International that we have and im adding accessories to would be more than up to the job. I have had some pretty heavy tow weights on a goose-neck and it has been up to the task. The site you added to your post gave some info that was a BIG question in my mind towing what amounts to a set of doubles. I have the licence for it and im almost sure that with 35+ years of class 8 truck driving experience that I have driven around the block enough that it wouldn't be a problem towing it. Until recentley we didnt think that this is our style of Camping if you could call it camping :-laf But being a GERM-A-PHOBE that I am it would be better than spending money on motel and eating out all the time when on a trip.

I thank you for your post and info its a great help and I will read more because there is allot of info on it

Thanks again
Penny/BIG

PS It would be fun to pull something like this around :-laf

 

[JLEONARD]

I have a 40 ft boat and run a full size fridge and microwave when needed, and some other 120 V stuff using a 2000 watt inverter. The battery bank size witt tell you how long you can go between charging. Last summer we did an extended crsuise and ran easily for 2 days (it was very hot last summer) on 4 6 V golf cart deep cycle batteries. That's about 450 amp hours at 12V. In cooler weather the charge would last longer.

 

[rMetzger]

Do you have room for an onboard generator? Would be simpler, and perhaps more reliable. The inverter would generate a lot of heat at full load, as would a generator, but at least you'd have the generator outside, rather than in the cab

 

[Newt]

Handy Bob is another good source of solar/converter info. http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/

He's just a little opinionated. LOL

Newt

 

[BIGNASTY]

Handy Bob is another good source of solar/converter info. http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/



He's just a little opinionated. LOL



Newt

Sounds like someone else I know :-laf:-laf but he's not BS ing on the 9 golden rules of living with solar. We are off grid at our house and living with batteries and seeing whats going on and HOW to test things figure out what is wrong CAN SAVE YOU A BUNCH OF CASH. Batteries are NOT CHEAP I was told and BELIVE that the AGM batteries are all HYPE just like Bob said. If you cant take the time to test your batts you dont need to be off grid. I test my FIL's and BIL's for them cause they just bought NEW batts. In the time the wife and I have been up here we have saved them some serious cash outlay for new batts and have had better performance longer because of just a look see every 2 weeks and LOOK AT THE METER COUPLE OF TIMES A DAY!!!!!!!



Electrical power has gone up for the town folk and people that are connected but our's remains the same $0. 00 per month is pretty damn hard to beat



BIG

 

[GCroyle]

BIG,



Any consideration to an RV fridge? No compressor, 120VAC, propane or I think some even run on 12VDC only.

 

[BIGNASTY]

BIG,



Any consideration to an RV fridge? No compressor, 120VAC, propane or I think some even run on 12VDC only.

For the truck we are just looking for a way to keep things cold and not having to get ice all the time if we do get into a larger RV it would have the regular RV fridge. The post was originally intended to see what it would take for power in a truck as far as Elect. Nothing real big just a few drinks and something to eat. Like the wife said WE CAN STOP!!!! its not like we would have a time schedule to keep.

 

[GCroyle]

How about one of those 12V powered coolers instead?

 

[BIGNASTY]

How about one of those 12V powered coolers instead?

Seen those at the truck stop in Iowa I80 wondered if they actually work or just for awhile and then buy another?

 

[CKelley1]

the 12v coolers have worked well for me. one is going on 5 years old. you can reverse the plug and it will heat.

 

[GCroyle]

the 12v coolers have worked well for me. one is going on 5 years old. you can reverse the plug and it will heat.

Coolers and Thermos bottles are the smartest things ever invented, keeps cold things cold, keeps hot things hot.



But how in the heck does that dumb thing know which one to keep cold and which one to keep hot!



Long time ago friend did baked potatoes for a get together, maybe 30-40 spuds. Wrapped in foil, baked as usual. How to transport? He had an old metal lined and jacketed Coleman.

 

[rMetzger]

GCroyle... . insulation is all about interrupting the transfer of heat from a warm place to a cold place. Your beer is supposed to be a cold place. You want to keep environmental heat out of that cold place, so you insulate it with a "koozie", or an ice-chest, or some towels wrapped around it. The insulation (towel, ice-chest or koozie) cannot discriminate between your beer and your baked potatoes. It just slows down (never actually halts) the movement of heat. That other thingie is a really neat thermo-electric deal that either generates heat when the 12VDC runs thru it in one direction, or it absorbs heat (gets cold) when you reverse the polarity. We used to have one. They're not super-efficient. They'll drain a car or boat battery if the engine's not running pretty quick. It seems like their limit is, like 30 or 40*F above or below ambient temperature. Your "hot" food needs to go in hot, and it'll keep in warm longer than a plain ice-chest. Your cold food needs to go in cold, and you just won't have to buy as much ice.

 

[CKelley1]

the cooler plug has markings on it, you line up the blue for cold or red for hot. it reverses the polarity changing the compressor motor direction now trying to freeze the outside

 

[rMetzger]

CKelley... . there's no compressor on the thermoelectric ones. The only moving part is/are the fan(s). Here's a link to a description of how they work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling The ones marketed by Igloo are capable of ambient +40*F when plugged in for "heat", and ambient -40*F when the polarity is swapped. ... . So, on a 100*day, you could maintain a "cooled" temp of 60*F, for drinks, or 140*F for hot picnic food. Conversely, if you're cold-camping, and the box is at 0* outside, the contents might be as warm as 40*, or as cold as -40, assuming you've got dependable electricity when everything's that cold. Inside a truck, running down the road at a comfortable cab temperature, you might see frost on the soda cans inside.

 

[jelag]

I have 2 comments... we use Engle Refrigerator/Freezer in our rig... we have a large one we use in the trailer and a small one we keep in the truck... 12V powered and both use 134A with a small diaphragm compressor... I'm very pleased and expect once the patent expires on these items we might see the same technology in RV refrigerators in the future... I've got to be 7-9 years into these now... and still enjoy the technology...

My other comment is finding out that my wife's heated mattress wouldn't work on our inverter... I found that the darn thing has a small circuit board in the thing and I needed a full sine wave inverter... the manufacture(engineer) suggested a guy in Monroe OR. . (http://www.donrowe.com/) I was told that he had great prices and good phone support... and I was pleased with both the pricing and service...

Just my thoughts. .