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More basic electrical
Yahoo Message Number: 2589
Thanks to all who responded with the valuable info on my "electrical diliemna".

It's my understanding that the solar panels and the inverter are mutually required components? The SP's collect the energy and store it in batteries; and the inverter "conditions" that DC power for use by AC appliances? Would that mean that the "weak" link in the system is the size/capacity of the battery bank? For example, if a billboard sized SP was available, total amperage is still dictated by storage capacity (batteries) but would just replenish quicker because of the huge SP size?

One final question. If using the SP/inverter system, what would one use the 12V outlets for? Don't they have special plug/receptacles?

After these, I'm sure everyone is asking whether MY logic board (brain) has a short circuit (I DO smell some smoke!!) But thanks again. Rather get it right the first time!
More basic electrical
Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 2590
"Thanks to all who responded with the valuable info on my "electrical diliemna".

Inverter and solar panels are NOT mutually exclusive - they are both components of a flexible electrical setup. However, most items in your m'home will work fine on 12V, whereas those that need 110 VAC are mostly the high-power items such as nuker and coach air. Use a conversion factor of about 11:1 for the current draw from your batteries.

E.g. a microwave rated at 1100 Watts draw will require about 10 Amps AC, and will require a draw of 110 Amps DC from the batteries to your inverter. For a 10 min run, this will use 18 A-hrs from the batteries.
Because the batteries lose power due to heating with such high-current use, though, they actually are depleted by about 25 A-hrs of charge or more. I.e. that 10-min run of the nuker used up a day's solar recharge from your panels. Finding another way to heat up dinner will be much more conservative of your limited resources.

However, if you want to heat up dinner while parked in a K-mart lot, and you'll be moving on in the morning, the batteries will be fully recharged in less than an hour's driving. Then you'll be glad you had the inverter - the generator might have brought you undue attention.

Since your style will be unique, you'll have to judge for yourself what you need. In our case, we have no generator, no microwave, and our inverter is a 150 Watt dinky portable thing. I have installed extra 12V outlets, because our TV and VCP both run off 12V, as do most of the gadgets we bring, such as chargers for camera batteries, etc. This avoids inefficiencies (wasted power) when using an inverter.

Steve
2004 FL
2013 Honda Fit
 
More basic electrical
Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 2596
Sorry if I caused any confusion with my mutually exclusive comment. I didn't mean that you can't literally have solar panels and an inverter running your microwave or other large 110V loads. Any combination will work and each combination has its trade-offs.

For those that have the large (1300W?) inverter option, since I was leaning toward not getting the inverter, I didn't get all of my questions answered at the factory. I was wondering if someone could answer my unanswered questions:

-Where is this large inverter located?

-What runs off of this inverter? Is it just the microwave or are some of the AC outlets also connected?

-If some of the AC outlets are connected, were you able to specify which outlets are connected to the inverter and which ones are always connected to shore power?

-Is there a switch to disconnect the microwave AC line so that the microwave's stand-by mode doesn't drain your batteries?

I had over 60 questions in my notebook when I visited the factory. My questions about the inverter option always got the response "why do you want that, that will just drain the battery." I just dropped those questions because I had already made my decision to not get the inverter option.