mobiltec
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Post by mobiltec on Oct 26, 2013 16:50:44 GMT -8
What size inverter are you running?
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Post by vikx on Oct 26, 2013 21:35:33 GMT -8
I'm very interested to see how the furnace does overnight! At those temps, might be best to be sparing on those batteries. Brrr....
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61 Shasta
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Post by 61 Shasta on Oct 27, 2013 9:48:50 GMT -8
Careful Larry you are going to blow your image as a rough it outdoors type, solar power and a hot tub on a BLM site!!! Well here's a peek at the other type of camping I do. Some places you can't take everything under the sun with you. Has nothing to do with Solar I know but what the heck? It's sunday.... Bill I'll removed the post if it's too much of a hijack. At least Part III has a trailer in it. A nice one too. 51 Royal Spartanette... Part II Part III Don't know about the omission of solar power but enjoyed the pics and documentary
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mobiltec
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Post by mobiltec on Oct 27, 2013 10:10:37 GMT -8
Well I told Bill that if he thought it was too much of a hijack I would removed the vids.
I got away from dragging the solar panels around because my alternator charges up my RV batteries good enough driving around during the day exploring or fishing which is what I do when I'm in the outback. An hour of driving around does a full charge where it takes a day or more with a panel. It really all depends on your electrical needs. Now I'm down to one RV battery and an 800 watt inverter. Handles all my needs.
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cowcharge
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Post by cowcharge on Oct 29, 2013 10:15:17 GMT -8
It's a 1000-watt Xantrex XPower inverter, bought on Ebay for $69 back in 2010 when I bought the camper (like this one: www.ebay.com/itm/Xantrex-Xpower-1000-Watts-12-Volt-with-Modified-Sine-Wave-Inverter-/271304321147?pt=Car_Audio_Video&hash=item3f2aff687b&vxp=mtr ). Works great, no problem running computers (lap or desk) or TVs (tube or LED) even though it isn't a pure sine wave inverter. Furnace had no problem, but it only got down to around 40 Sat. night. 20s again last night, but I wasn't at the camper. But I camped at 14 degrees last winter, and it didn't kill my decades-old, seriously damaged batteries, so I won't worry 'bout the batteries too much in one night. The fan only draws two amps, so even without charging I could run it at 100% duty cycle for 48 hours straight without dropping my batteries even to 50%, if I didn't use anything else. With four old 12v camper lights going with the furnace (and listening to the Sox on the boom box), it drew 7 amps. I could have kept that up for 15 hours or so and still been above 50% on the batteries. But I need to get me some LED bulbs. I didn't bring the TV, computer or 'wave any popcorn, lol. I did some timing of the furnace duty cycle, Saturday night and Sunday morning. The fan always runs for four minutes after the burner goes off, to cool things down. The burner ran between four and seven minutes to heat the place up each cycle, pumping air through three dryer-type hoses for bedroom, bathroom and dinette (in the 40s and 50s ambient temps). At those temps, the trailer takes about 10-14 minutes to cool down enough for the furnace to kick back on, with at least one of the small upper-bunk windows cracked. This was while keeping it at least 72 in the camper. At those temps, after timing 8 cycles, the longest duty cycle was exactly 50%. So I could have run the furnace alone for 115 hours (0.5 DC x 2 amps = 1 amp continuous equivalent) before I used up my 115 available amp-hours, draining my batteries to 50%. The camper isn't even fully insulated yet, nor have I added storm windows or insulated curtains. Everything from the door forward (the front 4 or 5 feet out of 22.5') is still just the original crappy fiberglass in the roof and top half of the walls, half of the bottom of the walls up front is bare metal. I'm fairly certain that when finished, it will be the heaviest-insulated Shasta ever built. One of the key bits of info I got from Handy Bob's article on solar power ( handybobsolar.wordpress.com/the-rv-battery-charging-puzzle-2/ ) was using big enough wire. My panel uses 25 feet (which will eventually be shortened when the panel is permanently mounted) of 6-gauge from the panel to the charge controller, and 6 feet of 4-gauge from the controller to the batteries. No sense using up half your sunlight to heat wire.
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mobiltec
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Post by mobiltec on Oct 29, 2013 16:31:43 GMT -8
Yep! That is the most important consideration for efficiency in any 12 or 24 volt DC system. Any DC system really because pushing DC current uses a lot more energy than AC does.
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dwells
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Post by dwells on Aug 21, 2014 9:23:29 GMT -8
I'm upgrading my solar system right now and I've hit a snag. I'm sure there's a easy answer but I haven't found it yet. I got this link recently and picked up a few feet of 4 AWG to go from the controller to the battery but I can't seem to find connectors the will fit the wire AND the about 3/8" connections on the controller. I picked up some from HD on the way to work today and I'll try it when I get home but I don't think they'll fit 4 guage wire.
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dwells
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Post by dwells on Aug 23, 2014 8:55:37 GMT -8
What I got worked. Almost too small for the wire but I convinced it to fit.
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Post by bigbill on Aug 23, 2014 10:04:42 GMT -8
The easy way to think of electric current flow is it is just like water the higher the voltage/pressure the more that will flow through a smaller wire. Then as amperage/load increases the wire size must also increase. This is why you see smaller battery cables on a 12 volt car that an old 6 volt car. Ac or DC doesn't make a big difference if the voltage and amperage is the same, but usually we see ac circuits at 110 volts and dc circuits at 12 volts when working on trailers.
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