Member - Tim - Stratford (VIC) posted:

Marn,

I've got a smallish inverter which I mainly use for charging video camera batteries etc - I keep mine as portable so it can be used in the camper or the truck. There is an earth connection on the rear of the inverter so you can place and earth spike in the ground and then wire it to the inverter to prevent disasters. I haven't done this but it is there for insurance. I've been thinking about an oversized tent peg with wire attached - but the ground is that hard and dry over this way that it probably wouldn't earth anyway....

Tim - Stratford.

Bonz (Vic) posted:

dya know the cig lighter is only good for 10 amps, thats 120watt at 12v so if your inverter is bigger than that and you're using a fair amount of its grunt then I would thunk again.

greggu posted:

thanks guys
proabbly stay away fron the cig lighter and will use anderson plugs small type and yes getting zapped by 240 volts does not thrill me either
see you greg

Marn posted:

Tim, unless an RCD unit is used in conjunction(Properly wired) with the earth stake,you would still get a boot from an earth fault on an appliance. Just because the unit is earthed dosent mean it is totally safe.

greggu posted:

thanks mick you are not wrong about alleging the dse guys not knowing much about some of what they sell - bit of a worry really
i will check their prices though of a 500 / 600 pure sine wave inverter
see you greg

greggu posted:

thanks derek
i appreciate the feed back
probably go with about a 500 watt inverter keep it portable and use anderson plugs as you suggest run a box type fan in the camp and would like to be able to run a small tv very occassionally for the news and the sport not really a tv fan when away from it all - i am in brisbane so will probaly call in to have a chat about it in the next week or two
my regards greg

Bonz (Vic) posted:

ZZC, whats the rating of the fan? Our pedestal fan here is 55watt and being a single phase motor, it is apt to draw up to six times that load on starting, thats 330watt and that means 28 amps funning out of the battery to start the fan and about 4.5 constant to keep it running.

Most inverters have a short load rating, so for a 300w that could be anywhere from say 400 to 900w depending on the unit. It will be in the specs for the inverter.

So if u have a 55a-h battery and you are running a fridge (cycling at 4 amps) you will get about 6-8 hrs of the fan and fridge running before the battery cacks itself, Divide the amps out by the amp-hours (a-h) of the battery and you get a useful guide to how long it will run.

I would get a small 12v fan and run that meself. Some people use 6" computer fans in their CT's

greggu posted:

thanks guys for the feed back
have a small 12 v car fan in the camper but not really good enough on some of the hotter days - just does not move enough air about - hence the desire to take a larger box type fan away to use under the awning
battery capacity - have 250 amps hrs in the kimberley and dual batts of 100 amps hrs in the patrol also have a small honda gen and a couple of solar panels that total 120 watts so should have sufficiant battery and charging capacity even with the fridge running, fan on etc
thanks for the tech info bonz
see you greg