Powering up

LOL , thanks for the reply... the picture is herewith...
Love the comforts but can ruff it. I work from home and intend to do the same on the road. Mobile office/ linked to H/Office.
We would like to stay away from caravan parks for as long a period as possible and or an indefinite time.
It works out that the cost to replace both fridge and freezer would be near the cost of an extra power sources.
We have a quote as follows (help)
1 x 3000 watt / 65 AMP powerstar inverter chargers
3 thumper 120 ah redback AGM
1 power tech 20 amp LCD
4 Blue Apple 80 watt solar panel
Apart from the internals
1 read arc isolator
2 prodigy brake controller
3 Fittings and work included.
Break way cable

$6000

Extra...
Plus Honda EU generator / inverter equipped... $1990

Ok Jo

lets look at this from a practical point of view based on your info above.

When camping consider NOT using microwave and aircon. This simplifies things. If weather is that bad ie constant wet/raining as it is now in norhtern NSW we are holed up in CP OR if it's a heatwave head for beach or CP. You have 240 v on tap. The number of times you need to do this will probably be minimal.

As an example we have 4 X 120W solar panels and 4 X 100 Ah AGM batteries and this puts up to 30A back in batteries in sunshine and less on cloudy days obviously. We make do with this by using a 400 modified (read square wave) inverter which powers either:

- laptop and external Bigpond modem and drwas 5v DC fro batteries OR
- Strong satellite box and LCD TV (see thread 76446 for more info)

If we wan't to run all together we use 1000W pure sine wave inverter and current draw is about 12 A DC from batteries.

So you can see that we draw power from batteries and use 2 inverters to suit the application.

IMHO the inverter you mention above will draw too much power DC from batteries to be useful on a regular basis as even on a bright sunny day you may not be charging your batteries throgh solar panels. This hypothetical as I don't know loads ect but beware before buying anything. Drwaing up to 65A Dc from batteries will IMHO again murder them and reduce their life considerably.

OK this brings us to the generator. Honda 2000 is very good, we have one and no problems. The price you have above is very good.

Questions to ask yourself;

- do I really want to start a generator to run XXXX (ie get it out & refuel every 5 hours under full load etc etc)????
- what do I NEED to run on generator???.

Then see how you will do your business -check

- wattage of your work laptop, printer (doesn't need to run all the time) and work out what size inverter will run it CONTINUOUSLY and what DC current will be drawn from your batteries.

After you do these things I think you be able to see something emerging ie

- the solar panels and batteries MAY not be suitable ie the inveter current draw may ruin your batteries
- if you can run your office with say a 1000 or even 1500w inverter your solar/batteries may cope
- generators are good but a pain in the bum generally to use all the time (plus fuel costs) are can't be run in many places
- you need to look at the power consumption 12V DC that you would typically need and work out Ah per day draw from batteries (typical only as each day is different and you can start genny on occassions when needed).

One of my longest posts but please look carefully at your needs before you shell out the $. Get other experts to assess for you, ie give forum your starte/area and other may know where to get other expert advice. Met WA couple who shelled our $4000 for useless set up and they ran genny every day for 11 days straight - we didn't start ours.

Solar / genny back up with right inverters is IMHO the best way to go for a long term solution and this also ensures business continuity with is so important.

Hope this is not too complex and points you in the right direction.

Cheers Baz

Great and thank you for your help, Baz.
I will do some more home work and let you know the final result.
Cheers Jo

Thank you, I will follow up on the cost. you could be onto something...

Yamaha 2.4 Inverter and the job is done. About $1800 but you can get them cheaper if you sniff around. Saw one at one of the camping shows last year for $1400 and am kicking myself that I didn't buy it.

Good luck.

The yamaha would start and run the AirCon OK but if you try to run a toaster, Jug or microwave at the same time it would probably not start it.

Microwaves these days while they may only output 750 watts they usually draw around 1200 watts, A jug is usually around 2000 watts and a toaster about 1000. These are only approx but you can see that if the Air Con uses 2000 watts to start and about 1000 when running it doesn't take too much to exceed the generators capacity. As well as this you may have lights on, the fridge drawing 120 watts, the telly another 60 watts or so.

Realistically, even a 3KVA would have problems keeping up.

Thank you, I will take a look at the inverters and genny.
Cheers Jo

Thank you, gmd

I am about to chat with the suppliers and run everything by them... see how I go.

Jo

gmd

I assume your comments re another funny quote were directed at me

If so please clarify exactly what is the error of my ways,, as a courtesy to me.

I didn't include a lot of things, but was showing some examples and how Jo could get a handle on everything

I look forward to your response

No Barry, not at all ...
I was referring to the QUOTE (Prices) the OP "quoted"
and it's not very logical nature ..
sorry for misunderstanding ...
regards
gmd

OK no probs here

Thanks

Spot on as usual, couldn't agree with you more.
Cheers
Baz

As Motherhen said, the easiest approach is to reduce your use of electricity. A kettle. a toaster and a frying pan to use on gas can all be bought for under $50! and gas is cheap. We carry two 9kg bottles and have never run out of gas. We get about 3 months out of a bottle bush camping about 50% of the time.

For bush camping, a camp oven cooks beautifully and provides so much entertainment looking after the fire etc, that you don't need a television (perhaps a bottle of red!). Our three-way fridge runs beautifully on gas even in Darwin. Books and star gazing require little electricty.

If you run a generator for hours, you will not make many friends! In fact you will have to find very isolated places to camp. It is generally accepted as polite to turn generators off after 9pm if other people are around. So not much good for running your fridge at night.

We have one 130w solar panel and 100ah battery. This runs our lights(tungstn fliament), radio, CD, water pump and stove extraction fan with no problem.

The biggest problem with bush camping is carrying enough water. You will probably find that weight of water you will need for extended camping will be your limiting factor. We carry 140 litres of water in the van plus a jerry can in the car.

With our mimimum set up we camp for a week comfortably. However, we do not use the laptop continuously and go into a CP at intervals to charge this up and do the washing.

Good luck

Lynne and John