12v electric blankets??

I think the shot is to use a standard 240v blanket, but use an inverter. I think they are quite low wattage, and from memory a 150w inverter will drive one.

Have a look at this Caravaners Forum thread for Keeping warm in bed whilst bush camping
This site for12v Elec blanket is mentioned.

NO but I have a mate who usied a inverter 12v to 240v to warm the bed for an hour whilst camping out and it only used about 5 amps of his battery storage.

Colin

I’ve travelled a fair bit of the wide brown land with a recently retired couple who will remain nameless but drive a deep blue 80 series and ride a black Arctic Cat quad. These two have always impressed me with their willingness to abandon a warm campfire on even the coldest of desert nights for the roof top or Ultimate Camper based doona. This is because they’ve been warming up the workbench with their electric blanket. It’s a totally standard 240 volt blanket run through an inverter, in their case a 1000W pure sine wave Cotek from Redarc. Their dual battery system copes with the amp draw required comfortably so I’d probably suggest that there’s no need to go down the complex path of a DC blanket. If you’ve got decent dual battery system and an inverter, warming the cot may be a simple proposition (I find sending your better half to bed a bit earlier always helps as well ;-)

Cheers Mick

12V electric blankets are available, but they are much more expensive than a 240V one.
We run a 240V electric blanket via an inverter in the OKA.
each side (double) uses 5A (60W) on the highest setting. Usually it is sufficient to warm up the bed for 30 minutes on high and then turn it off. If you intend running for longer than that (and running them for the kids as well) you would be well advised to calculate the power consumption very carefully to ensure that your batteries and charge system can cope OK.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome.

Gday
I have a 12 volt blanket , little brother gave it to me and it has never been used.

My boy suffers from asthma and have always used a 240V electric blanket in the RTT & run it of an aux 100A/H battery with a 600W inverter on it. Turn the blanket side ways and turn the top half on to #1 and run it all night if is cold or damp. I think our blanket draws 150watt with both sides on setting #3.

It fitted to the CT now ready for a trip to the Red Center at Easter Time just in case.

They are available and draw approx 55 watts , you can even get them for dogs.

Mostly we are away from 240vac and the 4 amps or so current draw is to much anyway and I considered the product fragile with potential to short out.

Anyway , a $2 hot water bottle kills them for performance overnight.

Often though bed only needs shorter duration warmth , and we find the use of a wheat bag suits the purpose better , easy to kick out of bed when to hot and no risk of kids breaking.

Even have a 12v stove , whose job , after cooking Xmas pudding this weekend, was to heat the bag.

This means you don't drag down battery overnight as we usually camp in isolated spots.

Hi Polky,
Agree with the above. We use a 240V electric blanket through a 600w inverter.
We run it for an hour or so before bed time to take the chill off.

Works well.

Cheers
Alex

Hi Polky

Unless your children have a medical need such as asthma and need additional heating, rug them up with track suits over their 'jamas and woollen bed socks, then tuck them up in sleeping bags. If the beds are out in the air like in slide out bed wind up trailers, put insulation under the mattress as much as covers over them (even old newspapers).

We have not travelled to the snow country, but have camped in stiff frosts and the only time we were cold was just once when we had a camper with slide out beds, when the air got rather cold a bit before dawn. When we got to a nearby town they'd had - 4º and it would have been colder where we camped. I have camped in Norway and woke to find it snowing, and was cosy in a sleeping bag with a blanket over the top.

As aforesaid, if you do use electric blankets, be sure your batteries have the capacity. If needing one just to warm up their beds, try hot water bottles.

Motherhen