Recharging, 12 volt and inverter queries
Submitted: Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 11:18
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Sam39
Hi, we have a Thumper 75 Amp Hour battery that is over 5 years old. It’s been really good for tent based camping as it’s portable and runs the Engel and Versa 12 volt light for around 3 days comfortably which is what we normally do. As we are soon to be heading off on a 3 week trip I am a thinking I might have a few challenges we need some help with, thanks in advance.
At this stage we are looking to purchase a 12 Volt 300 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter to connect to the Thumper while driving (not while stationery unless urgent for some reason) to charge 2 x Apple iPhones, MacBook Pro (powered off), iPad, secondary portable light battery charger and camera battery charger. My intention was to use a 4 plug power board and plug in up to 4 devices at any time to the invertor while on the road. Will this work and does it seems like a good way to recharge and keep these devices topped up?
The second challenge might be keeping the Thumper re-charged while connecting all these devices via inverter, plus Engel fridge while spending an average of around 1.5- 2 hours per day on the road for the 3 week trip. The in car Thumper charger is supposed to take 2-4 hours to recharge the battery from a low level (I think 30amp in car) but I am not sure how much it will recharge while other devices are also connected to it.
Does anyone have any practical advice and experience as to whether this is going to work okay for the duration of the trip? I guess I am thinking give it a go and see what happens worst case I have to run the Prado diesel engine for a while until we get it sorted when an opportunity presents.
If we find we are struggling with keeping the
battery power levels up which is only critical for the fridge really, what would be a good way to sort this quickly/cheaply for our 3 week trip?
The
inverters I am looking at are the PROJECTA INVERTER PURE SINE WAVE 300W 12V. There are 2 models either the IP 300 or IM 300. The IP 300 is about $150 more but I like the sound of dust proof and shock resistant and my preference is to only buy once. Does anyone have any thoughts on these or other good brands?
Reply By: Member - Troll 81 (QLD) - Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 11:49
Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 11:49
seems like a very inefficient way of charging things, 4 of your devices can be charged by 12V already so why go from 12v-240 back to 12V. It is never a good idea to drive with the inverter on since we are talking live 240V, imagine having a crash and something opens up the inverter due to impact and your car becomes live with 240V.
You would be better off setting up your devices to charge from 12V while driving from the car battery and having the thumper charge in the back via a Anderson plug or whatever plug you are using. I would also be a sus on the age of the battery, 5 years is very good service but you don’t want to be away from civilisation for too long with a battery that old, I would not want to be anyway unless you have some sort of backup to keep the fridge running without draining your starting battery. Have you looked at a 80w solar setup? You can pick them up pretty cheap these days.
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Reply By: TerraFirma - Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 12:33
Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 12:33
You don't need an inverter to charge 12v devices. Iphones charge of a 12v socket, to run an inverter to then generate 240v to then drop back down to 5 volts and 12 volts is inefficient. Keep the battery or batteries for charging the necessities.
1. Iphones - Charge via a good quality USB 12v Cig Socket, you will need 10 watts version to charge Ipads, these will charge Iphones quicker as
well.
2. Cameras, I bring spare batteries, so most of the time I don't need to recharge
3. Fridge - 12v as per normal and battery pack and or Dual Battery system etc
4. Laptop - Via 12v Charger kit (Ipad rather than Laptop where possible)
5. Solar charges to assist battery re-charging and topping up etc.
6. Inverter - Only use
mine to run a microwave occassionally.
AnswerID:
469463
Reply By: Sam39 - Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 16:20
Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 16:20
Think I was meant to post here...
Thanks for all your replies.
I have had more of a look for the Apple devices by searching "in car charging" rather than looking under "12v charger" as i was struggling to find something and it does look my Apple devices can be covered with 2 chargers only and they are quite cheap which is a bonus.
RE: the camera batteries, this will be infrequent anyway and most likely could use a smaller inverter for this or get a spare battery as suggested. It may be that I don't even need an inverter at this stage ;-)
Thanks for
the tip on the "pure" and "modified" designation you are correct in your interpretation for the models I am looking at.
Any tips on an 80w solar setup would be good as i haven't really looked into this area yet.
AnswerID:
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Reply By: Member - Serendipity(WA) - Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 23:30
Tuesday, Nov 08, 2011 at 23:30
Hi Sam
The other comments are really true and I support them wholly.
Even so I have recently purchased a pure sine wave inverter - works really
well. I am very careful to only use it when set up for camping and I only use the one outlet it comes with. And only for those items I don't have a 12v charger to use.
This inverter is a 1000w (2000w peak) I purchased from ebay for $159. See
http://stores.ebay.com.au/Bit-Deals/Pure-Sine-Inverters-/_i.html?_fsub=1750571018&_sid=302026428&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322
Also if you are looking for a solar panel I just purchased one on ebay 80w $153 plus regulator for $19.95. see
http://stores.ebay.com.au/Low-Energy-Developments?_trksid=p4340.l2563
These are great deals that I have seen other exploroz members recommend as
well.
No affiliation just a happy customer.
Cheers
Serendipity
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Follow Up By: Sam39 - Wednesday, Nov 09, 2011 at 15:09
Wednesday, Nov 09, 2011 at 15:09
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction on these.
The 80w solar ready to go camping kits look really good to me.
They definitely are
well priced (I was expecting them to be a lot more from what I have seen elsewhere) and seem to have all the features I would be looking for.
I presume 80w is about the right size for the electrical that we need to run mentioned above.
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Follow Up By: Member - Serendipity(WA) - Wednesday, Nov 09, 2011 at 21:50
Wednesday, Nov 09, 2011 at 21:50
Sam
I have twin deep cycle batteries and lots of LED lights, twin fridges, etc. I found for the twin batteries and twin fridges one panel was not enough so I now have two 80w panels. Before when I had one battery and one fridge yes one panel seemed to do the trick.
I choose an 80w panel as it is still small enough to carry and stow in the camper. Large panels are just plain awkward to set out in the sun or stow in the camper. Smaller panels don't give enough power. Seems like 80w is the Goldilocks size.
As for the regulator you get - money will buy a better one. There are some pretty smart people on this
forum who know more about which regulator to get. Depends on your budget. I have two different regulators. One in the camper is capable of running up to 24 amp which would be about 4 or 5 panels and has digital read out, max and min cut outs etc, pretty fancy - about $120. The other is on the car as I have a third panel mounted on the car - that regulator is basic green light red light. The car has second battery and I can plug the camper into the car for extra power support.
Cheers
Serendipity
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