12 Volt Convertor

[mkhrcfly]

I will be building my TD starting this spring I like to get things in place before I start, the question is I have a 12volt convertor to 110 ac its 1000 wats 8.5 amps, When we camp for the most part there is elect hook up but sometimes we would be without power, Would I be ok to wire from the 110 supply to a charger to a set of batterys to convertor and wire 110 to camper ? Hope this makes sense ??

Thanks Mike

[Lou Park]

I've also wandered the same thing, but I thought, why
not just have a switch to switch from ac to dc.

[eamarquardt]

Yes it will work but a bigger question is for how long. A thousand watt inverter will take maybe 90 to a 100 amps of battery power. That is a LOT.

See this string:

http://tnttt.com/viewto ... highlight=

Ask yourself these questions:

How long will my battery last with the load I put on it?

How will this affect battery life?

How am I gonna recharge the battery, were am I gonna get the juice, and how long will it take each day?

Can I get what I want accomplished with DC for less power?

Cheers,

Gus

[AZSpyder]

I have ended up going the other way. All my lights are 12 volt. It won't be particularly bright but i figure it is more them I had in a tent. Each of my lights takes about 1 amp of DC. When I camp with hook ups then a 115 Volt to 12 volt converter will take over powering the lights. Besides a fridge thats about all I plan on running on battery. I do have a AC and microwave for when hooked up but didn't even try to set up to run those on battery and converter.

My rig originally had 115 volt and 12 volt lights along with a car radio. I don't think I will need a lot of light or built in tunes but I could add the extra fixtures back in. I think the 12 volt lights will work for me but it really depends on what you want powered up when hanging out in the rig.

It will take a serious bank of batteries to achieve anything close to 1000 watts of AC for any length of time. I'd keep watching Ebay to see if the Russians ever put up a used nuclear reactor if you want to run the converter for a long weekend. If you run it at less then rated power the input current will go down. Reducing the time running will of course help too. With a light load and shorter run time the battery life may not be too bad. What were you thinking of using the power for?

Jerry

[teardrop_focus]

mkhrcfly

I will be building my TD starting this spring I like to get things in place before I start, the question is I have a 12volt convertor to 110 ac its 1000 wats 8.5 amps...

Welcome to T&TTT, Mike. I believe the device you speak of in this first part of your post would be known as an inverter.

An inverter changes up, typically, 12V DC to 110/120V AC

A converter typically changes down; 110/120V AC to +/-12V DC

When we camp for the most part there is elect hook up but sometimes we would be without power, Would I be ok to wire from the 110 supply to a charger to a set of batterys to convertor and wire 110 to camper ? Hope this makes sense ??

Thanks Mike

It "sort of" makes sense... but it might be a less than straightforward approach...

When there's no 110/120V AC "shore" power to plug into (or no generator), your only power SOURCE would be a 12V battery or batteries. Asking this source to power a 1000 watt @ 110V supply might be a bit too muich, I dunno yet.

Good batteries are heavy, and generators are sometimes frowned upon at teardrop gatherings due to the odor of exhaust, mainly (since most small gennies are kinda quiet) and/or the noise.

If you're starting from scratch, try to build a good 12V system for the basics: lights at night and perhaps a small 100 watt inverter to power a laptop computer or other DVD player... but even those can drain a battery in due time.

You'll benefit greatly from the use of a solar panel to put some charge current into your battery when "boondocking" where's there's no shore power available.

I'm working on a similar setup right now, and have already purchased a good but heavy 100 amp-hour marine battery... but there's more to be learned on my end before I finish.

Have a look through this excellent resource, compiled here by one of the moderators: sdtripper2's Index (ongoing) Scroll down the list until you get to the 12V electrical threads then have at it.