Inverters - How to get 220/240 volts off grid. Do you need one? Size? Type?
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- Опубліковано 17 лис 2022
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1000w continuous / 2000w peak Pure SIne Wave Inverter
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300w continuous Pure Sine Wave Inverter
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In this video we look at Inverters and how you can power 220 - 240v equipment when offgrid.
What size do you need and is Pure Sinewave better than Modified?
How effective are they and do they use loads of battery power?
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Great explanation. Look forward to the next
Hi, thanks to you help put on thicker cables to to the inverter and working OK now, thanks.
Great stuff - glad it's sorted!
Really comprehensive video! Thank you 👍😃
Great video, Cheers.
Thank you.
Very nice thanks
Pretty, pretty good...
Here's my question I live in South Florida or power goes off a lot, I have a lot of APC/UPS is in my home.. I would like to buy a 200 amp battery and buy a Pure Sine inverter. I have a Ram diesel truck which holds 75 gallons of fuel, in bed aux tank. should I use the alternator with big jumper cables to charge the 200 amp batteries or should I hook an inverter to my truck and then plug a large battery charger into my truck inverter to charge the 200 amp battery. I'd like to buy two 200 amp lithium batteries to keep the batteries charged, at least put back in 50% back into the batteries in charging. I have three 2.3 amp refrigerators I would like to keep cold, I can rotate power to three 2.3amp frig to keep my draw down..I was thinking of getting 2x 200amp lithium batteries and a 2000 watt pure sine inverter for the batteries, and a 750 watt inverter for my truck and a 50 amp charger for the truck inverter to power to put some charge back into the system..any help would be appreciated.
Ben
Happy to Cash App you
10:12 Please answer me, do you advise me to buy the red inverter 300W, does it really give pure waves?
I want to use it for my gaming laptop 230W, and I don't want it to be damaged
HI, in our experience the Bestek does appear to be pure sinewave - we've had no problem using it with electronic equipment.
amzn.to/42kn4Na
Okay stupid question but here it is im doing a van conversion i haven't a clue about any of this electric stuff. Im going to use a portable gas stove, i have a AGM leisure battery which is 12v 115Ah i have the spikt charge relay and few standard plug sockets do i habe to install a inverter now of can i just run the likes of a mobile charger, and tablet, maybe a small hairdryer too. Can these be run off the battery?
i do want to buy a small fridge maybe a mini fridge or cool box im not entirely sure yet which
Hi Stacey, not a stupid question at all.
If you haven’t already have a look at our 12 volts basics video here.
ua-cam.com/video/gpHBh6DorGM/v-deo.html
An inverter is by no means an essential item and for phone tablet charging, lights etc you definitely don’t need one.
The hairdryer there are 12v hair dryers available but they aren’t great. But any hair drier, be it 12v or mains through an inverter, is going to put quite a load on your battery and use it up quick. So if you can manage without I would.
My wife an daughter use these USB powered straighteners if that’s an alternative for you?
ua-cam.com/video/ygH6q1IVOsQ/v-deo.html
When it comes to the fridge take a look at our video here, ua-cam.com/video/QMLN4B9GVjQ/v-deo.html
the only real options for off grid is either a gas powered 3 way fridge or a 12v compressor fridge.
The cheaper 12v cool boxes will always use your battery up very quickly.
Hope that helps!
Great way to explain this. What are your thoughts on including a Power station instead of an inverter eg Ecoflow Delta
Thanks, I have quite a personal opinion on them. I know lots of people find them helpful and easy.
For me they are significantly more expensive than buying individual items so you could have the same amount of power for less cost or more power for the same cost by buying separate items.
You also have the advantage that if any one part does fail you can just replace that item.
Upgrading or having different individual elements as your requirements change is much easier with separates.
I can see how they are attractive to some from a simplicity perspective, but for us it would not be the right choice.
If you do go down that approach do make sure you know what you are getting eg the Capacity, Charging options (max solar input / max 12v power in) battery chemistry and the inverter peak and continuous rating.
@@ExploreVanUK Thank you for a truthful answer and I agree in some ways. My respective is that I don't have the skill set to install one and I think the cost of the equipment and installation matches the cost of a power station and just hope the warranty is good 🙂
I have already purchased the delta 2 and waiting for it l. I do have a small campervan and just think it is versatile for my means.
Might be very interesting if you could do a review on one (like delta 2 :-) )
Love the channel and going through all your vids
Thanks Tony, it does sound like it could be a good option for you.
We have been offered units to review but as the company wanted editorial control over the produced video we had no option but to refuse on that occasion.
@@asquaddie I agree by the time you buy two lithium iron leisure batteries and a 2000-watt inverter, including labour & installation costs, why not buy a plug-and-play solar generator, powered by leisure battery, solar power or house mains, which is also portable not fixed to the van, you would also need large campervan to store two batteries and convertors with all the wiring, not suitable for small campervans such as VW T5, I wonder with the correct fittings if you could charge those solar generators at EV points??
Hello
After reading the comments about modified sinus etc., are these inverters even suitable for 220V fans of about 40-50W power. And air pumps for air beds, tyre compressors, laptops and such? Nothing crazy.
What lower load (>200W) wouldn't work on these things?
Tnx for the reply.
Hi, inductive loads like Fans, compressors etc should be fine on Modified sinewave. But for laptop persoanlly i wouldn;t use anything but pure Sinewave due to the sensitive electronics.
Many thanks for all your videos. I’ve done quite a while without an inverter, but now I need one, I’m just trying to do the math, is it fair to say, I need to add 20% to the watts stated on the device label to compensate for inefficiency of the Inverter? Roughly…then I can decide which Inverter I need. ✌️
If you go for a quality inverter such as Victron. You can probably be confident that it will supply the stated power. Though do note there will be a surge/peak figure and a continuous figure.
For the cheaper end I would probably factor in 50% for over confidence in its abilities.
The efficiency rating is more about how much power you need to put in to get out what you need. Eg to get 1000w out at 240v you may need to put in 1100w in 12v with the rest being lost as heat energy.
@@ExploreVanUK I really appreciate your advice. I’ll probably add about 35% as I’m thinking of a Renogy one as they can auto switch between shore and inverter. Hope your having a great summer, if you can call it that 😅 thank you again ✌️
@@spitNsawdust No problem and that sounds sensible to me! We're in the South of France at the moment so summer is pretty good here, not looking forward to heading back to the UK!
@@ExploreVanUK lovely! I noticed it was hot there there today…We just came back. Have fun n safe travels. ✌️
Good morning could you tell me What size inverter I would need to run? A small microwave.
A Small refrigerator and 24 inch TV. I'm a truck driver
Hi - I am afraid there are too many variables there to be able to say.
Microwaves and fridges come in various different powers.
The type of TV will vary the power required.
Do you plan to run any of the items at the same time or would you switch them off so you only had one running at a time or would you want to run all 3 together.
The best approach is to check the actual pieces of equipment and each item will have an input power rating in Watts - add together any items you may want to run at the same time and add a little extra just in case.
For the fridge personally I would recommend going with a 12/24v compressor fridge rather than a mains powered fridge through an inverter as you don't have the efficiency loss of the inverter, they are lighter and generally made to deal with the vibration and shakes of life on the road better than household fridges.
If you can find a suitable 12/24v TV this is also a good idea for similar reasons.
Hope that helps!
4:46 Why? Why can't you charge the battery from the output mains? The inverter should be isolated DC to AC so it should work fine... it will ultimately flatten the battery but it will pretend to be working only backwards.
Theoretically you could.......... its not going to break anything - but all you would be doing is throwing power away, taking power out of the battery to drive the battery charger to put less back into it due to efficiency losses.
The point is you wouldn't want to do it by mistake and wonder why your battery is always going flat
All of these inverters have power consumption with 0 load attached. That might be the worst part in battery pawed system, you can drain your batteries without any load attached to the inverter.
That might be cause of inefficiency of small load lightbulb. For the efficiency test to be more accurate you should run a test with 50 or 80% of maximum rated power on all inverters. say 75W, 150W, 500W and 750W loads, and then see how efficient is each inverter.
Agreed, to be fully scientific they should also be run at various room temperatures, various degrees of ventilation and with various balances of Inductive, Resistive and Capacitive load.
Unfortunately we don’t have the time to do fully exhaustive tests (nor claim to), but we do aim to give a good representation of what can be expected.
I was thinking of running a air conditioning unit for the camper van only 60w for this video would it be ok to run it on a 300w inverter for a hour or two what battery would you recommend?
Hi, I’d double check the unit you are looking at. Our aircon is 1.5kw and I wouldn’t consider running it from the battery.
I’d guess either the 60w is wrong or it’s not actual Aircon.
@@ExploreVanUK yeah it’s not a proper air con unit it’s the one with ice packs and water it’s definitely 60w running so so recon that would be ok to run for 1 hour or 2
Ah that makes more sense. From our experience these aren’t great as they are not much more than a fan and the water essentially just adds damp / humidity to your van, something to be conscious of.
When Offgrid we found using 12v / USB powered fans much more efficient.
But if you really want to then I would size the inverter double the power usage to allow for initial spike. By going bigger you add more inefficiency.
The battery would depend what else you are planning to run and what you type you are planning to use.
You would be looking at a continuous draw of around 6 amps from 12v battery.
So a 100 Ah battery would safely last approx. 8 hours with a SLA / AGM battery and 16 hours with a Lithium. If solely used for the cooler.
@@ExploreVanUK thank you very much for the quick reply that helps loads!👍
@@justinrowe3346 That's an evaporative cooler. Might be slightly better than a fan (but not in humid weather). At 60 watts its not going to be very useful. They're loud. You'd be better with a decent sized fan. Endless Breeze or Caframo are good.
I’d say use a butane gas burner to heat water and meals. An electric jug or stovetop uses so much power from a battery that a cheap gas stove will eliminate this major user and you might get away with a smaller and cheaper inverter.
LPG was always our choice for cooking and hot water too, but now that LiFePO4 batteries / powerstations are coming down in cost and improving on capacity then Electric is now a via able alternative.
Best reciter raspberry
Can anybody tell me what i would need for a 12v to laptop charger please?
Depends on your existing laptop power supply - it will have a rating in Watts on it.
But is there any reason you want to use an inverter rather than just getting a 12v power adapter for the laptop?
@@ExploreVanUK i have ordered a 12v adapter thanks, hope it works! Big grey area this subject. Thanks for the vid
Can I charge my battery backup from the inverter with another charger?
??
Theoretically yes, but if I understand it correctly it could be a bit pointless.
You would be using the power from one battery to charge another battery - and as part of that process, you would lose some of the power to the inefficiency of the inverter.
EG your inverter could take 40 AH out of your main battery to put 35AH into your backup battery - you've wasted 5AH.
How can I use my 1000w2in1 inverter and battery without solar panel ?
??
charge it from mains when on hook up? I don;t see the point in stealing power from one battery to charge another.
Please also be more patient - we're not always here to answer questions and adding "??" comments will just get the original question removed in future. @user-sd8gv7qh6u
Why bother with convertors, why not just get a plug-and-play solar generator, such as Ecoflow, by the time you buy two leisure batteries and converters and all the wiring, just get a solar generator, powered by leisure battery, solar panels, or 240 v main house power
Check out our video here that looks at the value of “Plug and Play” power stations Vs separates.
ua-cam.com/video/4OzD-ZVFny8/v-deo.html