hi folks can anyone please give me any advice on the above mentioned. my mate has been telling me about how a leisure battery/invertor would be usefull when camping without ehu but i am unsure as what wattage they would have to be to power the ammount of stuff we take . ideally when we go camping we like to take a smallish tv/dvd player ..fan heater...small table lamp a cooler box and be able to run them at the same time whenever suitable. what would i need exactly is there other cables involved . my mate said you can have your battery in car all the time then a lead running into the tent with your inverter inside and your appliances running off it ..ti sounds so complicted to me if its running all the time how do you charge your leisure battery up ..sorry if im not making myself clear..anyway im not good at volyage / wattage ect so in simple terms would be helpfull..yours...stewey
A small 1kw fan heater would kill most leisure batteries in a few mins if you could find an inverter big enough!
Think of an inverter as something to use when powering a laptop or phone charger if you can not get a 12v charger for them. They are very inefficient at converting 12V to 230V and if you can avoid using one you will get so much more from you battery to power useful things such as lights and those devices built to run off 12v.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
If 1KW heater then the battery will have to give about 100 Amps at 12 Volt to the (very large) invertor.
If 2KW then 200 Amps
This is serious current (more like arc welder territory) and will require very large diameter cables. Second a large leisure battery will not provide this type of current safely, you will need a car battery, even then it will last for about three quarters of an hour. Non starter for heater!
Coolbox probably uses 5A at 12 volt so connect directly to battery (invertor is only around 80% efficient). Even so, on a leisure battery, 15 hours and the batteries discharged as far as it can be allowed to go.
so possible, but you need to do some driving in the day to fully recharge the battery, and you will need to take the coolbox with you in the car for power when you are out and about.
Lighting, no real problem assuming low energy fluorescent or LED lighting.
If you want to do this you need to forget electric heating, and have two leisure batteries, one on charge in the car, and one in use in the tent. Then swap as appropriate. You will probably need a dc to dc charger in the car, to ensure relatively fast but well controlled charging regime for the battery in the car.
hi birder.. i thought if i got a battery and inverter both the highest output i could run electric appliances in tent . how do people run them in caravans and baots but not in tents i told you i was rubbish on electric problems... cherrs...stewey
cheers dave you just saved me best part of £200 big ones.. to be honest if its gonna be all that trouble i will stick to non ehu ..weve just come back from a windy 3 days lovely and sunny thru daytime camping trip but really chilly at night ..we used a gas cannister heater to keep the chill off and a blue cat heater and they both done the job.. a coleman x treme 50 qrt wheeled cooler box for food and drinks kept beer cold from thurs to today..sun ... and a coleman 2 mantle unleaded lantern.. my mp3 plus small battery speaker and up to last year when we couldnt get ehu my wife was a bit dubious we tried it and realized that you can still go without ehu and still get the benefits..again dave...cherrs...stewey
hi dave i found using bags of ice that they leaked after a few days and the water was at the bottom of cooler even though there a plug to release water its easier just using bottles..stewey
unless you have a large solar panel to charge the battery in notime at all the battery will be flat as i found out just do your home work on this and good luck!
Cavanners either have EHU or run what they can on gas eg fridges and cooking and heating, with TV and radio used for short periods of time. A 12V TV is a lot more efficient than trying to run a 240V tv via an inverter and in fact with modern TV's many of them work at 12V and have a transformer to bring them down from 240V. Most mobile phones, netbook computers etc have 12V chargers available.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
Quote: Originally posted by stewey on 01/5/2011
hi birder.. i thought if i got a battery and inverter both the highest output i could run electric appliances in tent . how do people run them in caravans and baots but not in tents i told you i was rubbish on electric problems... cherrs...stewey
Boats and caravans have 12v system along side the 240 volt. What you don't see from a tent is the caravanner turning the fridge and heating to gas and using the gas kettle
Don't call them tin tents for nothing
Just fitted our caravan with LED light bulbs to reduce it's power need for when we are off grid.
But back to your question, forget the inverter and running any high powered items. A leisure battery will keep your lights running. It can also be used to power other 12v items, but the more you use then you need to think about putting power back in to it.
Options are charging from a secondary charger fitted in boot , just take your battery out with you when out for the day. Solar panel, or drop it off at a local garage and usually they will put it on charge for the day for you (discuss cost first). Some campsites also offer this facility.
------------- Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
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Topic: leisure batterys/invertors ?
