AIMS Power

plrock55

Total newbie here. I have a 2018 T@B 400. Can someone explain to me the AIMS Power button and outlet?  My camper was delivered to me by the person I bought it from. He had installed a new battery for me before taking delivery.  He thinks that there may be a problem with the solar control? as the AIMS button went to default and caused the CO2 beeper to go off.  Once I plugged in to shore power the outlet worked fine.  I am not good at understanding electricity, converters etc. So if someone could explain it maybe eventually I will understand.  I know the black box by the battery is inverter and solar control is mounted on wall near heat pump..Anyways, thank you in advance for simple AIMS 101 lesson.

N7SHG_Ham

That switch is to turn the AIMS brand of inverter on and off. An inverter converts 12v DC power to 120v AC power the same as you have in your household outlets. It only powers the single outlet near the switch. The factory AIMS inverter is 1200w so fairly low 10 amps of AC power available. You can only power small devices and for limited time as it will put a heavy drain on the batteries. Leave that switch OFF all the time unless using the outlet as the inverter uses power even in idle state and will drain your batteries dead in a fairly short time.

Edit to further comment on beeps, etc. I am not sure what all issues you were seeing, but if I had to guess symptoms of a low battery, possibly due to inverter being left on?

Turn inverter off and see if battery charges and symptoms go away.

plrock55

Thanks for your info. So under what circumstance would one need to use this outlet? When there are others to use when hooked to shore power.

ScottG

I think the idea is so you can have 120V AC when you are not on shore power. However, as N7SHG_Ham noted, it will come with a significant drain on your battery.

Denny16

You normally use the single AIMS Inverter outlet when you are Boondock or dry camping (not connected to an external 120VAC  power source (like in a camp ground with hookups) and you need to use a small 120VAC appliance like a coffee bean grinder, or a hair dryer.  It will not run a small Microwave, I tried this with our 2018 TaB400, didn’t have enough power.  

That said, when not in use, you need to be sure to turn it off or it will drain down your battery very quickly.  I would not use it to run any appliance for an extended time, like a camera battery charger, or WiFi/Cell booster unit.  Even with out anything plugged into the AIMS inverter outlet, the inverter will continue to use power from your battery.  This is a 1200 watt inverter, and presents quite a load on the battery whilst in use.
Cheers

ColoradoSun

We just tried out using the T@B 400 inverter to power a CPAP machine overnight. The CPAP's 90W AC adapter's DC output is rated at 3.75A. Powering the CPAP on the inverter, some conservative use of lights and the Adel & 3way frig on propane for about 7-8 hours the stock battery bank's state of charge went from 100% to 80% by sun rise.
Pretty good as long as you have enough sun the next day for your solar to get the battery bank up to 100% or close to it.
We have a DC to DC adapter for the CPAP that would be more efficient than the inverter but no DC outlet close enough to the rear of the T@B.

pthomas745

I use inverters plugged into my 12v ports all the time.  Small jobs, less than 150 watts ( way less!)  I've learned that matching the inverter size to the job is better all around.  An inverter uses power to make power, so using a 300 watt inverter to power a 45 watt laptop is just a waste of power.

The larger inverters in the 400s ( and the larger batteries) would allow some (not a lot..."some") higher wattage things to be used, mostly for short periods of time.  You might run a small (small, 700 watts or less) hair dryer, for example, for two or three minutes if you needed to.  Twenty minutes with a toaster oven?  Not so much.

plrock55

Thank you all for your comments. This newbie is learning!