Inverter Use or Need?

JeffroNC

Folks, I have not turned on our factory installed inverter once while camping. I use DC chargers and adapters for our electronics and don’t use electric appliances when not connected to shower power.
I am planning to upgrade to lithium in the spring and considering pulling out the inverter and wiring so I can get a hatch put in to access the under bed storage. Will I regret this choice? What do you use the inverter for?
Happy Holidays!

Dutch061

I use it daily when boondocking to make coffee and to operate my toaster. Yes, there are ways around it but I (like most people) tend to take the path of least resistance in most situations.

My wife has also wanted to take a drink mixer for making smoothies, but I haven't checked to see how many watts it takes.

Merry Christmas!

Brad

P.S. even with 4 batteries stuffed under the bed, I have some storage left. On our 6-week trip last summer, I only put a couple of things under the bed anyway. So, for me to give up part of that storage for 2 more batteries, wasn't a concern. 

Sharon_is_SAM

@JeffroNC - we have not missed an inverter in 5 seasons of use.  I say if you haven’t used it by now, you won’t miss it.  You can add it later if an item becomes essential or just find a campsite with electricity.

JeffroNC

@Dutch061 I will admit that toast without an electric toaster is a challenge. I have tried the stovetop solutions but they are lacking. 

AnOldUR

JeffroNC said:

@Dutch061 I will admit that toast without an electric toaster is a challenge. I have tried the stovetop solutions but they are lacking. 

All a matter of taste, but pre-buttered bread toasted on a pan or griddle can't be beat. IMO

Our 2020 320S didn't come with an inverter. I've given some thought to adding one, but for our 120V needs while dry camping, this little Ryobi has been all we need. Can even use it at the picnic table.

pthomas745

Inverters still gather frowning disapproval.  We still haven't changed the thinking from the days of an 80 AH battery with only 40 AH available. With no solar, and generators the size of a fridge.  The little inefficiencies of an inverter and the possibility of a large power drain discouraged their use.  Made sense. 

But: we now have: much more battery power.  Ability to recharge a battery in several different ways without being on shore power.  Battery monitoring systems that can show you exactly how many amps your toaster used this morning, how many you have left, and how much power is coming in from your charging systems.

I just switched to a 100ah lithium.  I now have more than twice the power (90AH) than I used to have with the 40AH available from my old lead acid.  With the same trailer and power needs. 

I no longer hesitate to use my small "12V plug in" inverters to run my laptop, etc.  The "inefficiences" of these inverters are now dwarfed by my available amp hours, and my ability to recharge. 

So....plug in that toaster and use one of your 125 available amps.  Unless the sun isn't out, of course!

Denny16

Jeff, whilst you could remove the inverter, you are still going to have the battery distro box (little black box) next to the battery box.  You could move the distro box along side the battery?  See photo below:

Battery distribution box, circled in red, is not part of the inverter, may restrict front access.  It could be moved to side of battery box, red arrow?

That said, I find the 1200-watt inverter installed by nüCamp to be an odd size, larger than needed to run a small appliance, and too small to run a Microwave (useful whilst camping).  While it will run appliances like a coffee maker, grinder, blender, it is larger than needed for these common appliances, and uses more battery than a smaller 800-1,000 watt inverter would.  

An optionally sized inverter would run at 80% of peak to run the required appliance.  This is the sweet spot for balancing appliance load to inverter to reduce overhead current draw.  Even without a load, the inverter itself draws battery power while it is on. The larger the inverter, the greater this internal inverter load is.
cheers

JeffroNC

@Denny16 good point about the distribution box. It’s one of the reasons I plan to do this when I do the battery swap. The replacement batteries will be a different size and I will be basically starting from scratch.
 I will have about 200 amp hours of capacity and might be agreeing with @pthomas745 at that point. LOL

YanniLazarus

AnOldUR said:

JeffroNC said:

@Dutch061 I will admit that toast without an electric toaster is a challenge. I have tried the stovetop solutions but they are lacking. 

All a matter of taste, but pre-buttered bread toasted on a pan or griddle can't be beat. IMO

Our 2020 320S didn't come with an inverter. I've given some thought to adding one, but for our 120V needs while dry camping, this little Ryobi has been all we need. Can even use it at the picnic table.

Interesting. What do you typically use this to power?  

AnOldUR

YanniLazarus said:

Interesting. What do you typically use this to power?  

My wife has a small blender for smoothies. I mainly use it to plug in the 120V power supply for my laptop. Also use the USB ports for charging phones. The thing I like best over the on-board inverter is being able to use it inside or outside T@B. I have a lot of Ryobi tool at home, so have a bunch of batteries. I keep a charger in the trailer so that when I have shore power I can keep them charged.

edit to add
We have a 300W inverter (portable cigarette lighter type) that we used when power was available when we tent camped. Haven't found the need for it since getting the T@B.

bergger

We love having the option of using the inverter.  If I don't make a pour over coffee we'll use the inverter to power the coffee pot and also use it to power the little dvd player on nights we want to watch a movie.  I'd just leave it so you always have the option to use it.  

Denny16

My issue with the AIMS 1200 watt inverter installed by nüCamp, is its inefficient and oversized for the available power use you get from it (1200x80%=960 available continuous watts).  Newer smart inverters from Victron and Renogy package a true 1200 watts in the same size form factor, and you can get smaller 800 watt units that will use less power in the conversion than the AMIS inverter. 

 

The Victron Phoenix Smart inverter is smaller, does not require the large external fuses, and uses less battery power to produce a very useable 600-800 watts of AC power.  This will make coffee, run a blender or small hair dryer.  When you turn the AC appliance off (no load), the Phoenix Inverter will shut itself down to a true standby status using only 5% of the power when in required when idle (on with no AC load).  So if you forget to turn the inverter off, it will not drain your battery as fast as traditional inverters in a no load standby state.  

@JeffroNC, two 100-amp lithium batteries are about the same size as your current 200 amp AGM battery, and will weigh much less.  You could install the two lithium batteries and just shift the Battery Distro box over a bit, and discard the AGM battery box, as it will be redundant.
cheers

JeffroNC

@Denny16 yes, that’s what I was thinking. We camp most in the shoulder months and in different climates so we need a full set of winter clothes as well as warmer weather stuff. The under bed storage helps with that. (Also where we store our pandemic TP stock)

BrianZ

We've had a little 300W inverter for years (even pre-T@B) that we take when traveling, mainly just for running/recharging a laptop computer.  It plugs into a cig lighter socket, so can be used either in the car or camper.  I still make drip coffee though, and we eat cereal, not toast.  I was curious about its impact on our 150AH lead acid battery, so earlier this year I used the Victron battery monitor's graphing feature to track the discharge graph on my phone to see the impact and it wasn't as much as I had expected.  Will have to dig out those screenshots I saved.

Dutch061

Just want to clarify a couple of points for the OEM installed Aims Inverter that people may or may not be aware of.

1. Aims advertises that it is 90% efficient, IE an 8 AMP AC Load (960 Watts) will require 80 Amps DC plus 10% or right at 88 Amps. Not a biggie, but it is better than the mentioned "80% efficiency". Also remember that most devices have an "in-rush" during start-up that far exceeds their normal power requirements. 

2. The DC amperage draw will be directly proportional to the AC Load, plus that 10% in efficiency loss.

Between my small coffee pot and making toast, it takes 5 Amp hours +/- off the battery Amp hours available. Which for me is more than acceptable for the convenience and simplicity. 

I had considered upgrading to the 2000 Watt Aims inverter but realized that I probably wouldn't use it for anything else, so why bother. If I were to seriously consider an upgrade, I would probably look towards the Victron Multi-Plus that a few others have used due to the flexibility and configurability. That would allow me to use the air conditioner without a soft start.

As @AnOldUR mentioned, it is a matter of taste and also for me (possibly others) a matter of calories. As I continue to mature, my ability to add pounds far exceeds my ability to get rid of them. LOL

Brad

Denny16

I agree @Dutch061, how we use our Tabs and the equipment we use is a personal choice.  I read up on the AIMS Inverter, and on paper it looked good.  But, when I went to put a 700 watt microwave load on the 1200 watt  inverter that has a 2,000 watt peak, it started up the microwave for 20-30 seconds, the time limit the peak power boost is active for.  A little investigation resulted in some interesting discoveries.

  First, a 700-watt rated microwave (one of the smalles units I could find) is in fact the microwave tube rating (700-watts) and not the total AC power load, which worked out closer to 900 to a 1,000 watts.  At a 90% efficiency rating this should have worked, but it didn’t.  At a 20% efficiency loss the Inverter load rating would be 960 watts, which seems to be the case.  At 90% efficiency, the inverter would give you a 1080 watts, which should have run the microwave but didn’t.  

It was this issue that lead me to the discovery of a inverter’s sustained load rating, which is around 15-20% less than the listed load.  I am not dissing AIMS, and it’s newer inverters may be more efficient than the 2017-2018 AIMS inverter installed in our 2018 TaB400.  In all fairness, comparing a four year old inverter with current, newer and more efficient inverters is an apples to oranges, and not exactly a fair comparison.  

Technology marches on, and devices, especially electronic ones, become better every year, as does battery technology.  So I am going to wait until I replace my AGM battery with lithium batteries before changing out the AMIS inverter, which does work nicely with AC appliances requiring 800 watts or less. 

Cheers

BrianZ

Re:  My aforementioned test of using a small 300W inverter plugged into our 150AH T@B  battery power for charging a laptop computer..
  

Our laptop battery had been just over 50% charge, and the T@B battery had been fully charged & was on trickle charge, so I first disconnected the T@B power/charging cable, then plugged the inverter into a 12V T@B socket & plugged in the laptop AC adapter/charger, as shown here..

Our Victron battery monitor showed what happens to the 12V T@B battery voltage, current, and state of charge during the laptop charging cycle.  Below are the monitor displays before & after plugging in the inverter, showing power consumption before plugging in the charger..

The next screens show about 3 amps of charging current, with battery voltage dropping to less than 12.5 V after about 5 minutes, despite the battery state of charge still [correctly] showing 100% capacity.  The Trend display shows how the battery voltage plunges initially, while current usage remains at relatively constant levels..

After only 5 minutes charging, the next graph shows how the battery chemistry starts to catch up, and voltage levels bottom out and then start to rise again..

After less than an hour, the next graph shows the T@B 12V battery voltage returning close to normal (~12.7V fully charged), while the charging current going to the laptop is decreasing as its battery approaches full capacity..

At this point, near the end of the laptop charging cycle, the battery monitor status below displays a total usage of 3 Amp-Hours of battery capacity.. (For comparison, our total daily battery usage when boondocking is about 20AH or less.)

The Victron display inside the T@B near end of charging cycle (not sure about the accuracy of the SeeLevel battery voltage)..

I haven't used the trend graphs much, but it helps to see what's happening in a dynamic way that cannot otherwise be seen by looking at individual measurements from a point in time.

Deb55

Our 2018 T@B 400 didn't come with an inverter. We have 190 watts of solar that we added to the roof, and the 2 6volt AGM batteries. We also changed out the Fantastic Fan for a Maxxair, which saves on power when boondocking. I've bought nothing that needs electric hookups--coffee is pour over, toaster is stove top, we have an Omnia oven, and a thermal slow cooker. We have Luci lights that are solar powered if needed. We have battery operated fans if the Maxxair isn't enough. If I need to dry my hair, I have towels. We may get a solar powered lithium battery "generator" at some point for convenience. So far, this works well. I've tried to plan everything around having no hookups. 

Denny16

We do the same @Deb55.  Even though we do have the inverter (part of the later 2018 solar package we have), we also do not use it, after discovering it would not power a micro wave.  We do the same, with coffee and toast prep, have a hand coffee grinder, and I have a stove top expresso/milk steamer, so no electricity required when boondock camping.
cheers