Power inverter

[Dave5Cs]

Look on the appliance, breakers and anything you want to run off the pure Sine wave inverter. Add them up, how many watts, how many Amps, how many volts. Once you have done this then you will have a better idea of how big your inverter will be and how many deep cycle batteries at what size you will need to power it. An inverter/ Charger will not only take the energy from your battery bank and turn it into 110volt power for so many AH(amp Hours) but will also charge up your batteries to run your 12 volt stuff and or 24 volt stuff etc.
Some inverters actually will help other electrical devices like your Generator or shore power as in a hybrid inverter. So if one device does not have enough juice it will kick in to provide the difference needed to run what you want. Magnum 4024 Hybrid is just one of those inverter/chargers.
one could survive with just shore power if you were always attached to an electrical pole at a campground but if you want to dry camp out in the desert where there are no poles then you at least will need a generator or solar or inverter charger. With an inverter you still need some means to charge the batteries back up as in running the generator so many hours a day to run the charger to re charge house bats or enough solar to do the same. HTH
Dave5Cs

[DubLloyd]

120vac power is called alternating current-meaning it goes positive to negative to positive to negative-one cycle 60 times a second. A mechanical generator makes a perfect sine wave-the shape of the electrical wave when viewed on a oscilliscope. Modified sine wave relatively looks like a perfect sine wave but with jumps up and down creating a squared sine wave, rather than a smooth S shaped sine wave. A pure sine wave has almost smooth wave pattern-much closer than the modified sine wave. Look up what a sine wave is. Good Luck, TomC

Thanks Tom

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[DubLloyd]

DubLloyd don't sell yourself short because you say your are from Mississippi. Converting building and maintaining a bus is an experience. Get as much info as you can and read up on things. Plumbing, electrical ac/dc and many other items. Building a conversion bus is like building a home your just doing it on wheels which makes it a lot harder. You needs to do a lot of planning and you will make mistakes during the process. I am working on my first and probably my only because of my age and it has been a 10 year part time venture. Some mistakes were made but this is how we learn. Good Luck on your venture.

Thanks. When it comes to home constructuon that what I do. But my mind is geared to a power line comes in from the street. The potable water comes in from the street. The waste leaves and goes to the street. That is simple. But now I got to be the utility company goin down the road. Now I got to have a fridg that has 3 power sources, got to be worried about a limited water source, where to put that limited water source. Got to convert ac to dc. Do I use all 12 volt lighting or some of each. And how in the heck to connect it all together in 300 sq feet of space. Thanks for the incouragment

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[DubLloyd]

     Tom is right about this but there' are some other important aspects. As mentioned, some electronics don't do well with a wave form that is not pure sine or very close to it;  at best, you may have a microwave that hums and/or cooks slowly -- at worst, you can have smoke let out of your appliance(s).  Also, an oscilloscope will show an electronics technician the wave form of a non-sine-wave inverter; the difference between the wave you have an pure sine wave can be shown in sort of a "TV like" picture/graph.  The difference (all the areas in the graph where the non-sine wave doesn't follow the sine wave) will be current drawn from the batteries and wasted, usually as heat.  In this way, a "modified" sine wave inverter will be less efficient than a pure sine wave device and will deplete batteries faster.  



This is a sample graph that shows what alternating current does (not very well, esp. the "modified sine wave" is really ratty, but some devices are worse than that).  The green area on the left is the amount of electrical energy that's being used for a given amperage of power; the jagged line in the middle is mod sine wave; the red area shown in the third wave is the amount of additional energy that will be lost - almost certainly as heat - to perform the same amount of work with power to the MSW wave form.  That lost energy will have to come from your batteries and that's the amount that the batteries will run down quicker by.  That extra power can be up to about 30%, according to the spec sheets published by some inverter manufacturers.

      Spending a little more for a pure sine wave inverter will "buy" you that wasted battery power.

Not opposed to spending for the best. I have a hard time even navigating the forum. My mind does not sort things well and get lost in the process. So which and what size is the best inverter?  Yall please bare with me.

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[DubLloyd]

Look on the appliance, breakers and anything you want to run off the pure Sine wave inverter. Add them up, how many watts, how many Amps, how many volts. Once you have done this then you will have a better idea of how big your inverter will be and how many deep cycle batteries at what size you will need to power it. An inverter/ Charger will not only take the energy from your battery bank and turn it into 110volt power for so many AH(amp Hours) but will also charge up your batteries to run your 12 volt stuff and or 24 volt stuff etc.
Some inverters actually will help other electrical devices like your Generator or shore power as in a hybrid inverter. So if one device does not have enough juice it will kick in to provide the difference needed to run what you want. Magnum 4024 Hybrid is just one of those inverter/chargers.
one could survive with just shore power if you were always attached to an electrical pole at a campground but if you want to dry camp out in the desert where there are no poles then you at least will need a generator or solar or inverter charger. With an inverter you still need some means to charge the batteries back up as in running the generator so many hours a day to run the charger to re charge house bats or enough solar to do the same. HTH
Dave5Cs

Thanks, I can do that. That was easy to understand.

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[Oonrahnjay]

...  Yall please bare with me.

     OK, now here's the thing, we've all been where you are (well, most of us) and what it takes is putting together information.  I decided that I didn't want to have multiple sources of power for my refrigerator so I bought one that runs on 12V (dc).  That power comes right off the battery bank, like the headlights of a car when you're parked and the engine isn't running (not a good analogy, my fridge runs off about 1/3 the power that car headlights pull even when the fridge is starting up and running against the thermostat).  So, unfortunately, you have to check out everything you want to do.  A 12V fridge is pricey and usually small but it was forth the $$ to me and it's big enough for my needs -- what I have would probably drive a lot of people I know crazy.  Check out everything, LED lights for your interior lights, the size of microwave you want, do you want to run your water heater off your battery/inverter system?

[daddysgirl]

Just my humble 2 cents...

3000W Xantrex inverter and a PD 4590 power center with 4-6 group 31 batteries should handle whatever you need.
In any case, plan the system like you plan the siting of a house on a lot. Have some additional capacity, be safe and have fun!

[Dave5Cs]

Some use only 12 or 24 volt, some use both . some use 110. I used 110, 12 & 24 volt. All seperate with breakers for all. Refrigerator 3 way. We use it on 110 at RV parks, Gas on the road, but can also turn the genny on and use it on 110 on the road or dry camping if needed. We rarely use 12 volt on it even though it is an option it is not very efficient.
Microwave= 110 shore or genny, inverter with help from either if needed. Some lights with LED bulbs.
Plugs for computers, 110 or inverter for TV microwave, computers, chargers. Some plugs in bays for tools. On the exterior for tools and or plug in lights etc.
12 volts for radios, lights, Refrigerator controls, heater controls, Ac controls, LED's
24 volts Start batteries if your system is 24 volts there is a lot of stuff on the original coach that may be 24volts.
Inverter could be either 12 or 24.

Plumbing is easy. Fresh water with pump on outside line coming out of low point on tank then 1/2" pex or copper etc to your fixtures just like a house. You can make it more complicated with return lines and heaters for cold country but thats the basics. You will need a fill fitting on the outside of the bus to hook a garden hose to to fill the fresh water tank.

Black tank. Put toilet as close to right over it as possible because most toilets in RV are gravity.
Grey tank with collect all from your sink drains. The 2 (black and Grey) tanks will all drain  to a single drain and then out through a 3rd drain through a hose you hookup at a dump station.

HTH Dave

[DubLloyd]

I bought my Trace 2512 modified sine wave inverter/charger way back in 1994 when I first started my conversion. I have literally done nothing to it, except adjust it. Don't discount modified sine wave inverters. Mine powers all my plugs, bathroom heater, microwave, stove hood. It powers my LED Samsung flat screen TV. The only thing noticable is the stove exhaust fan runs slower and the microwave buzzes and takes longer cooking time. Good Luck, TomC

Ok. You r telling me that the Trace 2512 takes voltage from the bank of DC Batteries and converts 12 volt DC into 110 volt AC current. So when u talk about  all the plugs, tv, micro, and such, the battery bank via the inverter converts DC to AC andsupplies the electricity to all of these entities? I guess my mind does not comprehend taking a lesser source and amplifying it to a greater source  and morfing  the lesser into a total different format. Does that make sense?

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[DubLloyd]

Thanks, I can do that. That was easy to understand.

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This is what was in the bus to begin. What r these 2 items. Briefly explain each

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[eagle19952]

This is what was in the bus to begin. What r these 2 items. Briefly explain each
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A glorified battery charger... a transformer sort of in that it is a 12v supply.

[DubLloyd]

A glorified battery charger... a transformer sort of in that it is a 12v supply.

Guess this is what that has me so confused. They r stone age equipment but was told that they were all i needed. I could not believe that. I could not see neither of the producing 110 volt AC current. All the old wiring from the ancient conversion was 18 and 20 guage wiring. I just began to rip all the old wiring out months ago. Now that I am starting back, I want top notch and modern. Thanks

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[Dave5Cs]

Those are what we referrer to as a Battery boiler. That is the oposite of an Inverter. It take 110 AC and Converts it into 12 volt DC. Inverter Inverts 12 or 24 or 48 Volt etc into AC.

[eagle19952]

Guess this is what that has me so confused. They r stone age equipment but was told that they were all i needed. I could not believe that. I could not see neither of the producing 110 volt AC current. All the old wiring from the ancient conversion was 18 and 20 guage wiring. I just began to rip all the old wiring out months ago. Now that I am starting back, I want top notch and modern. Thanks

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..2000.00+ dollars worth of pure sine wave is nice. but, if nothing needs it, u don't either...here's the deal...I have flat screen Roku Tv's, computers and cell phones and toasters and lites and who knows what...refridge 110v only and the only thing that sqwacks without a pure sine wave inverter is the microwave..a little. a good old trace u2512 is the holy grail for me... with a 100+ amp charger...this minimizes gen run times in national parks etc.


marine looking ones were white ithink rv black... i have found these for half that money or less.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trace-U2512-U2512SB-RV-Marine-Power-Inverter-25-KW-Modified-Sine-Wave-/311791383737

[Oonrahnjay]

Guess this is what that has me so confused. They r stone age equipment but was told that they were all i needed. I could not believe that. I could not see neither of the producing 110 volt AC current. All the old wiring from the ancient conversion was 18 and 20 guage wiring. I just began to rip all the old wiring out months ago. Now that I am starting back, I want top notch and modern. Thanks

   Now you're getting it.  An inverter "inverts" 12 or 24V dc (just like the lights and starter on your car) into 120V ac (alternating current) just like your house.  Anything that you can run in a house, you can run on an inverter -- assuming that the inverter is big enough (has the capacity to output enough 120V current) to run the appliance.

   A basic is that it's all in "watts".  If you run a refrigerator at 5 amps on 120V ac current, you're pulling 600 watts.  To make that 600 watts ac, the inverter would have to draw 600 watts out of the batteries and at 12V dc, that means that the batteries must supply 50 amps at 12V (or 25 amps if it's a 24V system). 

   Since you're using electricity over time, this is usually expressed as watts/per hour and since the amount of power builds up, it's often expressed as "kilowatts/hour" (like on your electric bill at home).  600 watts for 8 hours would be 4.0 Kw/Hr. 

   So you can calculate - if your water heater takes 15 minutes to heat up enough for a shower and dish washing and it runs at 1500 watts, you can calculate that it would take 1500 watts/hr or 375 watt/hr for that 15 minutes.  A big truck battery called an 8D size is good for about 425 amps/hr (or 425 x 12V or 5100 watts).  Since you don't want to draw a battery down more than 50%, that gives you 2600 "useful" watts.  So running your water heater for 15 minutes uses about 15 - 18% of the juice available in that battery.

   This is the basics of how it works.  You figure your amp/ or /wattage use of each item you need to run, then total it up, figure the watt/hours and then divide that into the battery capacity you have -- or multiply the amount of current you need to tell you how many batteries you need to buy.

    The trick with an "inverter-charger" is that is you're supplying 120V by a power cord, the power is split.  Some goes to running your items, some is used by the inverter to charge your batteries back up.  Same thing when you're running a generator.

    Is this starting to make any sense?  It is a little "detail-dense" but once you get how the details work, it gets pretty straght-forward.  HTH,  BH  NC  USA