Inverter to cope with c1000w appliance?

[sciac2001]

With LPG becoming increasingly difficult to source, as a non-tech buffoon I was wondering whether fitting an inverter to our pvc would allow us to do most of our cooking through it instead of using gas. I am thinking of cooking appliances of around the 1000w mark, such as a slow-cooker or one of those single-ring portable hobs.

My pvc already runs the (smallish) fridge from the 150 Amp battery, fed by 2 x c100w solar panels.

If “do-able”, any guidance on inverter sizing would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[Richard n Ann]

You'd need a few more batteries, and a few more solar panels to charge them. Do able but not worth it IMO

 

[funflair]

Well it depends you might do some but would struggle with all cooking electric, it depends how often to move, wether you have B2B, how much you cook and are you batteries LiFePO4 or lead,

Lead batteries have useable 50% to 80% and lithium close to 100% so take the lithium as an example and call it 130ah so at 12v that is Just over 1500 watts so now just work out what you would use and for how long, example remoska at 400 watts for 30 min is 200 watt hours so 1500/200=7.5 so you could do that 7.5 times in theory but don’t forget the inverter is not 100% efficient and you have other small users as well as some solar going in.

 

[Guigsy]

Anything that creates heat uses a hell of a lot of energy. Running a 1000w device for 15 minutes uses about 25Ah of battery (assuming some losses). Your battery can only use half it's capacity, so that's a third of it gone.

On a cloudless day in the middle of summer, you might make 60Ah with your panels. A lot less if it's cloudy or spring/autumn. And you need to run the fridge...

You probably need more battery and more solar to make it feasible.

 

[sciac2001]

Thanks folks.
Looks like we’ll be stocking up on Camping Gaz cylinders for our portable gas cookers in case of lack of lpg emergencies.
Thankfully we tend to spend much of our touring year on the European mainland where stockists are plentiful.

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[Hoovie]

With LPG becoming increasingly difficult to source, as a non-tech buffoon I was wondering whether fitting an inverter to our pvc would allow us to do most of our cooking through it instead of using gas. I am thinking of cooking appliances of around the 1000w mark, such as a slow-cooker or one of those single-ring portable hobs.

My pvc already runs the (smallish) fridge from the 150 Amp battery, fed by 2 x c100w solar panels.

If “do-able”, any guidance on inverter sizing would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

It is certainly doable. The last camper I built was all-electric in terms of the habitation area. Had 240V 2kW Induction Hob, 240V Slow Cooker, 240V Compressor Fridge and 240V 2kW Water Heating.
However, to feed that, I also had 460W of Solar and 645Ah of Lead Carbon AGM Batteries, so as mentioned already, you do need the energy supply to back it up. I used a Victron Multiplus 12/3000/120, which is a 2400W Inverter (NOT a 3000W Inverter as many people seem to think!) and that coped just fine, bearing in mind you are limited to what you can use at the same time of course.

With your setup, I think you should be able to use, selectively depending on weather and time of year, a slow cooker or a small induction hob, but I think I would think about upping the battery bank if you were seriously looking at this rather then just using a bit of excess power you may have on a sunny day. A Slow Cooker is very useful in a Motorhome/Camper as you can prep the food in the morning and leave it cooking away while you drive to your next location, using the Alternator power to help it. A slow cooker is usually only around 200W or so. I would say a 500W inverter would be good enough for a slow cooker. if you are looking at a small portable Induction Hob, then 1000W minimum.
In my current Motorhome, I have a 1300W Inverter (part of a Victron Multiplus 12/1600/70) that I use with 1 or 2 500W Induction Hobs, a 850W Water Heater and a 800W (so actually ~1200W) Microwave, and I run that from a 300Ah Lead Carbon AGM and 100AH Lithium Hybrid Battery Bank.

One question ... your Fridge.. is it a 12V Compressor Fridge or a 3-way 12V/240V/Gas Fridge?

 

[sciac2001]

Our fridge is a 12v compressor type.

Thanks for the insight on your own system. Brilliant.

 

[gus-lopez]

I thought most ' slow cookers' were around the 90w mark?

 

[sciac2001]

Just looked at ours. Rated at 250 W.

 

[funflair]

Just looked at ours. Rated at 250 W.

That will be on max presumably.

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[sciac2001]

If thats the norm on the labels. It just has that wattage figure on the label on the base.

 

[Spriddler]

With LPG becoming increasingly difficult to source, as a non-tech buffoon I was wondering whether fitting an inverter to our pvc would allow us to do most of our cooking through it instead of using gas.

I've been thinking about getting a BBQ as I believe it's possible to get ones that run on charcoal or wood.

 

[sciac2001]

I've been thinking about getting a BBQ as I believe it's possible to get ones that run on charcoal or wood.

How very 20th century!

 

[Hoovie]

Another electric cooking device that seems very popular in the US amongst RVers and "Van Lifers" is the 'Instant Pottm . They start at around 800W I think and can be a very handy multi-purpose cooker, including a Slow Cooker function.
I have the 'Pressure King' version suitable for 2 decent sized food portions. Tend to still use the CrockPot Slow Cooker out of habit though .
If your Motorhome/Camper use is a mix of wild camping and campsite w/EHU. It can be handy having something like that along with an inverter as you can use any excess power when off-grid, plus have good options for cooking to save having to use the LPG when on site.

 

[Pausim]

Perhaps worth bearing in mind that a 6kg bottle of propane contains 84kWh of energy whilst a 100Ah battery only holds about 1.25kWh and if it is lead acid you can only safely use half of that.

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