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ianhyslop

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explain to me like I'm a 6 year old , when I am on leisure battery some of my appliances don't work , tv , microwave , kettle etc . I have been told that a inverter would sort this all out . Please help .
 
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Or to put it perhaps more briefly, an inverter will produce 240 volts from your 12 volt battery supply.

But in the real world this doesn't mean you can run things like electric kettles, the batteries will be flat in minutes.

A microwave is possible but you will need lots of solar power to recharge the batteries. TV much easier but a 12 volt TV is better as the inverter has losses.
 
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Thank you beekeeper , that's a start . Thanks also to you techno but the clue is in the first line of my thread .
 
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I think we may have to start at 5yrs first to understand the down load. It is a good guide but I think Ian may need to appreciate power first.
 
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ianhyslop said:
explain to me like I'm a 6 year old , when I am on leisure battery some of my appliances don't work , tv , microwave , kettle etc . I have been told that a inverter would sort this all out . Please help .
Click to expand...

When you are on Batteris some things don't work as they need to be plugged into 240 volts, your hook up lead connects the 240 volts to the sockets in the motorhome. As other have said you can make 240 volts from your 12 volt batteries with the thing called an inverter and this can connect to all your 240 volt sockets just like the hook up lead does BUT and it is a big BUT you need a decent amount of battery power and plenty of solar to recharge the batteries and you need to understand what you are using from your batteries as you use 240 volt appliances and you need to know that you can put enough back into the batteries to get you through the night when the sun is not shining.

Sounds quite simple really doesn't it?.

I think you need to understand watts volts amps and ah, I tried to explain it to my wife while we in Spain as we only has 6kwh per day from the hook up so we're using our inverter as well, she is a few years over 6 but still struggled, in fact by the time we were finished I was confused as well.
 
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OK, your MH has effectively two electrical systems. One is connected to all your 240 volt appliances and sockets then there is a second set of wires which runs at 12 volts. If you are not plugged into an electric hook up (EHU) then you won't get anything out of the 240 volt side. The 12 volt side will work of course but all its power comes from your leisure batteries, which have a finite capacity, unless you have a solar panel to top the batteries up.

When on EHU your MH should recharge your leisure batteries, but the reverse doesn't happen, 12 volts won't become 240 volts. Unless, that is you have an inverter, which does just that - and ignoring for the moment the waveform produced, which is a separate issue altogether.

However, there are many questions to be answered first before deciding what is the best inverter for you or even if you need one at all. At a guess I suspect only a tiny minority of MHs have them, although most of them are probably members here and you might get the impression they are an essential! I've got a tiny 150 watt unit from Maplins which I use to recharge my camera and the cordless vacuum cleaner. Everything else in the MH runs on 12 volt.

So the first question is what do you need which has to have 240 volt?
 
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If you are on line Ian would you please let us know if these replies are helping.
 
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mmmm.....

Had exactly this same conversation with my father in law

'i need an inverter' he said

' no you don't ' said me, 'you need to do a lot of reading and then you still won't need one'

he still doesn't have one :LOL:

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ianhyslop said:
when I am on leisure battery some of my appliances don't work , tv , microwave , kettle etc . I have been told that a inverter would sort this all out
Click to expand...

You were told wrong.. you need an inverter + a big battery bank + solar panels .. and a big £wedge,,

I'll keep it simple.. forget an inverter..

Buy a TV that can be used on 12v.. Finlux do a nice 22" one for about £120

Forget running a micro wave, kettle, toaster, hair dryer, etc from your battery...

Think camping.. think GAS .. think 12v .. and keep it simple..
 
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It's starting to make a genny sound attractive....
I'll duck for cover now lol
Ta andy

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I used to fit and commission inverters, the early ones took two guys to lift.

I'm planning on a solar and gas combo ,and maybe a small inverter for charging phones etc whilst off grid
 
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Did you know that all the batteries in the world would only be enough to keep us going for 10 mins, pretty much sums up there limitations
 
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Buy a small inverter for the TV and forget the rest they are too power hungry for most setups. Thats unless you are going to spend some serious cash
 
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ianhyslop said:
explain to me like I'm a 6 year old , when I am on leisure battery some of my appliances don't work , tv , microwave , kettle etc . I have been told that a inverter would sort this all out . Please help .
Click to expand...
OK.
Your kettle/microwave won't work on an inverter because inside the little inverter house lives tinky winky and dippy but they can't peddle the little bike fast enough to make it work.
If you try and make it work you may need a bigger inverter house with 2 tandem bikes where tinky winky and dippy can get La-La and Po to help peddle faster and make the kettle work..... but there is a problem in tellytubbby inverter land when the 4 of them says no no and fall of their bikes all tired and need to sleep to get their energy back. But tomorrow if the sun shines they will try again.... bye bye.

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Jonkil said:
OK.
Your kettle/microwave won't work on an inverter because inside the little inverter house lives tinky winky and dippy but they can't peddle the little bike fast enough to make it work.
If you try and make it work you may need a bigger inverter house with 2 tandem bikes where tinky winky and dippy can get La-La and Po to help peddle faster and make the kettle work..... but there is a problem in tellytubbby inverter land when the 4 of them says no no and fall of their bikes all tired and need to sleep to get their energy back. But tomorrow if the sun shines they will try again.... bye bye.
Click to expand...
Pretty much sums it up(y)
 
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Well many thanks to everyone who took the time to try and enlighten me on the subject of inverters , from the techno experts down to my level , again thanks . Believe it or not I think I have an understanding ,albeit small , of the subject .
 
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This topic got me wondering why they are called inverters. Wiki has the answer: (which is in the very last sentence)

"From the late nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century, DC-to-AC was accomplished using rotary converters or motor-generator sets (M-G sets). In the early twentieth century, vacuum tubes and gas filled tubes began to be used as switches in inverter circuits. The most widely used type of tube was the ]thyratron.

The origins of electromechanical inverters explain the source of the term inverter. Early AC-to-DC converters used an induction or synchronous AC motor direct-connected to a generator (dynamo) so that the generator's commutator reversed its connections at exactly the right moments to produce DC. A later development is the synchronous converter, in which the motor and generator windings are combined into one armature, with slip rings at one end and a commutator at the other and only one field frame. The result with either is AC-in, DC-out. With an M-G set, the DC can be considered to be separately generated from the AC; with a synchronous converter, in a certain sense it can be considered to be "mechanically rectified AC". Given the right auxiliary and control equipment, an M-G set or rotary converter can be "run backwards", converting DC to AC. Hence an inverter is an inverted converter."

So now you know - or perhaps not! :)
 
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They are very energy efficient pieces of equipment compared with older forms of motor control,I'm talking electrical motors, our sales pitch was that they would save the cost of themselves over 6 on the to a year in energy savings
They took an Ac supply converted it to dc,then back to ac and controlled the motor using frequency first one that I did was for the queen

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laird of Dunstan said:
They are very energy efficient pieces of equipment compared with older forms of motor control,I'm talking electrical motors, our sales pitch was that they would save the cost of themselves over 6 on the to a year in energy savings
They took an Ac supply converted it to dc,then back to ac and controlled the motor using frequency first one that I did was for the queen
Click to expand...

Have another one for me old chap
 
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laird of Dunstan said:
maybe a small inverter for charging phones etc
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Why not just use a 12v cig lighter charger for phones, tablets etc.

Pointless inverting 12vdc to 230vac then dropping it to 6vdc again via the phones charger.

If something ONLY runs on 230vac then an inverter is the only option.....for anything else 12v adaptors are sufficient
 
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pappajohn said:
Why not just use a 12v cig lighter charger for phones, tablets etc.

Pointless inverting 12vdc to 230vac then dropping it to 6vdc again via the phones charger.

If something ONLY runs on 230vac then an inverter is the only option.....for anything else 12v adaptors are sufficient
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I agree. I use our little Maplins cheapie for the Dyson vacuum cleaner and my camera. However, having looked at the Dyson it needs a 22.2 volt dc charge which might be possible from a charger sold for laptops although the plug might need to be changed. The Olympus camera is still a problem, no known 12 volt charger seems to be available, which is a pain.
 
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laird of Dunstan said:
They are very energy efficient pieces of equipment compared with older forms of motor control,I'm talking electrical motors, our sales pitch was that they would save the cost of themselves over 6 on the to a year in energy savings
They took an Ac supply converted it to dc,then back to ac and controlled the motor using frequency first one that I did was for the queen
Click to expand...

Well I'm still at it. Variable frequency inverters, now these a whole new topic, guessing East side if the country, Brush, Cortina?
 
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So how much power would a 12v TV take? I know it is a bit "how long is a piece of string" so assume a fully charged standard leisure battery with 4 hours of TV use and 2 LED lights, the water pump when needed (just occurred to me - does this use the 12V system?) and charging 2 phones in the 12v socket per day. How many days?

Is a motorhome 12v socket the same as a car cigar lighter?

Thanks
 
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