Low power ehu

[jongood]

Many of the European campsites or aires that have ehu only have 6 amps so 1320 watts, which is enough to run water at 1kw, fridge and keep batteries up.

Ive also got a small electric kettle (600w) which I manage to run through the inverter at the same time.

As long as I don't go nuts and flatten the batteries it seems to work well. Any thoughts?

 

[Whitebirdyman]

I just would turn off the water heating whilst I wanted to boil the kettle, rather than use an inverter and my battery power.

 

[funflair]

Morning Jon

Are you paying by the kwh/day if so I try to keep within the allowance as the extra power is quite expensive compared to gas.

Martin

 

[jongood]

Hi Martin

No not on metered but standard acsi is 6amp as is the coulon aire we're on atm. Dry and draw more than 1320 and the breaker cuts.

Jon

 

[andy63]

Many of the European campsites or aires that have ehu only have 6 amps so 1320 watts, which is enough to run water at 1kw, fridge and keep batteries up.

Ive also got a small electric kettle (600w) which I manage to run through the inverter at the same time.

As long as I don't go nuts and flatten the batteries it seems to work well. Any thoughts?

Hi jon..no mention of heating ,telly ,charging lappys an phones. .etc.
On a restricted supply like that most need to be aware of what's on and the power requirements of what's been used and be selective..
What does the fridge draw on 230v... ??
Hope all is well BTW. ..
Andy.

 

[jongood]

Hi Andy

Hope the canoeing is going well.

Everthing else you mention is 12 volt but not usually all on at the same time. I do agree that you need to be careful but it svaes the faff of having to remember to turn hw on and off (takes 3 mugs of tea to get sue out of bed in the morning).

All the best
Jon

 

[peterc10]

Why are you using electricity to heat water. That is what your gas is for. We use an ordinary kettle on our gas hob. Much quicker and easier than those small low power electric kettles.

Most of the sites in France and Spain have restricted electricity supplies or they charge by amount used.

 

[DBK]

My thoughts are you are unnecessarily hammering your batteries running the inverter. The kettle will be taking 50+ amps out of them, which isn't huge but it will shorten the life of the batteries, all heavy inverter use does although some makes of battery claim to be immune apparently though they are very expensive.

So, use a conventional whistling kettle, or turn the water off and run the electric jobby off the EHU. You don't need to keep turning the water on and off - it will stay hot for ages.

We had a 3A supply at a recent site we were on. It managed to run the 'fridge.

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[funflair]

Hi Andy

Hope the canoeing is going well.

Everthing else you mention is 12 volt but not usually all on at the same time. I do agree that you need to be careful but it svaes the faff of having to remember to turn hw on and off (takes 3 mugs of tea to get sue out of bed in the morning).

All the best
Jon

Speaking of which its 19 past sleeping beauties morning cuppa time so must go.

Martin

 

[funflair]

My thoughts are you are unnecessarily hammering your batteries running the inverter. The kettle will be taking 50+ amps out of them, which isn't huge but it will shorten the life of the batteries, all heavy inverter use does although some makes of battery claim to be immune apparently though they are very expensive.

I tend to agree, even if the heavy use does not affect them it still eats into the useable cycles.

Martin

 

[Louis]

Many of the European campsites or aires that have ehu only have 6 amps so 1320 watts, which is enough to run water at 1kw, fridge and keep batteries up.

Ive also got a small electric kettle (600w) which I manage to run through the inverter at the same time.

As long as I don't go nuts and flatten the batteries it seems to work well. Any thoughts?

Make sure that your ehu is totally uncoiled without any knots to restrict flow

 

[WillH]

We usually run the fridge on gas and use the kettle on the gas when on a low power EHU.

 

[Welsh girl]

When we were having 4kilowatts in the price we used the gas for heating but the600w kettle for tea, we used TV, fridge on ehu which used nearly 4 kilowatts a day. We were pretty careful on it as we had to pay 40cents a kilowatt if we went over the allowance.
We used the site showers.
That was in Spain.

 

[mikebeaches]

My thoughts are you are unnecessarily hammering your batteries running the inverter. The kettle will be taking 50+ amps out of them, which isn't huge but it will shorten the life of the batteries, all heavy inverter use does although some makes of battery claim to be immune apparently though they are very expensive.

So, use a conventional whistling kettle, or turn the water off and run the electric jobby off the EHU. You don't need to keep turning the water on and off - it will stay hot for ages.

We had a 3A supply at a recent site we were on. It managed to run the 'fridge.

Broadly agree with DBK's view.

Talking of low power electric hookups, we reckon 6 amp is fairly generous on the continent (well France! )

And have come across 3 amps a few times, and once only 2 amps - I think that just about charged the battery. The campsite owners, who were new, said they were going to upgrade the supply...

We're used to juggling electrical appliances. One handy item is a full size kettle rated at 1,000 watts, that works nicely on a 6 amp supply. Yes, it takes a while to boil, but so what. We normally fill either one or two very large flasks with boiling water in the morning - one when staying on site, and usually two when travelling. Any left over is used for washing up.

The Truma blown air heater is also useful set on electric at 900 watts (1 element) for taking the chill off the van before we get up; or on for longer if the weather is cold - but not when the kettle is on, if using 6 amp hookup.

 

[pappajohn]

it svaes the faff of having to remember to turn hw on and off (takes 3 mugs of tea to get sue out of bed in the morning).

You mean you make her tea with hot water from the tap !!!!!
I always use a kettle.

 

[gus-lopez]

When we were having 4kilowatts in the price we used the gas for heating but the600w kettle for tea, we used TV, fridge on ehu which used nearly 4 kilowatts a day. We were pretty careful on it as we had to pay 40cents a kilowatt if we went over the allowance.
We used the site showers.
That was in Spain.

They must work on the principle that tourists don't know that you cannot re-charge for electricity more than the actual cost. It is illegal. That is why the usual charge is for the access to an electric hook-up.

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[peterc10]

They must work on the principle that tourists don't know that you cannot re-charge for electricity more than the actual cost. It is illegal. That is why the usual charge is for the access to an electric hook-up.

Is that the case in Spain? As I understand it many Spanish sites charge for electricity this way, especially in the winter.

 

[autorouter]

I use one of these

Amazon product ASIN B007W0SQ3Y
to tell me the power (kW) I am actually using at any time. It updates about every 10 seconds.

Simple to fit - no electrical connection required. The sensor is wireless, and clips round the ouside of one of the mains wires near the MH main power switch. The batteries (3xAA) last about 2 years.

I automatically glance at it before switching on anything that uses more than 200 watts. Useful if the OH has switched on the hot water heater (1kW).

we use many small electrical appliances, including kettle (1100W), mini-oven (1kW), nespresso machine, microwave, toasted sandwich maker (750W), rice cooker (400W), small veg chopper. we also have a 500 watt fan heater that takes the chill off the air in spring and autumn.

The fridge and phone/laptop chargers seem to take a constant 250 watts or so.

The sockets are switched between inverter and EHU by a manual changeover switch, so I can't run the inverter to boost the total power available. It sounds like a good idea, though, so it's now added to my list of future mods.

This meter gadget can be set to show total energy usage over time (kWh), useful if you are on a metered EHU with a daily free allowance.

 

[jongood]

So, point taken about battery cycles, but what constitutes a cycle?

I'm still on said 6amp supply, so this morning before solar kicked in I turned on the heating ( still on 1kw setting) and ran the kettle off the inverter again. I only have the standard N&B (CBE) monitor and according to that at no time did the batteries drop below 12.8v

Jon
btw I find the electric kettle a lot more convenient than the gas one as it turns itself off.

 

[olley]

My battery charger can be fed directly from the ehu via a separate feed, I can then run all my 240v appliances from my inverter without flattening my batteries or tripping a 4amp circuit breaker.

 

[funflair]

So, point taken about battery cycles, but what constitutes a cycle?

Hi Jon

My understanding is based on reading too much and knowing nothing BUT it should say cycle or part thereof, in other words if you use 10% of your available capacity you have used a 1/10th of a cycle a cycle of course is a full discharge and back again.

Martin

 

[peterc10]

My battery charger can be fed directly from the ehu via a separate feed, I can then run all my 240v appliances from my inverter without flattening my batteries or tripping a 4amp circuit breaker.

Why would you need to use an inverter if you are plugged into an EHU? If all the appliances you are using add up to more than 4amps then your batteries will be providing the rest.

 

[olley]

If your on a 4 amp supply that's only 1000watts by running from the inverter I can run up to 1800 watts. If I had one of those Victron charger/inverters then I could just dial in the max I could draw from the ehu, and it would do the rest, but I don't.

I don't do this on 10-16 amp ehu, only 5 and under, thankfully their aren't many of them.

 

[jongood]

Hi Jon

My understanding is based on reading too much and knowing nothing BUT it should say cycle or part thereof, in other words if you use 10% of your available capacity you have used a 1/10th of a cycle a cycle of course is a full discharge and back again.

Martin

If the battery only drops by a small fraction of a cycle that seems a minimal price to pay for the convenience. It seems that what I'm doing is regulating my on hand ehu and my stored power to maximise my usage, or am I missing something.

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[funflair]

If the battery only drops by a small fraction of a cycle that seems a minimal price to pay for the convenience. It seems that what I'm doing is regulating my on hand ehu and my stored power to maximise my usage, or am I missing something.

Hi Jon

If I were you I would just carry on doing what your doing and not worry about it.

Martin

 

[peterc10]

If your on a 4 amp supply that's only 1000watts by running from the inverter I can run up to 1800 watts.

You can but the extra 800 watts plus some more for wastage will be coming from the batteries. And that assumes your charger is strong enough to be recharging the batteries with 1000W, which I very much doubt. There is no other place it can come from. And that will be 70 amps or so at 12v so they won't last long unless you have a lot of them.

 

[The Wino]

When we are off grid I recon its 50p a day to run totally on gas (diesel heating) so would not bother with all of this filling flasks/calculating use etc just plug in to keep the battery charged if its free maybe have the fridge on electric and do the rest with gas as normal compared to the cost of the holiday (tolls fuel food etc) its peanuts.

 

[gus-lopez]

Is that the case in Spain? As I understand it many Spanish sites charge for electricity this way, especially in the winter.

Yes.
You can charge a fee , i.e. 5€ for a supply per night but unless they have some exemption, which I doubt, then you cannot charge anymore than the actual cost of any additional amount used. Certainly not 40c/kw. Mine is less than 11c.

You cannot "resell" electricity over and above the amount charged by the electricity company

 

[autorouter]

So, point taken about battery cycles, but what constitutes a cycle?

Manufacturers define the word 'cycle' as the process where a fully charged battery is discharged by a percentage of its capacity, then is charged back up to its full charge again. They speak, for example, of 'a 50% discharge cycle'.

They give figures for the number of cycles a battery will last for at various % discharge levels.

They would describe using 10% of capacity then recharging to full as 'a 10% discharge cycle'.

They would describe a full discharge and back again as 'a 100% discharge cycle'.

The charts they produce show that a battery will last for more cycles of 25% than cycles of 50%.

 

[olley]

You can but the extra 800 watts plus some more for wastage will be coming from the batteries. And that assumes your charger is strong enough to be recharging the batteries with 1000W, which I very much doubt. There is no other place it can come from. And that will be 70 amps or so at 12v so they won't last long unless you have a lot of them.

Sorry your missing the point, if I am on a 4 amp supply I am restricted to 1000watt, if I use my inverter I can go to 1800watts, the EHU will constantly power my 50amp charger which will keep my batteries fully charged over a 24 hour period. I don't need 1800 watts all day just sometimes, like watching the telly and boiling the kettle, or for the wife to use her hairdryer. It gives me more flexibility than the 4amp supply, and I have 3 180amp batteries, so powering the inverter flat out for long periods wouldn't be a problem if I needed to.

When we have needed it a usual load would only show the batteries providing 10-30amps which is well within the chargers ability to keep up with, and once we go to bed the charger has 6-8 hours to make up for any loss they may have suffered.