What is the benefit of having a Victron Phoenix Inverter Smart 12v 1600 (Invertor 230v) - brand new and free with my van

[Langloan]

Hi gang apologies for my naivety but when I bought my 2010 Autotrail Arapaho last year I was told to ask the dealer for a few extras to be fitted

eg 2 new 80 leisure batteries, a solar panel and an inverter

So they have fitted a Victron Phoenix Inverter Smart 12v 1600 (Invertor 230v) worth about £700 and I cannot for the life of me see what I gain from having it

I get that when off EHU it can convert my 12v batteries power to 240v and I can recharge a phone but it doesn't charge my powerful MAC book laptop, run a normal hairdryer or the microwave

Surely for £700 it must do a lot more e.g. it has Bluetooth to an app so it must be capable of something but the instruction booklet tells me nothing

In fact, there is a switch next to my EM50 that allows me to turn it on and off but I have only tuned it on once or twice to charge a phone

Any ideas what else I should be gaining from it - if not I will just sell it

Many thanks for any advice on why people buy these?

 

[Kannon Fodda]

It should be well capable of charging your mac book. Microwave and hairdryer perhaps less so as your batteries may not be able to provide enough 12v amperage to the full load of the inverter.

What is the inverter set to? In eco mode the current drawn to the mac book charger may be too low for the inverter to be sensing. You may need the inverter in on mode rather than eco.

 

[VXman]

Why will it not charge you macbook? What is happening when you try?

What power (watts) does the inverter produce?

I wouldn't be suprised it it doesn't run your microwave/hair dryer. They can be very power hungry. It depends on what power the inverter outputs and how much power you have in your batteries.

 

[Lenny HB]

That transfer switch is £200 or £300 worth of kit as well. It automatically switches between mains & inverter depending if you are on EHU or not. Victron are about the best inverters, the 1600va is 1300 watts so it will run a travel hair dryer, great for charging e-bikes, can run a small microwave.
Don't use it for charging your phone as you are wasting power converting to 230v then back to 5v.
To run it a full power it would be best to fit another couple of batteries.

You should be over the moon that they have thrown in such good quality kit.

 

[Langloan]

It should be well capable of charging your mac book. Microwave and hairdryer perhaps less so as your batteries may not be able to provide enough 12v amperage to the full load of the inverter.

What is the inverter set to? In eco mode the current drawn to the mac book charger may be too low for the inverter to be sensing. You may need the inverter in on mode rather than eco.

Many thanks i will try that

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[Stealaway]

As we are almost always off grid we have a 1000w Chinese inverter that cost less than £80 ten years ago. I fitted it mainly to let me buy large 230v TV at half the price of small 12v TV.
We now have a 28" Samsung smart TV and soundbar that cost just over £250 Bargain.
Now we also need it to recharge my wife's electric wheelchair.

 

[Langloan]

That transfer switch is £200 or £300 worth of kit as well. It automatically switches between mains & inverter depending if you are on EHU or not. Victron are about the best inverters, the 1600va is 1300 watts so it will run a travel hair dryer, great for charging e-bikes, can run a small microwave.
Don't use it for charging your phone as you are wasting power converting to 230v then back to 5v.
To run it a full power it would be best to fit another couple of batteries.

You should be over the moon that they have thrown in such good quality kit.

Many thanks for your kind reply - I am over the moon that i negotiated hard enough to get it but am getting no use form it as I suspect I am don't understand the point of it - i am rarely off-grid so maybe have seen the benefit as yet

Can you please explain your comment about the convertor automatically switching from EHU to invertor?

If I drive onto a campsite then I plug in the EHU lead and the van automatically goes to the mains. If I go off-grid surely I just turn on the inverter?

Having a switch that automatically goes from one to another means that I should have my inverter turned on at all times and the only time it would be useful and switch would be in the case of a power cut? is that a valuable use case outside of powering medical equipment?

Now you have pointed out that the switch is £300 then I am still confused why anyone would pay £1000 for something to run a hairdryer or a coffee machine

I assume it is used by people who prefer off-grid to campsites? however, I am told to turn it off and use it as frugally as possible and not leave it on as it will drain the battery. I can only assume that advice is wrong and I can leave it in eco when off the grid and rely on the solar panel to keep it working?

Sorry to be so dumb but completely new to investors and off-grid

 

[Googlebot]

I have a 1200va Victron and it is amazing.

Runs 1000w hairdryers, heaters, fans and everything in between.

The Mac should be easy.

As others have suggested, make sure it isn’t on eco mode.

If you are never off grid, you are correct and probably don’t need it. However, we are hardly ever with hook up so it’s a great thing to have. We have a small fan in the locker where the Truma heater is located and it makes an excellent drying cupboard for boots. The inverter means we can get the cheapest fan available and laptops, chargers, slow cooker and induction hob all run off it.

Even got an ice maker today I plan to run in the summer off the solar so it’s free.

 

[Langloan]

As we are almost always off grid we have a 1000w Chinese inverter that cost less than £80 ten years ago. I fitted it mainly to let me buy large 230v TV at half the price of small 12v TV.
We now have a 28" Samsung smart TV and soundbar that cost just over £250 Bargain.
Now we also need it to recharge my wife's electric wheelchair.

Brilliant reply now i see the benefits of it - many thanks

Can you help me understand why keeps it from running down your leisure batteries if using it so heavily?

do you only turn it on when you need the 240v then turn off again

When I used mine for TV when off the grid at Silverstone it depleted the leisure batteries within a couple of hours so i blamed the invertor and bought a new Avtrex 12v

Maybe I should have blamed my batteries (80W) or solar panel (130w) as if the fault is with them and they can be fixed then maybe the invertor would enable me to be off grid for more than one night

 

[Langloan]

I have a 1200va Victron and it is amazing.

Runs 1000w hairdryers, heaters, fans and everything in between.

The Mac should be easy.

As others have suggested, make sure it isn’t on eco mode.

Many thanks - i will check tomorrow but i think it is on eco mode

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[Langloan]

Many thanks - i will check tomorrow but i think it is on eco mode

when running any of those those appliances how long do you turn on the inverter for at any one time before your leisure batteries start to drain?

 

[Itsmcb]

I have a slightly smaller (1200 watts as apposed to your 1400watt) inverter. It's used to power the TV, coffee machine, 900 watt hairdryer, hair straightener and a 600watt output microwave although obviously only one at a time. How useful you find it will depend on the equipment in your van and how often your away from EHU. Your main problem will be the limited amount of power your two little batteries can supply to the inverter.

 

[pappajohn]

I am still confused why anyone would pay £1000 for something to run a hairdryer or a coffee machine

Some folks simply can't leave their home comforts at home.
If you're rarely off hookup why not sell it and buy a couple of litres of diesel

 

[Googlebot]

when running any of those those appliances how long do you turn on the inverter for at any one time before your leisure batteries start to drain?

All depends on how much sun there is and how long before we are driving anywhere. I have a shunt so know exactly how much power we have left. Frugal use of anything though wouldn’t really affect it much unless you were using stuff like a fan heater.

 

[Itsmcb]

Some folks simply can't leave their home comforts at home.

Yep (my wife)

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[Googlebot]

Brilliant reply now i see the benefits of it - many thanks

Can you help me understand why keeps it from running down your leisure batteries if using it so heavily?

do you only turn it on when you need the 240v then turn off again

When I used mine for TV when off the grid at Silverstone it depleted the leisure batteries within a couple of hours so i blamed the invertor and bought a new Avtrex 12v

Maybe I should have blamed my batteries (80W) or solar panel (130w) as if the fault is with them and they can be fixed then maybe the invertor would enable me to be off grid for more than one night

Inverters aren’t very efficient, mine uses about 1 amp an hour just being on. If you only have 100ah of battery capacity with lead acid, in 2 days it will be flat. That’s without using anything else.

If not in use, turn it off.

 

[pappajohn]

Can you help me understand why keeps it from running down your leisure batteries if using it so heavily?

Using it will drain your batteries as soon as it's turned on......the speed of drain depends how hard it's working.
If you run a 1000w appliance your two batteries will be 50% discharged in approximately 1 hour.
That's a drain of 83amps/hour.
If you had 4 X 80ah batteries it would be around 2 hours to 50% discharged.

 

[Stealaway]

Brilliant reply now i see the benefits of it - many thanks

Can you help me understand why keeps it from running down your leisure batteries if using it so heavily?

do you only turn it on when you need the 240v then turn off again

When I used mine for TV when off the grid at Silverstone it depleted the leisure batteries within a couple of hours so i blamed the invertor and bought a new Avtrex 12v

Maybe I should have blamed my batteries (80W) or solar panel (130w) as if the fault is with them and they can be fixed then maybe the invertor would enable me to be off grid for more than one night

I have 230watts of solar and two 130ah batteries.
It's usually enough to watch TV for three hours every night but it's more important to keep an eye on the battery voltage. If it drops below 12.2 volts I turn the TV/inverter off.
You have to realise you only have a certain amount of battery power. When it's drops too low you have to turn stuff off. The secret is to keep an eye on the voltage meter.

 

[Langloan]

I have a slightly smaller (1200 watts as apposed to your 1400watt) inverter. It's used to power the TV, coffee machine, 900 watt hairdryer, hair straightener and a 600watt output microwave although obviously only one at a time. How useful you find it will depend on the equipment in your van and how often your away from EHU. Your main problem will be the limited amount of power your two little batteries can supply to the inverter.

Many thanks - if I replace my existing ones with one or two news ones any recommendations what size to buy?

 

[VXman]

If you are not going to camp off grid there is little point in replacing your batteries, or using the inverter.

If you do intend going off grid then it really depends what you are going to use your inverter for and for how long. 130 W solar is not a lot and unless it's really sunny it's not going to work at full power anyway so it will take a long time to recharge the power you have taken out of the batteries. (Unless you do a lot of driving or plug into EHU for a day or so to recharge them) So it's how long is a piece of string really.

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[Lenny HB]

If you are not going to camp off grid there is little point in replacing your batteries, or using the inverter.

And if going the other way with most of the time off grid it's worth spending the money on a Lithium setup.

 

[Raul]

That transfer switch is £200 or £300 worth of kit as well. It automatically switches between mains & inverter depending if you are on EHU or not. Victron are about the best inverters, the 1600va is 1300 watts so it will run a travel hair dryer, great for charging e-bikes, can run a small microwave.
Don't use it for charging your phone as you are wasting power converting to 230v then back to 5v.
To run it a full power it would be best to fit another couple of batteries.

You should be over the moon that they have thrown in such good quality kit.

Not this one, this, is only a Phoenix inverter with a Bluetooth dongle, and a VE direct port. What you describe, it’s a multiplus inverter charger, more dosh for the multiplus, different hardware. Multiplus is a bi-directional hence it can work as a charge as well as a inverter.

 

[Lenny HB]

Not this one, this, is only a Phoenix inverter with a Bluetooth dongle, and a VE direct port. What you describe, it’s a multiplus inverter charger, more dosh for the multiplus, different hardware. Multiplus is a bi-directional hence it can work as a charge as well as a inverter.

Look at the second photo he has the Filax transfer switch.

 

[Raul]

Look at the second photo he has the Filax transfer switch.

It does indeed, sorry Lenny only looked at first photo. Inverter and transfer switch then.

 

[AshVanBitz]

when running any of those those appliances how long do you turn on the inverter for at any one time before your leisure batteries start to drain?

I would recommend that you have a Victron Smartshunt installed. They are not massively expensive and worth every penny especially if you decide to go off grid more in the future. This device will not only show you exactly what percentage is left in your batteries but it will also show you how much time you have remaining (depending on the consumption rate at that moment in time). No guess work involved

Ash

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[Bessy765]

Roughly you will use around 26/28 amps @ 12volt d.c. to produce 1amp @ 240 a.c. If you have lead acid batteries in good nick you will have at most 50 amps usable from each battery. To take them below 50% you will shorten the life of the batteries very quickly. So at 160 amps of batteries you have a max of 80 amps, you will need some of that for lighting, tv, water pump and any heating souse for controls and fans, the fridge uses a bit as well so not a lot left?

 

[treblid]

Roughly you will use around 26/28 amps @ 12volt d.c. to produce 1amp @ 240 a.c. If you have lead acid batteries in good nick you will have at most 50 amps usable from each battery. To take them below 50% you will shorten the life of the batteries very quickly. So at 160 amps of batteries you have a max of 80 amps, you will need some of that for lighting, tv, water pump and any heating souse for controls and fans, the fridge uses a bit as well so not a lot left?

You have forgotten the important dimension of time to have this make sense! ......

 

[Reallyretired]

If you always stay on sites with ehu then it's really not useful to you. I suggest you remove and flog it. It's worth a few hundred to some on here.

 

[jongood]

Roughly you will use around 26/28 amps @ 12volt d.c. to produce 1amp @ 240 a.c. If you have lead acid batteries in good nick you will have at most 50 amps usable from each battery. To take them below 50% you will shorten the life of the batteries very quickly. So at 160 amps of batteries you have a max of 80 amps, you will need some of that for lighting, tv, water pump and any heating souse for controls and fans, the fridge uses a bit as well so not a lot left?

I agree that you're missing the distinction between amps and amps/ hr, the OP would have about 50ah usable in a decent LA battery so in theory he could run his inverter on a 1 amp mains load for about 4 hours, in reality this setup should cope with a microwave or hairdrier for a few minuutes and surely charge his Mac as well as running the extra bits and pieces. I'm not familiar with how they wire autotrails but are all the sockets connected to the inverter? And is the autoswitch wired correctly?

 

[wfdTamar]

I have a 100Ah EFB battery, 200 watts solar. I have a Victron Phoenix 375 VA inverter. Use it for an LG 28” tv, or E-bike charger or MacBook Air charger, or coffee grinder. I only do trips in summer, so usually have plenty of solar, but I can watch tv all day if I want. I only turn the inverter on when I use it. Small things don’t draw enough to work on eco mode. There’s some adjustment in the software for that, but I find it no bother to manually turn it on. If the inverter is hidden away you can hook up a simple switch to turn it on. It doesn’t have to be the Victron switch, any simple On/Off switch will do.

I run a 105 litre mains fridge off a 500VA inverter (though I’ll be upgrading that to an 800VA as the 500 gets overloaded when the compressor first starts).

The low power stuff (laptop charger, tv) should be no bother, but once you start running stuff like E-bike chargers or anything with a motor, or worse that heats, you have to think about how long it’s on. As others have said the simple rough way to watch battery level is voltage and 12.2 volts is about 50% of lead acid (if you have lead acid, you may have gel or agm). Another person suggested a battery monitor with shunt and I second that. They’re a far more accurate way to keep track of your batteries.

The inverter you got may be unnecessarily big for a lot of what you’re using it for. That may be why it drained your batteries watching tv for a short time. You could rethink what you want to power and get a smaller inverter just for the low power stuff.

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