RVNOOBS Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been on, I've been workin' on the rig. I got a 1000W inverter and the manufacturer says that the battery and inverter should be no further than 5 ft. apart. My coach battery is under the hood so that puts the inverter in my wife's lap. There's no extra space in the coach for my battery. Where should the inverter go? Thanks guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WME Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 You can use larger wire to move it to where you have room. Maybe under wifies seat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been on, I've been workin' on the rig. I got a 1000W inverter and the manufacturer says that the battery and inverter should be no further than 5 ft. apart. My coach battery is under the hood so that puts the inverter in my wife's lap. There's no extra space in the coach for my battery. Where should the inverter go? Thanks guys! I have my 3000 watt inverter in back, but so are my RV "house" batteries. You can mount yours in back with the correct wire. Assuming you have a "real" 1000 watt inverter that can actually make 1000 watts continuous, it will be capable of 2000 watts and draw a max of 170 amps @ 12 volts. So if the wires to the battery are 12 feet long, you can use #2 copper. If 15 feet long, #1 copper. If 17 feet long, # 1/0 copper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 We've got our inverter under the bed/couch in back. When we camp, I take the AC camper-cord and plug that you'd normally plug into "shore power" and instead, plug it into the inverter. This way, every AC outlet in the camper works. Very handy that way. Obviously, if the camper had an AC unit on the roof, you would NOT want to turn it on when using the inverter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RVNOOBS Posted August 23, 2015 Author Share Posted August 23, 2015 Yeah, I thought about putting it in the back but we needed the extra storage. What I ended up doing was mount it to the floor between the front seats and used 2/0 gauge welder cable (more expensive but better conduction, less voltage loss and more flexible than THHN style wire) for a 13 ft. round trip (positive side is 6 ft. of cable with a 150A breaker and a manual kill switch, negative is 7 ft.). The coach battery is under the hood so I wanted as short a run as possible. The inverter is a Kisae 1000W True Sine Wave inverter with 1000W cont. and 2000W surge. I got it from donrowe.com for $199 on sale. Most other places are $400+. Unloaded, the inverter runs at about 15.4V while driving, 13.2V while idling and 12.3V while the engine is off. The fridge only pulls about 130W-140W and it says only 1.5A at 120V. I replaced both receptacles with residential style plugs and split them into 2 circuits, 1 for shore power and one for inverter power. I wired them with outdoor rated ROMEX. The idea behind all if this is two fold. Our Instamatic fridge will not work on 12V but will work on 120V and propane. We needed a way to run the fridge while driving and needed an inverter anyway. We can now recharge batteries, laptop, cell phones, LED lantern, etc. while driving and by the time we get there we have everything charged and the fridge is cold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RVNOOBS Posted August 29, 2015 Author Share Posted August 29, 2015 Any opinions on my setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 Looks fine to me. My only slight concern is the high amp draw on that refrigerator. But I assume you only use it when driving so it should be a non-issue. Normally the frig would of used 120 watts running on DC. With DC being inverted to AC and running the fridge - maybe 10 % loss so maybe 130 watts instead of 120 (just a guess). I love having an inverter in our Toyota RV. I plug in the motorhome's main power cord into the inverter and leave it on all the time when parked (where no AC power is available). We just about never camp where there's AC power anyway. By plugging the main cord into the inverter - every AC outlet in the camper works which is a nice feature. You certainly did not overpay for the inverter. Price is pretty much the norm. An AIMs "pure sine wave" 1200 watt model is $169 shipped to my door with no sales tax (here in Michigan). Rated 2400 watts surge. AIMs model PWRIX120012S. I've got a Ramsond sine-wave inverter that when first introduced -was selling for $225. Now up to $300. Ramsond Sunray 1500 rated 3000 watts surge and 1500 watts continuous. I've never really had a "bad" inverter yet except for a Vortec 5000 watt model and IT was a piece of junk. Got my money back pretty quick. I used to use the el-cheapo Harbor Freight mod-wave inverters for a lot of stuff. $99 and 2000 watts continuous and 4000 watts surge. Bullet proof. Actually a mod-wave will run most anything that a sine-wave will. TVs, computers, DVD players, etc. Problem with mod-wave inverters is when trying to power certain battery chargers, or GFIC outlets, smoke and CO detectors, etc. I've also yet to see two "pure sine wave" inverters work the same . None in the price range we're talking about actually make a true sine-wave with rounded peaks and valleys. But close enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisInVT Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 I'm interested in how your coach battery is mounted. I have the airbox intake in that location. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanAatTheCape Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 I hope you realize that a 1000w invertor will draw down a regular deep cycle battery rather quick. Curious what you plan to run off that invertor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace57 Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 jdemaris, when you plug your main power cord into the inverter do you have to shut off any thing on the charge control center? I would like to do that as well to have power at all the AC outlets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 jdemaris, when you plug your main power cord into the inverter do you have to shut off any thing on the charge control center? I would like to do that as well to have power at all the AC outlets. No, I don't shut anything off. That being said, I don't have any high draw appliances running on AC current. Obviously you would not want to try what I'm doing if you had an air conditioner plugged into the AC and turned "on." All we have running on AC is a kitchen fan, 32" TV, DVD player, and and sometimes a laptop computer plugged into one of the AC outlets. We pretty much leave the inverter on all the time when camping. At night we have two AC powered fans we also plug into the AC. I've never had any issues with my "house" batteries going dead or even getting low. It doesn't matter if you've got a 750 watt inverter or a 5000 watt inverter. They all draw pretty much the same small amount of current when in "stand-by" mode. When actually "inverting" and making AC power - they are all around 90-93% efficient. At least the ones I'm aware of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace57 Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Ok thanks JD, I just didn't know if the charger on the main plug in would drain my batts. I do use 2 - 12v batts. with 200w of solar charging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Exactly what I have. Two 100 watt panels on the roof and a cheap $15 controller. Not sure if the panels really do me any good - but seeing the charge indicator light come on just about whenever I'm parked in daylight makes me feel good. They obviously help charge the batteries. I just don't know if I've ever really needed them. Just the same, I like them up there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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