bluegoatwoods
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- Nov 12, 2018
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There'll be an item or two on this list that no one will ever use camping/full-timing. One of those electric, oil filled radiator heaters, for instance. But my electrical rig will also do double duty as the electric supply for my home during power outages. If it happens that others follow a similar strategy, then that info could be of use.
At the moment I'm only able to measure the current draw on the AC side of the equation. Partly due to the fact that my batteries and inverters are not wired up and in use yet. But if one took these AC current measurements and multiplied by, say, 1.2 then converted that to 12 Volt, DC equivalent, that would give a good estimate of just how much draw these appliances would put on your battery. So.....
9 inch box fan L: 24/100 (.24) Amp H: .36 A
Oil filled radiator 4.6, 7.4 & 12.0 A
20 inch box fan .46, .51 & .58 A
2 20 inch box fans wired in series (Maybe I'd better paint this picture. Box fans are great. But they're noisy and can be just a bit intense. So I often wire two of them in series. Each one is now running on 60 A/C Volts. They're just about silent and spread air, and heat, around a room very nicely. So.......)
2 20 inch box fans in series: .19, .24 & .27 A Total for both, as opposed to individually.
Small, 'bathroom-sized' de-humidifier: .3 A (I do expect to use these when camping/full-timing. Air conditioning will be too power-consumptive, I think. At least while I'm perfecting the good, long-term rig. I absolutely must at least dry out the air I'll be trying to sleep in in summer. I can picture myself using four of these, maybe, in a decent sized tent.)
Air fryer. (One of those things that's about the size of a large, elaborate coffee maker where you put the food in a basket and hot air does the cooking) 10.5 A
two slice toaster: 5.95 A
toaster oven: (11.5 Wide x 11 Deep x 6.5 inch High interior) 11.75 A at high temp with 'turbo' fan running.
So........my batteries are two deep cycle, flooded lead-acids rated at 105 AH each. Going by the rule of thumb that 50% is maximum safe discharge it would seem that I could only get two hours of heat off of that oil filled radiator (low setting) before needing re-charged. I'll never use that thing on the road, anyway. But it's clear that I can only get heat out of my system when at home and in a power outage for life or death emergencies. But I wasn't really counting on heat anyway. I didn't need to measure to know that my system wasn't going to be capable of that.
Those electrical cooking appliances are a bit of a problem. A quick thumbnail calculation suggests that cooking one meal will get me to nearly the point of needing a re-charge. Clearly a lot of cooking is going to need to be done by propane. I figured on that anyway.
Though.....also......my wife and I are not likely to do a whole lot of boondocking. While I'm friendly to the concept, she won't be. So if we're hooked up to an electric supply some of these items could be useful to us.
Four de-humidifiers could be run all night without getting me in the danger zone. And it looks like fans are safe on this as well. That's cool.
I'll add to this when some other appliance that might be handy comes to mind. And then if I clean up the list perhaps it'll be handy for those who are calculating how much electrical power they ought to carry.
At the moment I'm only able to measure the current draw on the AC side of the equation. Partly due to the fact that my batteries and inverters are not wired up and in use yet. But if one took these AC current measurements and multiplied by, say, 1.2 then converted that to 12 Volt, DC equivalent, that would give a good estimate of just how much draw these appliances would put on your battery. So.....
9 inch box fan L: 24/100 (.24) Amp H: .36 A
Oil filled radiator 4.6, 7.4 & 12.0 A
20 inch box fan .46, .51 & .58 A
2 20 inch box fans wired in series (Maybe I'd better paint this picture. Box fans are great. But they're noisy and can be just a bit intense. So I often wire two of them in series. Each one is now running on 60 A/C Volts. They're just about silent and spread air, and heat, around a room very nicely. So.......)
2 20 inch box fans in series: .19, .24 & .27 A Total for both, as opposed to individually.
Small, 'bathroom-sized' de-humidifier: .3 A (I do expect to use these when camping/full-timing. Air conditioning will be too power-consumptive, I think. At least while I'm perfecting the good, long-term rig. I absolutely must at least dry out the air I'll be trying to sleep in in summer. I can picture myself using four of these, maybe, in a decent sized tent.)
Air fryer. (One of those things that's about the size of a large, elaborate coffee maker where you put the food in a basket and hot air does the cooking) 10.5 A
two slice toaster: 5.95 A
toaster oven: (11.5 Wide x 11 Deep x 6.5 inch High interior) 11.75 A at high temp with 'turbo' fan running.
So........my batteries are two deep cycle, flooded lead-acids rated at 105 AH each. Going by the rule of thumb that 50% is maximum safe discharge it would seem that I could only get two hours of heat off of that oil filled radiator (low setting) before needing re-charged. I'll never use that thing on the road, anyway. But it's clear that I can only get heat out of my system when at home and in a power outage for life or death emergencies. But I wasn't really counting on heat anyway. I didn't need to measure to know that my system wasn't going to be capable of that.
Those electrical cooking appliances are a bit of a problem. A quick thumbnail calculation suggests that cooking one meal will get me to nearly the point of needing a re-charge. Clearly a lot of cooking is going to need to be done by propane. I figured on that anyway.
Though.....also......my wife and I are not likely to do a whole lot of boondocking. While I'm friendly to the concept, she won't be. So if we're hooked up to an electric supply some of these items could be useful to us.
Four de-humidifiers could be run all night without getting me in the danger zone. And it looks like fans are safe on this as well. That's cool.
I'll add to this when some other appliance that might be handy comes to mind. And then if I clean up the list perhaps it'll be handy for those who are calculating how much electrical power they ought to carry.
