Power Inverters in caravans 

this was very instructive video ... I just purchased a camper van and didn't really know what an inverter was ... thanks to your video I am now well informed... my camper van had a 700w modified sine wave inverter ... >90% efficiency ... not sure if I will use it yet but now I know how to use it, what it is and what it does... great stuff, thanks.

Hi Dan, another good video. For several years I have considered getting a power inverter, first when we camped out in the van, and now for the caravan, but I always stopped wondering what I really, really, needed to use on mains voltage if I was off grid and on holiday... assuming you still have gas for cooking and heating. Units rated over the 1000w version you have they tend to get quite pricy, and if you are going to use that much load the battery isn't going to be lasting very long. Forget hair dryers, sorry ladies, most take more that that and would soon drain the battery, our biggest fear. Same with anything that heats stuff. Kettles... use the gas hob. Electric blanket?? nope, snuggle up! Most smaller gadgets and phones these days charge on 5v USB style and there are plenty of very efficient 12v->5v adapters which avoid the inefficient route through 230v AC and then back to dc. Also, a MacBook user, it is a pain that it needs 20v dc but there are travel chargers on the market which step up from 12v dc up to the 20v dc needed, with built-in magsafe connectors. I am sure there must be something similar for your camera batteries?? Wondering, now, what else do we really need to run at 230v ac when we have no hookup, that isn't going to kill the battery by the end of the weekend, or week! What other 230v essentials am I missing out on? Food blender Andrew Ditton?? After all, when I get home I need to use my motor mover or she isn't going to get onto our driveway!!!

Thank you so much for this excellent tutorial. I now understand what an inverter is, how to use it and what to think about before I buy one.

Hi Dan, came across this and have to say its an excellent video (as an electrician) the part you mentioned about doubling the required power is very true and I had an inverter many years ago, although it had an output larger than the power of my TV, it couldn't cope with the surge of starting the TV so tripped out, for running any other than a resistive load, you need more reserve. So best rule is double the figure you need and get the inverter nearest.

Very informative video indeed. Thank you so much for taking the time to make it!

great topic again dan now we plug ours in with a 3 pin blue plug and have done so for years BUT like you say make sure the charger is off.we power a tv,sky and lights daily and on occasion we run the microwave and in full sun the onboard fridge,great video keep up the good work and all the best for the new year

Hi Dan, watched the video just to see what you would say about the subject. Had a 1000W inverter on board our last caravan and installing a 2500W pure sin wave inverter into our new one. I really appreciated your comment about not powering up the caravans 240v supply from the inverter. This is something I am going to do, but after listening to you I am going to use a relay to disconnect all the circuits that shouldn't be run off the inverter. This is beyond the scope of many caravan owners but I am the sort of person who smiles at the 'no user serviceable parts' labels on electronics equipment as I can do component level fault finding. Loving your channel. Keep it up. Vince.

A great video - I'm just getting into the off grid camping so the info was much appreciated. Not a lot of difference between our 240v in Aussie and your 230v in the UK. Looking forward to watching more of your videos.

Thank you for this, I'm new to this and this was a very simplistic explanation for a newby

Thank you Sir, Very very helpful and much appreciated.

awesome stuff Dan, informative and simple...........keep up the good work

Handy guide to inverters, thanks. It's certainly worth checking out 12v chargers for camera batteries, 12v tellyboxes or anything else you might need, rather than buying an inverter, especially if you plan on going off grid a lot. Bear in mind that it will use more of your battery capacity than you might think.

Excellent video. Many thanks!

Mate thanks for a lovely video very easy to understand really appreciate it just a question I have a 110ah hour leisure battery what size fuse breaker would I need cheers 👍👍

Great idea in principle although you must heed the warning messages. If permanent use proper cable eyelets and make sure there is a fuse inline to protect the cables.

Great vid Dan. Really informative as always. Kind regards. Jon

Hi, thanks for the vedio, very useful and easy to follow....if I want to purely use my solar system to light up 230 led lights indoors/outdoors, what type of inverter and how long a 12 volt battery of 195 amp would last . Planning to use it day/night time ...so assuming the panel will be generating electricity to provide load and charge battery through solar charge controller at same time....

Another great video Dan, very informative, I might treat myself to one :-)

Extremely useful to this Newbie............thank you!

I've always been happy that I understood getting 12v from 230, but the other way around, well that's always always been like dark arts wizardry. This video goes some way to explaining it. Well done.

I didn't want to do a 240v hook up for my van. Instead I have a 12v system and wanted to get an inverter. I have a fixed socket and wanted to have an extension from the inverter socket, then wired into the fixed socket (more for a clean look and position convenience) . I've seen this done before but wasn't sure if its acceptable. Hope that makes sense. Any advice would be much appreciated.

hello & thank you for the video. i am new to the caravan, camping lifestyle. i am very much interested in free/bush camping, i would like to set up off grid. so my question is, can i use an inverter to run an caravan air conditiiner, tv & a few other appliances like, a blender & charger for mb phone & small hand held vacuum cleaner ? thank you for reading as i know this video was created quite some time ago :)

What would you say to the suggestion of connecting an inverter correctly by directly connecting to the leisure battery in your caravan - as per your video, powering whatever (say a laptop), whilst having the on-board caravan battery charger running at the same time to try and minimise the depletion of the leisure battery's power? Could that work?

Excellent presentation.

Hi Dan, need your advice if there is a maximum power wattage you can buy but don't go any higher if you wanted to run it from the 6 amp cigarette lighter socket in the caravan or would they be very low in wattage. I don't know if to go down your route of having something around the 1000 watt pure sine inverter and connect to the battery and get one with a remote to make it easier to switch the inverter off as i would imagine it would be installed under the bench seating so hopefully not forgetting to switch it off when not in use

Thank You for the info.

thanks for the useful information it's a big help xx

The 3 fuses on the back of your inverter are ganged input fuses. This is because at full load your inverter will pull over 80 amps and therefore to use the cheap blade fuses the manufacturer has ganged 3 together so to get a high enough current rating.

Hi Dan we have just had a 100w solar panel fitted and a new 110 amp battery to our Swift Fairway ,would you be able to run a small potable tv on a 200 watt inverter if went of grid ,hope ya new Bailey is going well,keep up the good work.Oh by the way we have just ordered the new waste pipes from Amazon from your link,£5.45 BARGAIN thanks again. Chris&Kim

Great Video

I should have got a 12v TV. Realistically will using an inverter to watch a mains voltage tv work ? If am off grid with a small leisure battery and 150v solar setup ?

Firstly, let me nail my colours to the mast - We rally, very rarely go to sites with EHU and do not have an inverter. Charging batteries (camera, phone and laptop) are all done from 12v - far more efficient than boosting 12v to mains and then back down to whatever voltage the device uses. Also, you'll probably find that 12v boost/buck converters will work out cheaper and more convenient than using an inverter.

Thanks for this. I've got a 1000W inverter and had (thinking I was clever) tried the old trick of using the 13Amp plug adapter to route the power into my van's EHU but it just drains the battery very quickly as 'always on'. I'll just use it as you describe in future.

Very helpful video thanks. Still educating people 7yrs on! :) This may be a silly question but, if you just took an extra battery, and used that, with a fuse and isolator for safety, to the inverter plugged into the exterior power inlet, that would be fine right? It would be seperate and, if drained, wouldnt affect the 12v supply/battery. Handy.

Great Vid Dan, interesting stuff

Dan i have 1x 100ah leshure battery but i am thinking of getting another and join them paralel what regulator would you recomend i am currantly using just one of those blue ones with 2 x solar panels in serius 10 w each connected to the regulator but as i said i want to add another 100ah battery can you advise me thank you .

Hi, watched your video and found it very interesting. One question, my wife wants to use a 1600w Krupps coffee pod machine for 2 minutes three times a day in our caravan, if I bought a 3000w inverter for this purpose, would I need two batteries or would one battery be sufficient ?

Hi I have just bought a e bike and would like to charge battery from my van leisure battery which is 110ah charge from my alternator by split charge relay from my alternator which inverter do I need e bike battery is 250w 36v 8.8ah can you help thanks colin.

So when the inverter is built-in, with a built-in, roof-mounted solar-panel....is that OK...?.

Could I plug back into the ehu socket as there is separate switch to turn off the battery charger in our caravan?

Hi Dan. Sorry to point out a mistake in your graph , but it's plus 360volt minus 360volt at 50hz and the RMS root mean square is 240 volts at the centre of the sine wave , caravan owner and 20 year electrician, Rob not being a troll just had it bashed into my head for 3 years at college.cheers great videos.

Hi can you tell me what inverter I would need to power a TV as I don't know anything about them thank 😅

How should I connect my batteries if I have several? Would I connect the batteries Series or parallel and would I connect the inverter to one sole battery or +- on one each battery.

I would like to know when wiring up an inverter. Would you run a positive and negative to the leisure battery then to another leisure battery then to the inverter??

Don't know if I'm being overly cautious but how does any earth fault current flow back earth incase of an earth fault developing on any supplied. I know most equipment is now double insulated. Thanks your video has helped with my selection and can't wait for my 1st time using it in anger off grid👍👍

Hi. Apart from cost, are there any downsides to buying a higher power inverter? Thanks

Hi, I appreciate this is 5 years old but I wonder if these have been superseded by things like the Jackery?

Great video on the devil's spawn. Most if not all chargers etc. come in a 12v form, even the dreaded 19v laptop charger. We used to have an inverter in the caravan but have binned it for the motorhome. Your example of efficiency does not take into account that most laptop chargers efficiency for example. I was once on a rally where another example of the feedback loop was in use. This guy had an inverter connected to his battery. He wanted to charge another battery with his mains charger. When charged it he put that battery in the caravan and proceeded to charge the discharged battery on the mains charger from the inverter. You can see where this ended :-)

Hi I want to run an Xbox one plus tv do you know what I’ll need I can put my tv on 12 volt as well

Cheers Mr T

Hi Dan - a great video yet again - I don't think this has been asked - on your battery on the van (which we see around 4:30 in) it looks as though you have 2 contact on the battery for both positive and negative - which makes attaching things very easy. Is that as it came on the battery or is part of the cable clip for existing cables? - i.e. can I buy the same thing to do the same on my battery? Thanks

Just to add that the modified sine wave inverters may cause interference to close neighbours on a site

One good news about it using inverter making your own electricity from solar wind is that at least converter gives cleaner smoother electricity then the power company does the power company is so much more choppier so much harder on your machines and the converter is a lot more nicer it tries to give it good power and keep it clean and keep it from being choppy and keep it smooth so it gets all the power it needs it doesn't have to overpower it like the power company has to do.

2000 watt Pure Sine wave

hi, the graph you are present there it's WRONG. 115Vac (thats means RMS) of a sinusoidal wave had peak values of 163Vp and for 220Vac 312Vp. Just by the definition.

Oops. Typos in you links to Facebook and Twitter. Got your name wrong lol 😂

always connect negative first

Good video but the graph of the sine wave is not quite right. www.cyberphysics.co.uk/graphics/diagrams/electricity/Mains.gif UK mains goes up to +330V and down to -330V to give 230V root mean squared (RMS).

I made the same mistake by not doing my research. I spend about 8 months of the year 'off grid' in europe and the UK and wanted an inverter that would power my 700w microwave and my 65w acer aspire laptop. (yes I do have a solar panel to fire the batteries). I bought a soft start (square wave inverter)....1500w/3000w ... WRONG!!!!! It did power the microwave but had to run the engine while using it. Not good for fellow campers at 12.30 ish at night when you want a quick curry and rice.The inverter sucked the blood out of my two 1000ah leisure batteries in my motorhome in a few minutes and the noise from the mocrowave was so bad I thought it was faulty and was about to throw it in a tip. I then did some serious research when I got back home. A square wave inverter will not power/ charge a lap top etc. It will not even run the small fan in it. So I bought a 'pure sine wave' inverter'. The difference was outstanding. The microwave was so quiet and if it wasn't for the light inside It I wouldn't know it was on. My lap top runs and charges. Both things running at the same time. Television on, a couple of lights and no need to start up engine while inverter is running. All off 12volts !! Just another note The inverter is connected directly to the leisure batteries and not the 12v cigarette lighter .....and purchase one that is double to your needs. eg: for a 900w microwave. Buy a 2000w inverter. (pure sine wave). P.S. You can purchase a pure sine wave inverter to run off cigarette lighter socket to charge a lap top etc. but not heavy duty stuff. Don't make the same mistake that I did. Do your research FIRST. X

j

Modified inverters are less efficient too

why didn't you just buy a camera battery charger that runs from your 12v socket much cheaper thn purchasing a power inverter.