Small inverter for emergencies

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

An altima probably has an alternator rated at no more than 60 amps
which you can figure for 30-35 amps continuous. 35 amps at 13 volts
is only 390 watts.

Come again? 35 amps will not run the heater fan, headlights, rear
defogger and wipers at the same time, much less keep the ignition and
fuel injection going at the same time. If it's an air conditioned car
it has an alternator that will maintain 65 amps. Might be rated at
100, but that's for about 2 minutes, tops. The 135 amp GM alternators
will put out 65 all day, but will burn out trying to charge one dead
battery - but that's crappy GM design.

 

[[email protected]]

Only works BEFORE the power goes out...

Of course. What's the price for a day of coolth storage, vs a battery?

Nick

 

[wmbjk]

Hey, you're talking to a guy who has a system that allows him to work
during the day. If he wants to continue working after dark he needs to
start his gen set. He thinks he's state of the art.

Let's see, my biggest shop loads are the 250A mig welder and the 40A
plasma cutter, either of which sometimes use over 400A DC for short
duration. When one is using >8000W, having 2000W nominal PV lit up
doesn't change much. It doesn't matter if those loads are run day or
night, or if the array breakers are open or closed. But let's imagine
that there *was* someone who could only run their workshop off their
solar setup by day. Wouldn't that be far superior to needing a
generator day *and* night for *any* load over a few hundred Watts as
you do? If you'd ever get out of your chair long enough to lay your
hands on something better than a 5% solar setup, then you might learn
enough to avoid making it so painfully obvious that the only
experience you have to offer is in flinging BS.

Wayne

 

[wmbjk]

Even an improperly laid-up generator doesn't require any maintenance.
I just fixed one that a friend had in a corner for a couple of years.
It may have started on the old fuel, but instead I took about 10
minutes to drain it and clean the carb. Even if the OP had to do that,
it's still preferable to running a car out of fuel during an extended
outage, and then being without power *and* transportation.

yeah BUT your working under pressure in the dark ands might need parts,
rubber stuff detoriates just sitting around. a gasoline engine just
sitting around for perhap[s years will likely no start when need the
most

Oh please. If there's an ice storm, hurricane, heat wave or whatever
on its way, then that's the time to make sure your backup source is
operational. It's not as if the possibility of extended outages sneak
up out of nowhere. And considering how cheap small generators have
become, smart folks have a backup to the backup as well.

There *are* some advantages to an inverter-vehicle setup, but for most
folks a portable generator is a superior way to go, which is why it's
the most popular solution.

so the fellow with soplar doesnt have much money, yet you knock him
from working with what hes got....

No, I knocked him for spending more in the end than what it would have
cost him earlier.

those oof us who have been or are broke likely understand better than
you.

Those of us who've been broke know that there's a difference between
being broke and being ignorant. In this case, a broke and ignorant guy
with a truck uses it to power his television, whereas a merely broke
guy would use the truck to carry himself to work. And if the satellite
receiver and the TV were unplugged while he was away working, then
he'd have a whole lot less need for a backup power source in the first
place.

its highly likely he doesnt have the money for parts... the tuck
rovides backup power and transportation.

He has money coming in every month, but paying for satellite TV and
the fuel it takes to watch it is a higher priority than getting ahead.
He can't survive without transportation, so when the truck dies he'll
fund repairs by doing without junk food or TV or whatever for a while,
or by getting off his butt and hauling some of the crap littering his
place to the scrap yard. Either that or some social worker who doesn't
know the difference between a temporary setback and permanent
dysfunction will find him one of those paid-to-be-retrained deals.

Wayne

 

[wmbjk]

Yup, real smart example of how our resident troll thinks.

As opposed to those who imagine that starting even a long-unused small
engine requires crossing broken-glass road barefoot, and then wading
through rubbing-alcohol creek. Get a generator and try pulling the
cord Gymmy Bob, you'll learn that starting it is one more thing in
life that isn't as difficult as the voices have been telling you.

Wayne

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

Even an improperly laid-up generator doesn't require any maintenance.
I just fixed one that a friend had in a corner for a couple of years.
It may have started on the old fuel, but instead I took about 10
minutes to drain it and clean the carb. Even if the OP had to do that,
it's still preferable to running a car out of fuel during an extended
outage, and then being without power *and* transportation.

yeah BUT your working under pressure in the dark ands might need parts,
rubber stuff detoriates just sitting around. a gasoline engine just
sitting around for perhap[s years will likely no start when need the
most

Oh please. If there's an ice storm, hurricane, heat wave or whatever
on its way, then that's the time to make sure your backup source is
operational. It's not as if the possibility of extended outages sneak
up out of nowhere. And considering how cheap small generators have
become, smart folks have a backup to the backup as well.

The only prolonged power outages I've been subjected to at my home in
southern Pntario have been literally "out of the blue" - with no
warning. The "big one" hit while we were on holiday and my daughter
was at home alone. With a neighbour's help she managed to get the old
Onan out and fired up and ran the freezer and refrig for an hour or so
each, as well as the neighbour's. We were at the cottage in the Bruce
when a freak storm hit last Feb, snowing us in or 3 days - and putting
the power out for 10. No generator, electric heat, and only a small
amount of wood for the stove. No power meant no water, so we were
melting snow on the woodstove so the women could flush the john.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

As opposed to those who imagine that starting even a long-unused small
engine requires crossing broken-glass road barefoot, and then wading
through rubbing-alcohol creek. Get a generator and try pulling the
cord Gymmy Bob, you'll learn that starting it is one more thing in
life that isn't as difficult as the voices have been telling you.

Wayne

Unless it's a 50 year old Onan with no recoil start. On a cold day,
starting THAT can keep you warm for a while!!!

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

There *are* some advantages to an inverter-vehicle setup,

Sure. Very low entry cost. I grabbed a couple of 200 watt Coleman
inverters at CostCo a while ago and tossed one in each car. I'm not
sure we've used it for more than recharging a GameBoy on a camping
trip.

[...] but for most
folks a portable generator is a superior way to go, which is why it's
the most popular solution.

Let's take this car/small inverter thing to a bit more extreme. How
about parallelling two car batteries with jumper cables? Under heavy
loads, both cars could be run, resulting in both alternators feeding
the batteries.

Sure, it's inefficient as hell. But would it work? Would the two
alternators output be additive? Or would the two alternators confuse
the hell out of each other??

DC is DC, so no confusion, and as long as the voltage is below the
regulated limit of BOTH of them, no problem at all - and it WILL be if
under load.

 

[wmbjk]

The "big one" hit while we were on holiday and my daughter
was at home alone. With a neighbour's help she managed to get the old
Onan out and fired up and ran the freezer and refrig for an hour or so
each, as well as the neighbour's.

Most who couldn't get their backup generator going on their own ought
to know someone who could handle it, just like your daughter did.
Generators seem to be selling better than ever, but times are
changing. Perhaps the day when nobody in the neighborhood can pull a
spark plug isn't too far off. So maybe there'll be a glut of
barely-used generators at give-away prices for those of us who know
the complicated <snorf> secret of cleaning a carb jet. ;-)

Wayne

 

[wmbjk]

Unless it's a 50 year old Onan with no recoil start. On a cold day,
starting THAT can keep you warm for a while!!!

For sure. But those are a relatively rare, and with $300 Chinese
generators showing up seemingly everywhere, the days of making use of
such old stuff are all but gone. I still have some 50 year old
equipment here, but my last small engine without recoil start was
about 35 years ago. I did have to start one on a friend's cement mixer
a while back. Wrapping shaggy poly rope around the remains of the
long-gone recoil starter's hub. And an old wool sock for an
air-cleaner to boot.

Wayne

 

[sylvan butler]

A second, only slightly more complicated fuel solution and one that
I've used for decades, is to tap the fuel line of a car with a Tee, a
valve and a length of hose. When one needs fuel for anything (lawn
mower, generator, weed whacker, etc), start the car to operate the
fuel pump, stick the hose in a 1 gallon can and turn the valve. Viola!

Some vehicles, like my ford, will pressurize the fuel system without
running the engine. Simply turning the key to 'run' is sufficient.
(Sometimes, if the system has been sitting long enough to lose pressure,
you can hear the fuel pump before you start the engine.)

sdb

 

[sylvan butler]

Let's take this car/small inverter thing to a bit more extreme. How
about parallelling two car batteries with jumper cables? Under heavy
loads, both cars could be run, resulting in both alternators feeding
the batteries.

Should work. Be careful. Lot's of opportunity to cause yourself bigger
problems than a power outage.

And note that many jumper cables are garbage. For example, it is easy
to find 10ga wire inside big, fat, rubber jackets. The NEC considers
that suitable for 30amps (360watts at 12v). I don't consider them
suitable for jumper cables. Get at least 6ga cables, or better yet,
watch Sears for a sale on their 4ga cables. If the cables don't say
their gauge, put them down and get away. Far away.

sdb

 

[George Ghio]

Let's see, my biggest shop loads are the 250A mig welder and the 40A
plasma cutter, either of which sometimes use over 400A DC for short
duration. When one is using >8000W, having 2000W nominal PV lit up
doesn't change much. It doesn't matter if those loads are run day or
night, or if the array breakers are open or closed. But let's imagine
that there *was* someone who could only run their workshop off their
solar setup by day. Wouldn't that be far superior to needing a
generator day *and* night for *any* load over a few hundred Watts as
you do? If you'd ever get out of your chair long enough to lay your
hands on something better than a 5% solar setup, then you might learn
enough to avoid making it so painfully obvious that the only
experience you have to offer is in flinging BS.

Wayne

Well let’s look at waynes latest blend of misinformation and outright lies.

First up is the fact that loads should be measured as Watt Hours or
possibly Amp Hours. So none of the numbers supplied above are worth much.

Then there is;

the 250A mig welder and the 40A
plasma cutter, either of which sometimes use over 400A DC for short
duration.

This is an interesting statement. I suggest you all get your calculators
out and check these numbers as we go along. Well, to begin with 400Adc
at 24V requires something like 80 strings of two panels in series.
Which is in fact 160 panels. Wayne does not have 160 panels

On the battery side a 1200Ah 24V set of batteries would last less than
three hours at a 400A load.

Now, because Wayne is using less than this in real life he will argue
that it all evens out. But, what it comes down to is that even if we
discount the figures wayne would still not be able to do the work he
claims with the numbers he quotes, simply because the numbers are a
guess on waynes part.

Even if the panels will run what he has claimed, it is only because the
batteries provide the surge needed on start up of the equipment.

After dark of course these loads would cause the inverters to shut down
due to low voltage after two or three starts at the amperages claimed.

His numbers do not add up. 400Adc is 9600 watts and yet he seems to be
claiming >8000W. No, I’m afraid that wayne has yet to learn the value of
real numbers and the fact that when he tries to fake the numbers he only
shows his inability to design a system.


Then there are his claims about my system use

Yes I use a generator for my big loads and I use LPG for cooking, HW and
fridge. So what. It’s pretty typical setup for the conditions at my
latitude.

My on property petrol use is an average of 20 liters a fortnight. This
amount of fuel is used for the generator, tractor and motorcycle. I have
not bought fuel for the last month.

My PV system was designed to provide 1.2 - 1.5 kWh/day with
5 days autonomy. Because of advances in technology I have reduced this
usage (just under 1kWh/day) and increased the days of autonomy closer to 7.

The use of Luxan led lamps allows me to light the entire lounge and
office (an area 13 metres x 5.5 metres) with 2.3 Amps/hour for 13 lamps.

The lamps are typically .18 A. I also use a number of 5 and 10 W halogen
lamps placed where and as needed, also used are some 10 W Dichroic
lamps. I also have a small TV (60W) a cd player /radio (~30W) both these
items are 12V. Then there is the pump for the header tank (12V 4A) which
is run each day for 15 to 20 minutes.

The computer, well, used for word processing it uses 59 Watts (measured).

My house is almost entirely 12 V

The Inverter (600 W continuous, 800 W 1/2 hour rating, 1500 W surge) is
required to run the computer, printer, second cd burner, satellite modem
and the occasional cake mixer.

So no, I don’t have many large loads running on the PV system. But then,
I have no need for large loads on the PV system. Wayne would have me
install a system three times larger just to run a vacuum for ten minutes
a week and a washing machine for an hour a week.

As for my power tools, well, I could be using them anywhere on my 14
acres so it would be pointless to design a system to run them.


If you listen to wayne you will be badly misled.

 

[Jens Kr. Kirkebø]

And note that many jumper cables are garbage. For example, it is easy
to find 10ga wire inside big, fat, rubber jackets. The NEC considers
that suitable for 30amps (360watts at 12v). I don't consider them
suitable for jumper cables. Get at least 6ga cables, or better yet,
watch Sears for a sale on their 4ga cables. If the cables don't say
their gauge, put them down and get away. Far away.

Even 4ga sounds small for the amperage often required I think. Here is
a link to some _real_ jumper cables:

http://www.superiorsignals.com/safetconnect/stc4.html

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

For sure. But those are a relatively rare, and with $300 Chinese
generators showing up seemingly everywhere, the days of making use of
such old stuff are all but gone. I still have some 50 year old
equipment here, but my last small engine without recoil start was
about 35 years ago. I did have to start one on a friend's cement mixer
a while back. Wrapping shaggy poly rope around the remains of the
long-gone recoil starter's hub. And an old wool sock for an
air-cleaner to boot.

Wayne

My 50 year old Onan will still be running when most of those $300
chinese units have been melted down for the third time round!!!

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

Some vehicles, like my ford, will pressurize the fuel system without
running the engine. Simply turning the key to 'run' is sufficient.
(Sometimes, if the system has been sitting long enough to lose pressure,
you can hear the fuel pump before you start the engine.)

sdb

Virtually ALL fuel injected vehicles pre-pressurize the system for
about 4 seconds, but shut the pump down if they do not get
confirmation of a start (either oil pressure, charging system output,
or tach signal)

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

Even 4ga sounds small for the amperage often required I think. Here is
a link to some _real_ jumper cables:

http://www.superiorsignals.com/safetconnect/stc4.html

On my service truck I had 35 feet of "00". No problem with voltage
drop on that one. (76 Ramcharger) On the old '43 Powerwagon we
on,yhad about 15 feet of the same.

 

[Bruce in Alaska]

On my service truck I had 35 feet of "00". No problem with voltage
drop on that one. (76 Ramcharger) On the old '43 Powerwagon we
on,yhad about 15 feet of the same.

There is NOTHING that compares to a Military or Early Civilian (Pre '64)
PowerWagon. I owned one that was said to be able to "Climb Trees".
1958 PowerWagon Panel Truck FlatHead 6, Two Speed Transfer Case,
5 Speed Transmission, with 4:10 Front, and 4:11 Rear PosiTraction
Differentials, 15 USG Gas Tank, Power TakeOff Front Mounted Winch,
and 16" Tires. Didn't go Fast, or Far,(60 MPH Up Hill or Down hill,
loaded or empty, but only with a 25 Knot Tailwind) but couldn't be stuck
in ANY Conditions. The only thing that even come close is a Military
HummVee, and that doesn't include ANY of the Hummer models.

Jumper Cables should be "OO" Welding Cable with Serious spring loaded
Clamps. I had a "Wrecker Box" in the back of my PowerWagon, that was
a Battery Charger/Inverter/Jumper System, that would charge 15Vdc@30Amps
to either the Internal Truck Battery, or an external Battery via the "00"
20Ft Cables attached, when Plugged into an AC source. It aslo would
supply 500Watts of AC Power, in Inverter Mode from either the Internal
Truck Battery, or an external battery via the Jumpers, and in Jumper Mode
would put the Internal Truck Battery in parallel with any External
Battery connected to the Jumpers. Very cute little Box, and I have
never seen another like it, or even functionally like it, since.

Bruce in alaska I guess this does show my age.........

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

There is NOTHING that compares to a Military or Early Civilian (Pre '64)
PowerWagon. I owned one that was said to be able to "Climb Trees".
1958 PowerWagon Panel Truck FlatHead 6, Two Speed Transfer Case,
5 Speed Transmission, with 4:10 Front, and 4:11 Rear PosiTraction
Differentials, 15 USG Gas Tank, Power TakeOff Front Mounted Winch,
and 16" Tires. Didn't go Fast, or Far,(60 MPH Up Hill or Down hill,
loaded or empty, but only with a 25 Knot Tailwind) but couldn't be stuck
in ANY Conditions. The only thing that even come close is a Military
HummVee, and that doesn't include ANY of the Hummer models.

Well, I got the '43 stuck. Once. Pulling a '63 Galaxie out a
snowplugged road with chains on all 4 military spec tires and I broke
though a 4 foot hardpacked drift. Crawled out the window flat on my
belly onto the snow. It was hot as a cherry when it went in, and by
the time I got back with the tractor, it was frozen in real good.
burried the Davic Brown 880 first, then went for the big John Deere
with the boom. Gave up at about 10PM and left it for the road crew to
find in the morning. At 6:30 they were there with 2 6 wheel drive road
graders and a highway plough, which finally managed to get it out of
their way by about 7:30 or 8 am. Road superintendent was hopping mad
'till the boss told him that truck had never been stuck in the
previous 26 years and would not have been that night if he'd done HIS
job.

Wide open it would do about 55 if you could hang onto it. In low
range, low gear, it would climb anything if it could get traction.
Only had the "little" flathead six - wonder what it would have done
with the 264.5 in flatty I had in my 57 Fargo?????

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

It goes without saying that the more money you spend, the more
comfortable you'll be. I think a pure-sine wave inverter would supply
perfect power for any application. I have a 2000 watt pure-sine
inverter with a 4000 watt surge and it works beautifully all the time,
but the cost is comparable to a good generator of that size.

You usually get what you pay for.

Make that "you seldom get more than you pay for", or "you ONLY get
what you pay for - if you are lucky"