microwave ovens

[hwkeene]

Got to refit a wooden boat , inside and out, can I set up the batteries to be able to run a microwave oven on board, and will a wind generator be enough to top up after use.
regards, Harry.

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[snowleopard]

a typical microwave will take 650 watts, i.e. 55 amps. add to that the inefficiency of the required inverter and you're looking at 70+ amps out of the battery. that needs very heavy wiring and a big inverter. if you use it for say 10 minutes that's only around 12 amp hours so a wind generator can make that good quite quickly.

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[cliff]

Remember you will need a good invertor - sine wave not square wave or even modified sine wave. You run the risk of knackering the microwave if you use modified sine wave or square wave. I am sure some folk have microwaves running on cheap invertors however it is not worth the risk. The electronics in the microwaves do not like the "cheap" invertor's output

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[chriscallender]

Its also possible to buy 12v microwaves, a quick search on Google will show up plenty (eg Samsung Roadmate). Not cheap (£229 was the best price I saw) compared to mains ones but possibly a better way to go than the big inverter (unless you also have some other use for that).

Its a 750W microwave and takes 65 Amps when running, so you can figure out from that, and the wind generator specs, whether the wind generator could replace what you had taken out of the battery.

Chris

PS. I don't have one of these microwaves I was thinking about it as a possibility when I replaced the cooker but decided just to go with the conventional gas cooker/oven combination in the end.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by chriscallender on 26/04/2004 11:29 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[bedouin]

Power ratings for Microwave are Microwave power out, not electrical power in - so a Microwave rated in the 650-750W range will typically require over 1000W e.g. >90Amps.

Not sure of the precise figures - but I don't think you should be discharging your domestic batteries at more than 20% of their capacity per hour (10% is probably better) so you need to be considering a battery bank of the order of 500Ah

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