surge

[joeh]

hi forum
would my 600w inverter be able to start up my 6500 btu air conditioner ( domestic portable ) ? so far i have been running it off 240v shore power. i am now on a swing mooring. electrics are 12v, 2x105 ah batt. ta

 

[Chris_Robb]

[ QUOTE ]
hi forum
would my 600w inverter be able to start up my 6500 btu air conditioner ( domestic portable ) ? so far i have been running it off 240v shore power. i am now on a swing mooring. electrics are 12v, 2x105 ah batt. ta

[/ QUOTE ]

And even if it could, how are you going to keep such a small battery bank topped up. (A) you will ruin your batteries, and (B) I think there is no chance that the initial draw of the motor would be supported by what is quite a small inverter.

 

[joeh]

i have a solar panel array which gives me >5 amp in good sun ( which is quite so here ). my aircon draws 3 to 4 amp continuous but i think up to 9 amp on startup. the inverter is said to have double the wattage in surge capacity ( i.e. 1200w). also i will be running the a/c only during midday for 2 hrs max just to make things bearable in the cabin .

 

[James_Hortop]

Hi Joe,

You seem to be getting your amps mixed up. The solar panels provide circa 5A at 12V (5x12=60watts). The airco pulls 4A but at 230V (4x230=920watts), 9A surge (9x230=2070 watts). Divide the AC wattage by 12 to get the DC current draw so, 920/12=76.6Amps running and 172.5A surge.

Answers then are that the inverter won't run the aircon (also some inverter manufacturers seriously overstate their units power outputs) and also you'll need a big battery bank to run it.

On my boat I have a Cruiseair Aircon unit which I like to run at night. This runs from a 2.5Kw inverter off a 500Ah battery bank. This just about runs all night if I've been reasonably careful with other loads (lights, fridge etc).

Hope this helps

James

 

[joeh]

certainly helped james thks

 

[oldsaltoz]

We have just over 4 square metres of solar panels and a house battery comprised of 6 x 6 volt very high capacity fork lift lead acid none sealed batteries. We are in the Australian tropics. We also have a high rate inverter and marine air con but have never been game enough to run the inverter for the air con; we also have a small reasonable quiet gen set that works well on the rare accation we need to run it sea.

I would hate to destroy the house bank of batteries, 6 years old and showing no sign of deterioration, yet.