Power upgrades

[Theonlymalewhodoesthelocks]

So here we go, i have a few ideas of things i want to upgrade about my boat. Mainly power to start with, i only have 1 12v plug (cigarette lighter power) so i want to put in maybe 3 more around. I do have an inverter but it only kicks out 1000w (i think) ill upload a picture, when i was a land human i was quite the little gamer and my PlayStation wont run off 1000w. I've been looking around and seen a few that will kick out 2000-3000 watts (Midlands chanderlers), any advice? From the invertor i know ill have to add more batteries as im a constantly cruising currently, i have a spare starter battery and my current 2 leasures are also actually starter batteries, how easy is it to hook up the other battery and should i look into buying another battery (an actual leisure one). Finally i have 1 solar panel which i believe is a 100w one is worth adding another one? If so how easy it is to do so? 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Robbie

Ally's Mist

[Chewbacka]

Firstly if a Playstation will not run from your 1000W inverter then either the inverter is not 1000W or the waveform is sufficiently bad such that the playstation does not work, most probably the latter, so if you get a new inverter I would suggest a pure sinewave output, though they do cost more.

Secondly a 1000W inverter if powered by 3 batteries of say 110AHr each give a usable capacity of 150AHr if you do not wish to discharge below 50%.  The inverter at full load will be taking about 85A from your batteries, which means they will last about 2 hours and then take about 10 hours to recharge. 

You need to consider your total power requirements and then battery management - there are lots of old posts on these issues.

 

[rusty69]

To add more battery capacity you will obviously need the space to do it. You will also need to consider how you will charge the extra capacity. 

To upgrade the inverter, you will need to ensure adequately sized cables and fuses. 

You may need a pure sinewave inverter to run a PlayStation (not certain on this) 

 

How easy will depend on your ability or bank balance. 

Edited July 19, 2017 by rusty69

[nicknorman]

Questions questions - so many questions!

 

Anyway, what do you want to run from the cigarette sockets? So much stuff runs on USB charging these days that it may well be worth installing USB charging points (connected to 12v supply) rather than, or as well as, cigarette lighter sockets.

Inverters come in all different flavours. Personally I would be sure to get a PSW (pure sine wave) not a MSW (modified sine wave) type. Years ago there was a big difference in price, these days much less so. Then you have to consider how significant it would be if it went on fire. You can get cheapo Chinese-badged PSW inverters pretty cheap, but they tend to be built down to a price and some have suffered catastrophic failures. Other of course have been absolutely fine. Of you can buy a reputable make which, in order of both quality and price, descending, might be Mastervolt, Victron, Stirling. Less probability of going on fire. Probably. But a major thing to consider is the static power consumption (ie with nothing plugged in, but the inverter switched on). There is a big difference between inverter makes in this respect. If you are leaving an inverter on all the time and it uses 1A more than another make, that is 24AH per day, or nearly as much as it takes to run a compressor fridge. Anyway you can see that there is no "right answer" - it depends on your bank balance and cost:quality compromise.

if you buy a big inverter, this will sap your batteries rapidly. So,the most important consideration is how are you going to replace the energy that your inverter sucked out of the batteries? Buying more batteries doesn't fix this problem. It's like buying a larger bucket - no point unless you have the means to fill the bigger bucket!

Adding more batteries may or may not be needed, depending on how much charge you intend to take out between charges. ie the charging regime vs the discharging regime. We'd need more information about your usage and charging patterns to help you answer that question. But typically, folk with 2000-3000w inverters have 3 or 4 leisure batteries. Batteries are easy to add if you have the physical space, you will need to ensure they comply with the BSS e.g. secured, and protected from metal objects dropped onto the terminals. You would need the right interconnection leads (chunky, if you have a big inverter) made up.

If you are CCing and only have 100w solar, I think you would be well adivised to get more. You can add panels to your existing setup, if they match the existing ones and the controller has spare capacity. Otherwise you can get more panels and an additional controller. Not too difficult except perhaps getting the wires through the hull in a waterproof fashion.

Edited July 19, 2017 by nicknorman

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Not too difficult except perhaps getting the wires through the hull in a waterproof fashion

Deck glands make a good waterproof fitting (and its easy)

 

[ditchcrawler]

If you engine is started by your leisure batteries I suggest you get that changed first so that the engine has its own dedicated starter battery, otherwise you will be playing on your play station, flatten your batteries and be unable to start the engine to recharge them

[MtB]

On 19/07/2017 at 22:13, Theonlymalewhodoesthelocks said:

my PlayStation wont run off 1000w.

 

Bloody hell, a PC that draws more that a kW???!!

 

On 19/07/2017 at 22:13, Theonlymalewhodoesthelocks said:

any advice?

 

Yes. Get a house...

[nicknorman]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Bloody hell, a PC that draws more that a kW???!!

 

 

Yes. Get a house...

You are being a little unkind, the OP doesn't need a house. However, a butty containing a nuclear power station...

But seriously, we suspect that the inverter is MSW which is why it won't run the PlayStation, as opposed to the PS needing more than 1000w

[MtB]

On 19/07/2017 at 22:57, nicknorman said:

But seriously, we suspect that the inverter is MSW which is why it won't run the PlayStation, as opposed to the PS needing more than 1000w

 

Yes I agree this is by far the more likely explanation, but it was a wide open goal and I succumbed to the temptation

[Richard10002]

The wires from my solar panel and my bedroom TV aerial enter the boat via a ventilation mushroom, and then wend their way inside the roof space to their destinations as appropriate.