Monday, August 17, 2015

Electrical considerations

After returning home exhausted from my first day back at work, nothing was achieved inside the bus other than depositing my new can of paint and plastic table protector inside. The table protector will be cut up and used to protect my nicely painted countertops.

I lied! I did do something else. The toilet top was stuck down. It seems latex paint can take a week to fully harden and so the latex paint had stuck to itself. A little force got the top up and with only a little wood splintering in the process.

Meanwhile, I researched my electrics. Most if not all of my appliances are cheap Rival appliances from Walmart. Looking them up, I found only some of the wattages quoted in the manuals. I had the following...
1. Rival cordless kettle. 1200w
2. Rival 700w microwave 1040w.
3. Rival 6 cup rice steamer - wattage not stated in the manual!
4. Rival quart slow cooker - wattage not stated in the manual!
5. Rival coffee maker - wattage not stated in the manual!
6. Haier mini fridge. Wattage is cunningly concealed in a statement that the fridge uses 315 kwh per year! That's 0.86kwh per day or 860watt hours per day. Guessing because I don't really have anything else to go on, that's going to be about 35 watts power consumption.

None of those are likely to be over 1500 watts. Now that gives me the option to use a $37 1500-2000W inverter from eBay.

The thought is to have 3 or 4 sockets connected to either individual 1500 watt inverters or to a single 45/60 watt inverter.

Initially there will be batteries that will be charged from 110v. Later the number of batteries will increase and solar panels will be added. The system will be designed with expansion in mind.

There will be two power systems. A 12v system that provides power to water pumps and charging sockets etc. There normally wouldn't be a 110v system but for the fact 110v appliances are so much cheaper than 12v appliances.

The water heater is probably going to be a 5 to 10 gallon tank with a 12v element, mounted under the bus. I'll probably have electric hot and cold water pumps running off 12v

Lighting is going to be a battery powered hurricane style lamp. I just don't see the need to run excess cables.

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