Quote:
Originally Posted by luka
Most of the astro gear is designed to run on 12V, i.e. from a standard (car) lead acid battery. If possible you should run your gear directly from such battery and avoid inverters due to the power losses in conversion.
If you use an inverter it basically means that you are converting 12V DC to 240V AC and then back to 12V DC. You will be wasting at least 20% of the total power (10% at each conversion) and that is probably a very conservative estimate.
|
It is inefficient that's for sure but after 20 years living with solar, deep cycle batteries and a Genny converting to 240 vlts I have found the best approach.
The key with battery systems is to go bigger than you believe your needs will be and try to keep the discharge to 20%...Gel batteries are great for a number of reasons we have 1200 amp hours for the house but really I would like double that.
My van set up...for the astronomy rig I have only 110 amp deep cycle to run the cooled camera,, the mount and the lap top. It has 120 watt solar panel but often needs a top up from the Genny via a huge charger (max 60 amp charge rate) but I charge only at 10 amps.
There is a 200 watt inverter and a battery checker..shows volts and current draw.
I have been using this set up to run the van but have a similar set up that I am putting together to run the van.so this one goes back to just astronomy.lights fridge and phone charging as well as lap top and tablet. Besides my 750 watt Genny there is an additional back up 2000 watt Genny which is really not needed but it was at Aldi on special for $200 so a great buy for a back up.
I don't agree that old car batteries are much chop in the long term and say deep cycle are the go for power supply. Mind you there are many videos on YouTube that shows how you can get more hours out of old car batteries. And have a multimeter and use it daily to monitor your batteries if you don't have a battery quality unit in line.
Alex