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Old 06-05-2007, 09:21 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by jage
Ok, so how does one determine the state of one's house battery(ies)?

Is it bad to kill the house battery? How many times?
Am sure many will add to this, but the following is certainly true:

A. If you have solar or are pre-wired, you'll have a "fuel gauge" and a voltage read-out that you can use. Eric B. may chime in here: he didn't think the one that SMB used was that accurate, but it's not too bad. Read on his site at badgertrek.com; he also points out important things like temp effects, etc. Also, if you don't prewire for solar, SMB gave me a cig socket plug that read voltage also or you can buy one for ~$20; you just need to know how voltage relates to capacity (and yes, there is a temp effect).

B. It's REALLY REALLY bad for your batteries to run them down. Yeah, I know, they're called "deep cycle" marine batteries, but that doesn't mean that they like it. I haven't figured out how to upload files at this site, but have uploaded a "depth of discharge" vs. cycle life for various battery chemistries over at:

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/spo ... ers/files/
The file is called "BatteryCycleLife_NREL.pdf "

"Depth of discharge" aka "DOD," is how far you run your battery down. Thus, 80% DOD is leaving only 20% left in it. As you can see, as you go to greater and greater DODs with an AGM battery, you _severely_ limit the number of cycles you get; doing 100% DOD will get you all of around 100 cycles.

To answer the question this will raise: what does that graph mean for end of life? What happens at 100% DOD after ~100 cycles? The definition is that now you only have 80% of the battery capacity that you had initially. Thus, your battery isn't dead or useless per se, but it's delivering far less total Wh than it used to.

If you send me an email address, I can email you the file (it's a PDF), and you can post it somewhere.

All of this is a strong argument for solar panels if you're going to go on long trips without driving much. Your batteries will just last a lot longer.

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Old 06-05-2007, 10:47 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by jage
so toast for me is really not so much a luxury, thus the big deal about the toaster.
Maybe we could figure out a way to harness the hot turbo temps on the doghouse to make a toaster...
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Old 06-05-2007, 11:57 AM   #23
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Toast

Hold a piece of bread with your right calf against the doghouse for 5 minutes...turn once for even browning!
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Old 06-05-2007, 10:06 PM   #24
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I turn the inverter on to use a standard coffee maker. I've used a coffee press, but use too much water removing the grounds when cleaning. I may eventually get a 12V model, but for now...Mmmmm fresh brewed coffee.
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Old 05-09-2011, 08:12 AM   #25
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Re: Power Invertor Size

I just checked the amps using my smaller (800 watts) 2 slice toaster this morning. It pulled 68 amps, but 2.5 of that was just the inverter on idle. Still, you wouldn't want to do that too much. I like to toast a bagel sometimes and try to start the van before running the toaster.

I checked a couple other loads while I was at it.
Norcold fridge = 2.75 amps, on hot days, this runs a lot
Hella rear flood lights = 8.1 amps
Tripplite Inverter on idle = 2.5 amps
Flourescent Lights = 1.1 amps each
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