Invertor for fish house

[thefarmer]

I saw Bassnspears post in the generator thread, I am too am looking for a quiet invertor. Wondering if anyone has any suggestions. Would use it mainly for a 30 inch lcd tv and dish reciever. Not sure what the draw would be. Also considering adding another battery to the house to up the storage but don't know how long it would take to recharge 2 marine batteries with the charger that comes with an ice castle?

[Whoaru99]

Look at the wattage draw of the TV and of the sat box then add them together. Factor in say 25% more for good measure if you don't plan on running anything else then that's about the size to get.

As a general rule, inverters operate silently unless they're working hard enough to run the small fan some of them have inside.

As far as recharging the batteries it depends on their amp-hour rating, how much they are discharged, and the charge rate of the charger. If you know these things it's relatively simple math to figure approximate recharge time.

(Total amp-hour capacity of batteries X % of discharge (50% = .5)) / charger amps = approximate recharge time in hours.

[BLACKJACK]

What I did was just buy a 12 volt TV, it also has a convertor so you can run it on 120. I set my Ice Castle up with an onboard charger and two big batteries, one for the heater, and one for everything else, I just plug it in when I get home, it charges the batteries and I'm good to go. So far I've only done one night trips, but when I start doing two night trips, I plan on having a generator and doing some charging at mid-day.

[Whoaru99]

True, but with an inverter you do have the option for more variety of devices.

Also, in the case of two batteries, you may get longer run time using them in parallel than separate since when the load on each battery is less (due to the sharing) they can give up more total power.

[BLACKJACK]

I've kept the two batteries seperate because I want the heater to work!!! If the other one running the lights fades out, I can still get by with a headlamp but without heat, it wouldn't be any fun.

With a battery and invertor setup, do you have to plug into the invertor or do you plug the invertor into your 120 wiring circuit?? Does the invertor also charge the batteries when you plug the house into 120 when you get home (or into a generator)? Or do you need a seperate charger??

[tip-up king]

[low277]

That about sums it up.

[BLACKJACK]

tipup king, nice diagram!!! Even a non-sparky like me can understand it!!!

Bottom line is that you need a dedicated circuit for your power from the invertor.

[Whoaru99]

Could put in a relay/contactor or manual switch setup that would transfer the inverter output to the house 120V circuit, similar to a generator transfer switch, but that diagram certainly lays out a very workable setup.