4petedaniel Posted August 25, 2009 Author Share Posted August 25, 2009 4petedaniel - 2009-08-24 8:28 PM Brambles - 2009-08-24 6:58 PM Sorry It must have been one of my madder moments Of course I could have used the inverter the right way round . my problem is that the batteries are in the engine compartment not easy to access. What if I now put a lead & plug on the inverter on the 12 volt end and plug it in to the 12 volt plug in my camper any idea what the loading would be as the inverter came with 4mm cable. If I remember right a clamp on meter does not work on DC Voltage Oh gosh. Why are ideas and questions never guite a simple answer. In theory, yes you can plug into the cigarrette lighter, but most cigarrete lighters are only designed for 15Amps to 20 Amps intermittantly. Continuously is about 5 to 10 Amps max and anything above 5 Amps they do actually start to warm up a lot because they usually or often have steel contacts/connections. 5 amps at 12 volts equates to 60 watts which may not be emnough as this also has to power the olsses in the power supplies and in the invertor. So answer is yes and no depending on quality of invertor, power required and NEVER using above 60 or so watts even under fault conditions (a fuse could take care of that).. Sorry I am sort of hinking aloud here but in writing. Another problem is invertors can take big spikes of power and the battery can cope with this but the wiring will cause voltage drops due to resistance, hence 4mm cable for invertor wiring. It should not be too hard to take the wiring through the bulkhead to the battery. Just make sure cable is heavy gauge and well insulated, with a suitable fuse at battery end of positive. (40 Amps). This will protect the positive cable should a short in the wiring through the bulk head etc ever occurs. You should already have a large fuse fitted on the leisure battery. SO! My suggestion - 6 to 10mm cable from battery to area equipment will be located. A 40 Amp fuse at battery end. However this could be down sized to only allow for say 150 watts then 15 Amp fuse would be better. Does this all make sense... been a long day today. You may also be able to utilise the existing liesure wiring as long as it is heavy gauge as suggested, (at least 6mm) but probably is a lot ligher if only supplying lights etc. Jon. Hi Again Jon Follow your Idea. The problem is that with autosleepers there is no access through the lockers to get at the Batteries if there was I would have installed a second battery plus the inverter which I have had for a long time and not used because of this lack of access. The only cables that I have the abillity to get too are only about 2.5mm now I dont know what the carring cappacity of 2.5mm cable is at 12 volts 2but I suspect it not to be very high. about 8watts would guess and yet I can run the TV from it with out any problems so I am quite confussed I would like to know what is amperage of a 500 12VDCto 240v AC Inverter is. The load of the TV and Digi box together would not be more than 4amps I would guess. some one correct me if I am wrong. So I have alowed for 48watts plus the inverter load which could put me in the loading range of the cigar lighter which is again feed with a small size cable. maybe I should invest in a clamp on meter and try it out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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