ilreeves Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Next year I want to do more wild camping and to be more self sufficient. I was reading online a while back an explanation regarding how t convert watts to amps 12v to 240v battery efficiency and how to work out how long your battery should last and how to work out power needed to replace what you have used. Does anybody know a good webpage where I can read up on all this. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Wikipedia articles: Electric power. Ohms law. Amp hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Following from Charles' primers, the one bit that may be difficult to find out is how long your battery should last. Be warned that battery capacities are prone to being over-stated by manufacturers. Beyond that, it is not desirable to discharge a battery by more than 60% of its stated capacity, so for example, you should not try to take more than 60Ah (Amp hours, which is the measure of current consumed) from a 100Ah battery. Taking more will cause progressive damage to the battery's ability to re-charge, or in other words, shorten its life. Batteries are a whole world of complexity, and I'm not the person to guide you through it. However, there are others on this forum who are expert, so when you get a battery specific question come back and post your query. You will get excellent answers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Full-timer Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 This gadget will tell you exactly what you want to know a bit expensive but I find it invaluable http://www.nasamarine.com/proddetail.php?prod=BM1Compact Regards Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave C Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Have a look at this web site, although primarily aimed at boaters it makes very interesting reading (may take a long time to take it all in! http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/technical1.html BTW I had a BM1 on my narrowboat - a good bit of kit but don't take as gospel the state of charge reading. If you discharge your battery below 50% state of charge ie take more than 50amphours from a 100amphour battery you WILL shorten the life of the battery. Remember if you take say 50 amphours out you will need to put back probably 75 amphours. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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