Ring brought me a 5500 BTU AC unit Sunday along with a larger inverter and more solar panels. I still haven't wired in all the other panels I had here already, but that will happen before long. Problem is that the inverter he brought didn't have 12 volt wires to connect it to the battery, but I used what was left of some burned jumper cables to make those out of. The AC was pulling 1000+ watts and it shouldn't have been pulling but about half that so it looked like the inverter he brought wasn't going to work.
The watts here (Although hard to read) says 888.8 watts. This was with the AC sitting by the battery hut and hooked up directly through the watt meter which bypassed a hundred + feet of extension cord feeding the trailer. This was today and when it was showing over 1000 watts it was running through the extension cord. What all of this means is I'll be building another battery hut next to the cabin and running larger wire to supply it. Also the wires I made for the inverter proved to be too small so they will have to be replaces with larger ones. Between all of that it should get the watts down on the AC to where they should be and I should be good to go as far as running the AC in the cabin.
This picture shows where I was testing this out today.
Though hard to make out the above picture is of a rainbow end in the valley below here. First time I've ever seen the end of a rainbow close up. I ran down there to snatch the pot of gold, but I guess a leprechaun beat me to it because it was already gone. DAMN Leprechauns! Its currently sprinkling again.
How many watts does a swamp cooler use (like the one at The Field Lab) ?
ReplyDeleteNow we are talking. Effective cooling regardless of the humidity and no water required.
ReplyDeleteJust spend a few bucks on a true sine wave inverter with much better efficiency than the 50% you are getting there. Sine wave will also make it more power efficient.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I don't know about JW's swampie , but the one my Aunt and uncle gave me was 48 watts on low, 54 watts on medium and 100 watts on high. Problem being is that without catchment the water supply around here totally devoured it.
ReplyDeleterj, life will improve a bunch around here sooner or later.
rj, true sine wave inverters with the amount of watts I want to use around here is out of my $$$/budget by a few miles. Would be nice if I had money to burn though.
Tffnguy
ReplyDelete(captaincrunch again)
You should have pulled out that Mosin Nagant and laid a round or two into that "Leprechaun" to keep him from snatching your Gold.
CC, now why didn't I think of that? At the price of gold these days it might have been worth it.
ReplyDeleteI do not know the first thing about BTU's, inverters or battery huts...all I know is that you will make it work.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad to see you have an A/C unit in this hellish weather!
Nice picture of the end of the rainbow, I had never seen one before.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are getting sprinkles :)
MsB, it won't likely help me any this summer, but hopefully it will next summer.
ReplyDeleteGosh, July 4th, summer almost gone,,lol,, Maybe you can find out who got that pot of gold.
ReplyDeleteTnT, it was closer to my nearest neighbor so maybe it was him? If I see him driving a new super vehicle soon then I'll know. ;)
ReplyDeleteSummer lingers here a lot longer than it does in most places. Seems like fall and spring only last a couple of weeks each. :( I complain about the heat, but REALLY hate cold!
I didn't have any luck with real air conditioners because of the lack of humidity.
ReplyDeleteThose jumper cables are mostly insulation with not much wire in them, you should get Bob and Ron to get you some real wire, they should have some laying around that they could give you.
Bkid, as well insulated as the cabin will be it couldn't help but cool it. I've been in Nicks place when he was running the one I sold him and and a couple other people that run them off of solar say they do great. I may double up on the jumper cable wire and that should be enough. Main thing will be to move the batteries and panels close to the cabin and run bigger wire to the electrical panel.
ReplyDeleteBTW the damn pump ran down the two old batteries that were connected to it so no indoor toilet or shower for now. Guess I'll add the other two old batteries to that bank. Been real cloudy for the last few days so I've been having to run the charger some. More rain last night (a little) and looks like the bottom could drop out now. May be a repeat of the parade from a couple of years ago. Rain on the parade. I didn't go though.
I think moving up to some 2/0 wire from the bank to the inverter should solve your problems.
ReplyDeleteHey Bkid... aren't you the one who calls the place turdlingua? I would love to hear your story sometime.... :)
Chris Miller
Our180.com - One Family's Journey To Finding True Happiness
Chris I'll probably just pick up a couple of battery cables next time I go to Alpine.
ReplyDeleteYeah... Bkid is the culprit.
Dunewalker from the high desert of Nevada again: If you're using a 12/3 contractor's extension cord it oughta be able to handle over 1,000 watts in a run of 100+ feet to your cabin---they say they're rated for at least 13 amps as I remember, which would be 1,500 watts or so. I think your problem is your watt meter mal-functioning. The modified sine-wave inverter should be able to run the cooler just fine, maybe a bit noisier than pure sine is all. Looking at your photo of the watt meter it says 888.88. Which is more likely, that the cooler is using that or the meter is off? 888.88 is what you'd see if it's turned off & all the LCDs are the same (non) brightness. If, as Chris says, you get some 2/0 battery cables & keep them to 5 feet in length or so, & make sure they're well-connected, it should be fine with the shed where you have it now. You'd better put a big fuse between the batteries & the inverter though, at least 100 amps or more, to prevent burning the place down.
ReplyDeleteDunewalker, the cord going from the battery hut to here is not a contractor's cord. Its a cheap harbor freight cord and I'm not sure of the wire size in it.
ReplyDelete