Another inverter & a separate gen circuit

[mvweebles]

Even a good quality unit will draw a couple of amps at idle. A steady, slow drain doesn't take long to eat up your batteries.

I agree with overall caution about being sanguine about parasitic inverter draw. If you run a generator at least a couple times a day, it is indeed negligible. But for those whose usage emulated more cruiser/sail, wasting 30AH per day is not negligible. To give context, would require something close to a 100w solar panel just to replace parasitic draw. Or, as SBman correctly observes, thr battery bank is perhaps in thr 600ah range. With 50% DoD capacity, means that parasitic draw saps about 10% of the batteries capacity each day.

Just depends on how you use your boat. If you're a generator boat with inverter as fill-in, disregard the above cautions.

Peter

 

[Jiggernaught]

Storage is closer to 800 amp, but all the same it now becomes clear that there is constant draw even when not in use. Mine were being depleted just sitting at the dock, no shore power. Having main battery switch turned off made no difference. Batteries still drained. Now I've shut inverter off as well as main switch. I'll monitor more closely. Cheers.

 

[boomerang]

Shawn,

Does your boat still have the plumbing, fuel and electrical infrastructure of the original generator? Mine still runs fine, and is actually not as noisy as they are notorious for but eventually I'll swap it out for a 3 cylinder 8kw that is in my garage. I'd like to see it go to a good home.

No, there was no evidence of a generator ever being installed, except for the bolt holes in the floor and the plugged exhaust outlet. The PO did a really good job of cleaning up the unused components.
If we were in the market ,I might make you an offer ,but truthfully, we can use the storage space that a permanent generator consumed & for our needs, the portable on the swim platform works ok.

 

[Gdavid]

No, there was no evidence of a generator ever being installed, except for the bolt holes in the floor and the plugged exhaust outlet. The PO did a really good job of cleaning up the unused components.
If we were in the market ,I might make you an offer ,but truthfully, we can use the storage space that a permanent generator consumed & for our needs, the portable on the swim platform works ok.

That certainly makes sense. The space formerly occupied by the generator has been repurposed on a lot of these these old boats, it is a great spot for batteries, tool storage, potable water tankage, sanitary tankage and I'm always interesting in seeing how folks have altered these old boats to suit their needs.

On my father's old MKIII, we installed a generator from scratch and it was about $1500-$2000 in parts and supplies alone (excluding the genset cost, no labor cost). On a MKI that still had everything in place, it would be far more cost effective. At the risk of topic drift, the two biggest upgrades we made to that boat were installing an autohelm and the generator and we enjoyed having the autohelm far more than the genset.

Kind of back on topic, my friend who runs a inverter genset did convert it to propane and really loves not having to refuel as frequently.

 

[sbman]

I agree with overall caution about being sanguine about parasitic inverter draw. If you run a generator at least a couple times a day, it is indeed negligible. But for those whose usage emulated more cruiser/sail, wasting 30AH per day is not negligible. To give context, would require something close to a 100w solar panel just to replace parasitic draw. Or, as SBman correctly observes, thr battery bank is perhaps in thr 600ah range. With 50% DoD capacity, means that parasitic draw saps about 10% of the batteries capacity each day.

I've done a lot of work with off-grid systems where independence from shore power and generators is the goal, so I'm always thinking about efficiency, eliminating un-necessary usage and capturing as much power as possible each day.

 

[Marco Flamingo]

Shawn,

I got a chance to look at my EDECOA 3500W inverter. Written in small letters right across the sine wave (under the 3500W-7000W label), mine says "pure sine wave." I can't tell from your picture is your's says the same. I haven't had a scope on mine, but the couple of You Tube videos I found showed a clean wave. Of course, whether that is true for all their inverters would depend on EDECOA's quality control.

I was also aware of inverter standby costs when I did my installation. Mine has a remote control that would make one think that the inverter is off, but there are sort of three "off" conditions. If the remote is left "on," the inverter can be sort of off when hibernating but ready to spring into action should an AC load be detected. This draws a couple amps in standby. I was surprised it was that high and don't have battery capacity to just leave it hybernating. If the remote is switched off, the inverter won't detect an AC draw and turn on, but there is still something going on. More than just the LED lights on the remote staying lit. The "switched off" draw is still over an amp. I have a circuit breaker right next to the remote and turn that off so that the remote gets nothing. Only then does the inverter draw drop to zero.

 

[Sleepy]

I don't mean to hijack this thread- but can you tell me more about how to run AC off the Honda suitcase style generators. 16000 btu Reverse cycle unit.

 

[diver dave]

A very short 30A twist lock to NEMA 5-15 adapter, the Honda 2200i, and a gallon of gas is all it took to get my 12k BTU fired up. And, even the batt. charger after the a/c kicked on.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZL3Z6K7?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_image