Camping power consumption air conditioner

[Blr243]

Normally I run my wall banger air con from mains as I stay in a house on my usual hunt block. But mid December I will be camping Fridge and air con is critical this time of year. I’m def taking my inverter gen set Honda 2000 watt. Possible my back up 750 watt ryobi too. I’m aware it will only support my fridge and charge my small devices. But it would be nice if I can run everything off solar. And enjoy the peace the Aussie bush is known for. I have a 1500 watt invertor to hook up to my solar set up. My air con is a 1.6 kw system. The sticker on the side of the air con says 580 watts. So is that constant draw I assume , or is it like a fridge and draws a ton more on start up ? I have a massive expensive battery hooked up to my panels

[Blr243]

I’m glad I googled the Honda’s fuel consumption. We tend to think it will run on smell of an oily rag but according to googl it can be as little as 4 hours under load. I’ll take an extra Gerry One for the gen and one for the quad

[Blr243]

Battery is an amp tech 120 amp hour. Sticker on it says max current draw 36 amps. The sticker on my air con says max current 2.8 amps I suppose the only thing that may let me down is if my panels can produce enough Juice to keep the Battery bank sufficiently full.

[Blr243]

With my devices not connected I spose can always run my gen set For a bit to charge my battery bank to give it a boost. I’m pretty sure the 12 volt leads supplied with my gen set really pump out some serious amps

[cz515]

The newer inverter aircons are brilliant can run them on the smell of an oily rag....i know in some third world countries they will just join up 2 or 4 panels and an inverter to run inverter aircon units during the hot afternoon period

[straightshooter]

I'm afraid you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
My 60 liter fridge freezer draws 5 amps off 12 volts until it reaches a stable internal temperature, which can sometimes take days depending how much is put in it. It then cycles so then the average current draw is about 2.5 amps.
So your battery, if it retains a full charge and yours is a 12 / 24 volt fridge, will last 24 hours if the fridge has to cool things down or 2 days if it just has to maintain it's temperature.
This setup will work OK long term if you have full sun for 6 hours every day and 350 watts worth of 12 volt panels provided there are no other loads on the battery.
The air conditioner will need to run off the generator only.
Most generators usually only have an 8 or 10 amp output at 12 volts.
I assume you will be camping in a tent. If that is the case then the air conditioner will be next to useless.
I suggest that you find a spot where you can put up a 5m x 5m shade sail and set up camp in it's shade.
If you really need some cooling then run a pedestal fan or an evaporative cooler off your inverter. You might then need to top up the battery with your generator to keep the fridge going.

[Blr243]

Straight shooter, I throw random tarps over the top of my tent to create air posters and isolate the tent from direct sun. Then , even in mid summer the air con actually gets too cold in there and I have to turn it off or down... I have noted your comments regarding current draw and will combine them with other comments/ opinions and prepare myself accordingly... I may drag out my extra set of solar panels too. At the end of the day the fridge is number one for food and cold beers. I can wallow in a creek if the air con ends up being trouble ....it’s a new place I’m visiting with may dams and troughs. I’m looking fwd to it being Real hot so I can visit the water points Looking for wallowing pigs from midday and all thru the afternoon .

[Ziege]

cant say I bother, grew up in the Gascoyne and worked and hunted in the Kimberly Pilbara and Gold fields my whole life, never used an aircon or fan or anything. And for those wondering it gets hotter in the kimberly than FNQ so yeah.

[MontyShooter]

Don't mix up 12v with 240v. It's best to think it terms of watts for something like this. Your 120a agm battery has 60a of useable capacity. So that's 720w. Your 580w per hour aircon will eat that in a bit over an hour.
If you want to use solar to cover this, you're going to need around 50a @12v. That's not going to happen with a portable solar setup.
The gennie will be the way to go.

[rc42]

You air conditioner is a heat pump, they always quote two figures, the cooling capacity (and heating if it's an inverter type) and the maximum power consumption need to achieve that, the latest small split units can manage around 2kw of output for only around 300w consumption so you may want to consider getting a new one if you want to run it without the generator.

Another thing to be aware of is lead acid batteries are subject to Peukert's law which explains how usable capacity decreases as current draw increases so run times are actually much lower if the current draw is higher, this is also why lead acid battery capacity is quoted as so many amp hours when under a (usually) 10A load. If you double that load you will see a significantly lower apparent capacity.

Your 580w air con using 240v mains will draw (580/240) or 2.4A so a peak motor startup current of 2.8A sounds reasonable, run that from a 12v inverter and the battery will see a (580/12) 48A load and will die in minutes, not really an option unless you have a bank of batteries in parallel.

[Blr243]

Ok. So generator it is for the air con Tent for maybe 5 hours in the hottest part of the day , or I can jump in the air con Ute and check all the dams. My solar will prob just look after my fridge , minor accessories

[Blr243]

Solar set up ended up being very successful kerping my food And beer super cold It also charged my electrical devices, phone scope batteries etc and it ran a portable fan when it was hot. But about an hour before sundown my constant voltage monitoring suggested I turn of the fridge and I did so. No need for fridge to run at night anyway. Once when a storm turned up everything went dark ....it’s great to have a noisy Genny Back up when something crops up Or goes wrong

[GQshayne]

I must have missed something. You have a big battery, I assume is 100ah deep cycle is it???

If you have a 100ah battery it should run all your stuff (no aircon sorry!) overnight easily, and the solar panel should then re-charge it the next day as well as running accessories, and you should be able to do this for a number of days. So something is not adding up.

What size battery and solar panel do you have???

[Blr243]

It was a 120 amp hour batty I think I paid over 400 for it. I was a touch surprised myself that th voltag started dddroppin so fast at sundown

[JimTom]

Mate I used my Honda 2Kva inverter to run the heater / aircon in my caravan when I owned one. Handled it no probs.

[Blr243]

Great bit of kit. Been helping me out for nearly 15 years now

[JimTom]

Yeah mate, can’t fault them. Had mine for quite a few years now too, generally comes away when we do big trips up in the Gulf country.

[GQshayne]

It was a 120 amp hour batty I think I paid over 400 for it. I was a touch surprised myself that th voltag started dddroppin so fast at sundown

What size is your solar panel?
What fridge do you have?
Did your fridge cycle on and off as it would normally do?
What was running off the battery during the day apart from the fridge?

[Blr243]

I think it’s a 200 watt solar panel. Kings 60 litre fridge. It turns itself on and off as it needs to maintain the temp I select. I was also charging my GPS Dog tracking receiver and dog tracking collar, thermal scope batteries, phone and iPad. But it’s when I added the 100 watt pedestal fan to the equation, That’s when the voltage on my battery fell to unusable levels

[Blr243]

I can deal with the fact that I might have to use the genny as back up. It’s nice to know it’s there. 98 per cent of the time enjoying the peace and quiet of the solar is a great way to camp

[GQshayne]

I think it’s a 200 watt solar panel. Kings 60 litre fridge. It turns itself on and off as it needs to maintain the temp I select. I was also charging my GPS Dog tracking receiver and dog tracking collar, thermal scope batteries, phone and iPad. But it’s when I added the 100 watt pedestal fan to the equation, That’s when the voltage on my battery fell to unusable levels

Are you charging this stuff and running the fan off an inverter by any chance???

[Blr243]

Yes I was running 12 v fridge direct off the battery and the invertor ran the other minor accessories and the fan. It’s only when I run the 100 watt fan that my entire system started to drain badly. Otherwise the panels were pumping enough juice in to keep it all good .......I know now because of this trip away what to expect in future. I know now what I can and can’t do. I have another set of 160 watt panels that I did not take on this trip. Perhaps on the next trip mid feb I may take both panel set ups.

[JimTom]

Mate if you’re interested here is a website with several calculators on it and average consumption rates of appliances.
Scroll just about all the way down, you just punch in your solar panel size, battery amp hour, etc, and it will let you know if you’re going to be ok. I think the planning figure for hours of eh light per day is 5.

[JimTom]

https://www.mygenerator.com.au/solar-calculator

[Blr243]

Jim that’s a handy link. It seems these days, there’s a website, or an app or a calculator, or a converter for just about anything anyone would want to do ......I wish that google earth had high powered thermal cameras 24/7. And every time you went hunting in a particular spot you just used your Debit card to pay 20 bucks access per day, and all the required info / images was sent to your phone.

[JimTom]

Glad it is helpful mate, and yep you’re right, bloody app for everything.

[GQshayne]

Ok, your inverter is the problem, as the conversion from 240v to 12v is not friendly to your battery. Personally, I avoid using anything on an inverter. You can calculate how much power something uses with the formula P = V x I. Power in watts = Volts x Amps. This is correct for 240v and 12 volt. So a 100w fan on 240 v uses very little amperage, but on 12v it is 8.3 amps constant. Lots!!!

Have a look for a 12v fan. I have a Jayco caravan fan, that clips on a tent pole etc, has a light in it too, and it draws 1.3 amps.

https://www.campsmart.net.au/jayco-camper-expanda-bed-end-light-fan-combo

[Blr243]

Ok. I got it. All my accessories other than thE fan I coulD hav been running off th 12 v battery any way bcaus thy ar just littl USB slot charger s. I’ll remember that next time

[GQshayne]

Ok. I got it. All my accessories other than thE fan I coulD hav been running off th 12 v battery any way bcaus thy ar just littl USB slot charger s. I’ll remember that next time

Yep, just about anything that is dedicated 12v will be more efficient than using a 240v version and an inverter.

That little fan is a beauty I reckon. Designed for close use in a van etc. Only problem is that it has a special Jayco plug on it, so you need to be handy enough to change it to whatever suits you. I put an Anderson plug on mine.