Terry asked: > Another issue is how much peak power do the various machines use ? How big > an inverter and battery bank would we need to be able to wash under way. One > boat we are considering has 660Ah of batteries charged by a 11A alternator > but only a 2Kw inverter. Would that be man enough ? or should I replace it > with a 3Kw one? Then would the batteries and alternator cope ? We wouldn't > be washing while the >engine was off.
At a guess the washing m/c heater element is going to be 2.5 to 3 kW perhaps, so your 2 kW inverter would be insufficient. Also you have to allow a reserve for the motor start up requirements which are more unknown. > > Or should we be considering a travel power type generator ? would 3.5Kw be > enough I seem to recall that they need a constant RPM is that still the case. No, the advantage of the Dometic (Electrolux) Travelpower (or the Dynawatt similar machine) is that they don't need constant revs. The input is chopped and reformed into a constant volatage, stable frequency output at any revs. If the current load is too great for the revs at any given moment the unit will shut down and wait until there are sufficient revs again. We ran our Bosch washing machine from a 3.5 kW Travelpower on our French boat perfectly OK for power, frequency stability and wave form (important for the electronic timers on modern washing machines). Roger
