"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot fishcatcher
(net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote in news:XOednRrWJbfxjqbfRVn-
:

(reminder from original: So, given that it's just some outlets, and not a
supply to a mains
distribution, with all that wattage, how would we normally use it?


Why can't we just plug the loads into it? Plug the boat into it, if you
like....just like the dock. Of course, you'd should install a transfer
switch to keep you from feeding the dock into it, or any other inverter
that doesn't have one.

Most things on Lionheart run on DC. A couple of things that don't are the
little microwave oven we paid $15 (new!) for and the laptop power supply
and printer power supply for WEFAX charts at sea. For those, we have a 1KW
Radio Shack inverter mounted right next to the battery switches inside the
engine compartment over the monsters to keep the inverter fan noise out of
the boat and the big cables to it to a minimum length. A length of #14
drop cord snakes its way through to overstuffed wireways to the nav station
where I installed a 115VAC standard 6-outlet power strip to plug the
various computer loads into it. A second custom drop cord runs from the
inverter to a dual outlet in a handibox behind the microwave in the galley.

I also ran a control cable from the power switch inside the inverter over
to a microswitch mounted on a neat little plate in a hole at the nav
station used by the former owner for something that needed filling. This
gives the inverter remote control to switch it on and off. A panel-mounted
neon indicator connected to the 120VAC in the nav station power strip lets
me know the inverter is on and, in fact, producing 120VAC power. When the
microwave is running, my DC clamp-on ammeter shows it drawing about 33A at
13.8VDC to heat dinner. Even at the dock, the microwave runs off the
inverter. We plug the computer stuff into a shore-power outlet by the
inverter's power strip.

I doubt many here will be powering the shore power throughout the boat with
the battery killing inverter, don't you?.....

3KW is way overkill because the boats can't provide DC to 3KW for very
long....

"Nothing is funnier than a boater with a new 4KW inverter carrying his
electric heater down the dock with that smug grin on his face....(c;"