Battery Life Using Electronics

i idle my truck in cold and hot weather no matter what. i refuse to be uncomfortable while i'm resting/sleeping/or whatever in the truck. if i leave the truck then i turn it off. i don't feel a company has the right to tell a driver to not idle their truck when they go home every night and enjoy their home and family time. this job is aggrevating enough that we don't need that too. all i have really ever heard is i won't get an idle bonus. big woppity doo, they can keep it since no money is worth jeopardizing my comfort.

 

You have to take into account these truck have 3 or 4 batteries so the overall amperage is very large. much larger than one battery. I have a 1200 watt inverter that runs my latop, vacume, microwave, coffee pot and whatever and i'v not had it get the batteries down to far but I don't htink I would leave it on all night. Power inverters have an alarm that starts sounding at like 11 volts and then shuts itself of at 10.5 or something like that. You only need a small 150 watt inverter to charge a latop, smaller if you have a smaller screen on it. Mine has a 17 inch screen and they say at least 120 watts. Invertors don't work great for some tv's and dvd players as the power feed is dirty and ou can get lines in the screen unless you get a pure sine wave invertor instead of the modified wave but they are twice to three times as expensive and very large. Laptops are okay because they go through a transformer before the power gets to them

 

is it feisable or difficult to install a deisel generator behind the sleeper? Shouldnt have to be a large one!

 

pretty easy to do. You can fit one in an aftermarket box that hangs on the frame like a battery box. I had a small honda on a pete I had that had a custom built 96 inch sleeper but it was gas and that sucked. I got some wierd looks pulling up to the gas pumps. even had the attendant come running out yelling at me to stop once.
Most the small generators are pretty loud though. that's something to consider. I'd say if you want to do that you should just get an apu (auxilary power unit) it will run heat and ac in your bunk, generate ac for your use and to heat your motor while it's shut off overnight and they burn a gallon or two a night vs two gallons an hour idleing. The ae spendy but there is usually tax benifits for buying them. I'm getting one soon as I have to get it before july to get the tax benifit.

 

Truck battery life will depend alot on what all appliances you're using, and how many of the sleeper's lights are on, etc. Ballpark is somewhere between 1 and 3 hours. (in my experience) Though, most trucks have a low volt cutout built into em to protect against dead batteries.