3000 watt inverter

I use an Aims power 3000, I run a 1500w kettle, but I realized that running that kettle I need to have my truck idling because it draws a ton of current.

I see the needle dipping into 11v even when idling to heat up water for coffee.

 

I’ve been running the Truck for the most part while brewing coffee. Old coffee maker would run off the 1000w. New one needs at least a 1500w. I have made a few pots without it running, but drains batteries too much. I’m pretty sure I just got bad inverters. Just hate to ruin the last one that’s still working. Going to test batteries today.

 

look at the Aims, I run it constantly 3-4 hours straight, powering my 2xQSC8 Speakers

 

Always run the truck, 1500 watts with 4 to 8% overhead on the inverter, that’s 125 amps the inverter is using.

 

I don’t understand your description. I thought the amps the inverters using depends on the appliance it’s powering. In this case, I don’t have an amp meter on the Truck. The inverter shows the volts coming in and going out to power the appliance. Amperage needs to be converted to wattage to find out how much it draws, beforehand.

 

125 amps converts to 15000 watts. I understand the alternator is 130 or 140, maybe 150 or 160. But that’s only charging the battery bank the inverters running off of. Admittedly I don’t understand electrical stuff much beyond the basics. Since the inverter itself draws juice, I wanted to have a smaller one running the fridge, on full time, and only use the larger one for coffee or microwave, with Truck running. Otherwise leaving the larger inverter off.

 

@Rideandrepair check this link out
THE TRUTH ABOUT INVERTERS | 3000 WATT INVERTER VS 3000 WATT GENERATOR.

 

At 120V, which is doing the calculation backward. Think of the inverter having two sides, the 120V side your appliance is on, and the battery side feeding it. Load on the high voltage side causes an equal load on the low voltage feed. Watts / volts = amps.

Maybe a different example. I have a 900W microwave. On the 120V side that's drawing 7.5A from the inverter to the outlet. But caclulate on the 12v side, batteries to inverter, and the draw is 75A.

Running the engine doesn't always keep up with higher inverter load, however, the alternator output isn't the only factor. By reducing the voltage drop, the demand from the inverter is reduced. As your battery voltage drops, the inverter takes more amperage to fulfill the 120V load you're demanding.

 

I'm going to assume you have also checked your connections at the battery and inline fuse. Seen quite a few over the years that would release the magic smoke due to corrosion at the battery terminals.
Poor connection drives the resistance and thus the current draw even higher and will kill poorly internally protected inverters. Crap quality wires will also have the same effect over time.

 

you assume there isn’t a lose from the inverter, inverters require a level of power to be used to run, these are loses in both heat and power to runs the switching system, and for that matter loses with the transformer within the switching system.

Some of that is insignificant but some of it is really large.

depending on the inverter design the power loss can be as high 8% albeit I’ve seen a few chinese as high as 15% of the current load, that’s a lot of power being produced as heat and running the inverter. I had one that ran so hot (6000 watt 24 volt) that it had two high flow fans that turned on at anything over 1000 watts by design.

ok the problem is what is the voltage at the input of the inverter to figure out your amperage.

an amp gauge is good but measuring the voltage right at the terminals of the inverter is the best.

That said,

at 14 volts 1500 works out to 107 amps

at 13 volts 1500 works out to 115 amps

at 12 volts 1500 works out to 125 amps

The truck running won’t let the batteries be drained as much as if it wasn’t running.

The battery bank provides the reserve power so to speak, so it is better to have the truck running.

i won’t get into the copper clad aluminum wire thing with the loses or how the connectors matter a lot but suggest you use actual welding cable, not the chinese welding cable, have the proper cable ends and crimp them.