Comments on: Power Budgets[5] Online Calculator Gets You Started

By: Arild Jensen

Arild Jensen — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:42:03 +0000

How about freezing plastic bottles of water during ‘free time’ when generator is running to help ride through the power off period at night? In fact this may allow extending this period. The ice bottles would take up any empty volume in freezer and provide added thermal mass to hold down temp rises during hotter portion of daily cycle.

By: Arild Jensen

Arild Jensen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:25:20 +0000

Marshall I have a data point for you. A George Forman grill rated 1100 watts cooks three 8 ounce hamburger patties at a time. Including preheat time it used 0.14 kilowatt hours from start to finish. AS measured with a P4400. I love a good grilled steak or hamburger but in winter the Propane BBQ just doesn’t hack it. The meat is half cold before you can serve it.
When the wife serves up grilled garlic prawns and a California salad the cooking time is less than for 8 ounce Black Angus hamburger patties so it would be slightly less than the 0.14 kilowatt power consumption I measured.
More data points to follow.

By: Power Budgets [4] data you can use | Real Off Grid Energy and Life!

Power Budgets [4] data you can use | Real Off Grid Energy and Life! — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:36:22 +0000

[...] in this series, I’ll offer an online power budget calculator to help you get a feel for your off grid power [...]

By: Arild Jensen

Arild Jensen — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:49:02 +0000

Regarding the SEGS. Would it not be useful to have a field where you could enter a number that might be different than what you assume their particular SEGS would be. Since you are driving the charger with 120V AC from the generator they could substitute something else.

By: Arild Jensen

Arild Jensen — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:44:42 +0000

On the subject of power consumption by various appliances… [ Marshall moved comment to best location: http://www.genverters.com/genverters/power-budgets-4-data-you-can-use/ ]

By: marshall

marshall — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:37:15 +0000

For the SEGS system the calculator tells you how many TIMES the generator must be run to recharge the battery. It does not say how LONG the charge time will be, because and you and I know, that involves many variables.

By: Arild Jensen

Arild Jensen — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:27:22 +0000

I tested the online calculator from my Linux computer. There was a calculation saying I would need to run my genverter 1.5 hours per day to meet my needs. Doesn’t that depend on what output my particular generator outputs? At this time my particular model delivers 100 amps to the battery. 100 amps at a nominal 12V is 1200 watts and my daily load is only 600.4 watts. So in reality that particular calculation needs an input of the actual charging capacity being provided by the genverter. ( dont forget to allow for power factor) I also have a Prosine inverter that can deliver 120 amps to a battery bank. It is not wired up yet since we moved recently.

By: marshall

marshall — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:37:03 +0000

Table is simple html form. The results page would divide totals by solar hours to get required panel watts. If no solar hours entered, divide by zero, now fixed to read “null watts”.