I think I’ve broken my inverter

Wellington

Wellington

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Carthago Compact 138
My lovely new-to-me Carthago has a little inverter in the garage. I thought I’d try it our before we head off to the continent tomorrow. It’s a Streetwize inverter, peak power 1600 watts, continuous power 800 watts. So I thought I’d be ok with a 600 watt microwave. It worked for a second and then went off. It now has no lights and appears dead! Electrics look normal, and the batteries have power (the lights work anyway. It’s been plugged in all week, and I just left it unplugged today to make sure the 12v/gas systems are all working properly)

Have I killed it?
What did I do wrong?
Can it be resurrected?
 
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Lenny HB said:
Opening post says she has a Carthago, you Tring to confuse me.
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peterc10 said:
Are you sure Smiffy.

The OP started the first post saying this
"My lovely new-to-me Carthago has a little inverter in the garage. "

So, as Lenny says, what is a Sargent charger doing in a Carthago.
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What do I know.....?. I got confused just waking up this morning....??

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If you are going to fit an inverter, you should put a lot of effort into making the wires from the battery to inverter as short as possible. I presume your batteries are not in the garage at the back, where your 800W inverter is. Maybe you could put the inverter in a cupboard or locker near the batteries.

Energy in electric wires is carried by electric charge. Amps is the flow rate of electric charge, in other words, how much charge is flowing per second.

Volts is a measure of how much energy an amp of charge is carrying.
12 volts means 12 watts per amp of current.
240 volts means 240 watts per amp of current.
So you see that mains electricity at 240 volts carries twenty times more energy than battery electricity at 12 volts.

Put that another way - it needs twenty times more amps to carry a kilowatt at 12 volts than is needed for 240 volts.

The thickness of the copper wire depends on the amps, not the volts. 12 volt circuits need twenty times the thickness of wire compared to 240 volt wire, for the same energy. It's the main reason that houses use 240 volts. Even trucks now use 24 volt circuits, which need half the wire thickness of 12 volt circuits. Hybrid electric cars use 48 volts, and fully electric cars use 400 volts.

The upshot of all this is, if you want to run a powerful inverter off 12 volts, you need stupidly thick wires - so thick they look like water hose. Best to keep them absolutely as short as possible. If you need long lengths, they need to be even thicker to allow for voltage drop. They are expensive.
 
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I think 24v inverters are cheaper, ?so you could rig a 24v series/parallel arrangement up with 4 batteries. 2 batteries in parallel for the habitation side and another pair in parallel, then in series with the first two for inverter circuit. Simple ?

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Your choices are to mount a larger inverter next to wherever the batteries are, which is what I do, or get a suitable 1800_2000w generator. The generator is the simplest solution, just plug in and go. (actually I don't like generators but it seems the simple answer to your problem.)
 
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We have indeed made it as far as France. Dentist at nine, returned the inverter, swapped cars, rowed with bank (again) wrote to the credit reference people and the ombudsman, dumped the dog with high strength antihistamines for his newly asthmatic sitter, retrieved the child and prised next doors new puppy off her and toddled off to Folkestone. I made it through the tunnel without mishap, drove round a few roundabouts without crashing into any French drivers, discovered the toll tag thingy is too high if you put it on the sun visor (but does work if you wave it around a bit) checked into our first Aire (in the dark, with a missed turning, and probably severely irked everyone by clattering around at 11pm, and then hoovering various biting insects off the bedroom ceiling at midnight!) and have generally failed to have any driving-related drama whatsoever. Makes a change, just recently.

Fret not, I have left the microwave at home, and filled up the space with crisps and gin. We are about an hour South of Calais, and will carry onto Champagne tomorrow. Will just have to hook up where we can, and manage the rest of the time.
 
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Oh, and it is a Carthago. A compact line 138, has a few teething troubles, but seems a good fit so far. It was supposed to go off to VanBitz to have a Victron fitted, but the refinance falling through means I can’t do it at the moment. I’ll book it in as soon as it’s sorted out.

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Municipal campsites are much cheaper than independent ones if you need a campsite at any time particularly if you want to top up your batteries.

Enjoy your holiday.

Denise
 
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Wellington said:
We have indeed made it as far as France. Dentist at nine, returned the inverter, swapped cars, rowed with bank (again) wrote to the credit reference people and the ombudsman, dumped the dog with high strength antihistamines for his newly asthmatic sitter, retrieved the child and prised next doors new puppy off her and toddled off to Folkestone. I made it through the tunnel without mishap, drove round a few roundabouts without crashing into any French drivers, discovered the toll tag thingy is too high if you put it on the sun visor (but does work if you wave it around a bit) checked into our first Aire (in the dark, with a missed turning, and probably severely irked everyone by clattering around at 11pm, and then hoovering various biting insects off the bedroom ceiling at midnight!) and have generally failed to have any driving-related drama whatsoever. Makes a change, just recently.

Fret not, I have left the microwave at home, and filled up the space with crisps and gin. We are about an hour South of Calais, and will carry onto Champagne tomorrow. Will just have to hook up where we can, and manage the rest of the time.
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Gin and crisps that should keep the child quiet ;) now time to chill a bit and enjoy the trip.

Martin
 
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hilldweller said:
Well spotted Sir, from now on you are to be known as Leopard Lenny.

So different charger, bodged fuse, what looks like a very thin black wire to the right of the inverter.

Definitely needs an expert view on this......

AND....

"New to me Cathargo" so should ths not be warranty work ?
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They might change the inverter for one that's not been got at but don't think they would be into rewiring it all and providing high power inverter. This is the problem with trying to take your home world camping. Generator would work if you can stand the agro from other campers or you park miles away from anyone else. Do you really need to provide Jacket Potatoes in 30+ Degrees. More like a simple salad and french bread.
 
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Richard and Ann said:
I think 24v inverters are cheaper, ?so you could rig a 24v series/parallel arrangement up with 4 batteries. 2 batteries in parallel for the habitation side and another pair in parallel, then in series with the first two for inverter circuit. Simple ?
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I'm not sure they are cheaper but the cabling can be as they use around half the current for the same power. I have fitted this to a previous van and the 24V scheme is not only sound but makes for very efficient regulated 13.8V (etc.) single stage supplies (because 24V to 12 - 15V is easy and efficient).

The issue comes with the lack of 12V to 24V B2B chargers, the best one can do it to charge the 24V pack from solar and your inverter-charger (no point in just getting the inverter for 24V), and rig up a step-up DC-DC converter for driving. And a step-down for the inverter-charger to charge the van battery as it will be outputting 24V for that purpose now.

The electrics at this stage become rather 'picky' as most DC-DC converters (up and down) have their current sense on the output -ve terminal, so you have to keep the 24V earth and 12V earth isolated at all times. This means using a dual pole relay to switch over the 24->12V float (if used) to the 12V->24V charge.

If one accepts the cost of buying an inverter charger, having complex van charging systems and respects the need to keep the earth's isolated it's a good scheme but perhaps a step too far for the casual DIYer. There's probably a market for a split charge 12V van -> 24V domestic regulator board but quite a small one. It's doable and not that costly but one has to switch away from purely thinking about voltages and also work out where the current wants to go in order to be successful.

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peterc10 said:
Whatever happened to the KISS principle I wonder .............................. :ROFLMAO:
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Yes, it seems to go right out the window above 12V LOL
I think if mains power is super important it's worth putting the effort in but most of the time it's a toaster and hairdryer that are the 'missing' items and can be got under 1000W.

BTW I bought a gas toaster - a Bright Spark Toaster Plate - that was interesting. Obviously not designed for crumbly bread as it turned into a giant smoke generator, maybe I need to get some superfine metal mesh for that. I could use supermarket sliced bread i suppose, but it's cheaper to just eat old packing cardboard of equivalent nutritional value.
 
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GPW said:
Yes, it seems to go right out the window above 12V LOL
I think if mains power is super important it's worth putting the effort in but most of the time it's a toaster and hairdryer that are the 'missing' items and can be got under 1000W.

BTW I bought a gas toaster - a Bright Spark Toaster Plate - that was interesting. Obviously not designed for crumbly bread as it turned into a giant smoke generator, maybe I need to get some superfine metal mesh for that. I could use supermarket sliced bread i suppose, but it's cheaper to just eat old packing cardboard of equivalent nutritional value.
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Hairdryer is the only thing I use 240v for. Supplied by cheapie 2000W continuous modified sine wave inverter and used by my wife every 3 or 4 days for 10 minutes. Everything else if either 12v or gas. 250 watts of solar keeps the 2 x 95Ah batteries topped up most of the time.

Toast is on a hot dry non stick pan. May try a cast iron flat griddle plate instead next time round.

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GPW said:
The issue comes with the lack of 12V to 24V B2B chargers,
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2mtr Sterling Power BB122470 12v to 24v 70amp kit with red 110amp 16mm2 leads + 8mm post type battery terminals

2mtr Sterling Power BB122470 12v to 24v 70amp kit with red 110amp 16mm2 leads + 8mm post type battery terminals Sterling's range of Battery to Battery Chargers (B2Bs) has grown significantly over the past few years. This is in an effort to supplement the ever growing demand from the commercial
www.simplysplitcharge.co.uk www.simplysplitcharge.co.uk
 
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pappajohn said:
Believe me, when she's hungry enough she'll eat soil.
You're too soft.
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Nah, she has hyper mobility syndrome that affects her oesophagus, and gets a lot of reflux. As a result she feels sick most of the time, and can’t eat full meals, so needs feeding at least every couple of hours. At home I just freeze her stuff in small portions and zap them, it’s easy enough and much better than snack foods. But it does mean that holidays are pain. We usually work round it well enough.

We have made it as far as Champagne, with only a small argument with a post. Staying at Jaqueline Copin. I’m just about to go and see about tasting something, and pondering where to stop tomorrow, but I’ll put it in a separate thread.
 
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Wellington said:
I’m just about to go and see about tasting something, and pondering where to stop tomorrow, but I’ll put it in a separate thread.
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I for one would be very interested in reading about your adventures in a dedicated thread, as some others do here. Some photos as the opportunity arises would also be appreciated :)

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