Re: generator?


"CampinGazz" <Nosp@xxxx> wrote in message
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"Elliott" <elliottpgt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Another question to consider is why you need a generator, most CC rallies
run from 12pm Friday until about 1400 on the Sunday, your leisure battery
would power just about all over that period of time.

Stop making assumptions :),
not everyone has a single gas light in their van, cooks on a candle,
lights farts to keep warm and for amusment and so on.

No one can predict what the power usage of the next van is going to be,
it's the individual, like water usage, one couple can last a week on 45
litres of water, another can't make that last a day,

I am a very heavy power user, 1600 watt inverter that gets run at it's max
when running the central vacuum system (we have a very hairy dog, so a
hoover is a must for us) that's 160 amps from the batteries,

we like to eat things with rice, it's so much easier to pop a pack of
microrice in the nuker for 2 minutes than faff about on the stove sticking
it to the pan, that's 90 amps when the nuker's running.

Sam has hair down to her bum, so after a shower she likes to use the hair
dryer, that's 120 amps whilst she's doing that.

We also have a 600 watt pure sine wave inverter that is for the washing
machine only, to do a wash the machine pulls upto 350 watts on mains (35
amps from the batteries) that's on max spin speed, and of course not using
the heater element, i feed it with warm water via a thermostatic mixer
valve, as we have 20 litres of hot water at 85 degrees C, heated by the
engine as we drive, or the eberspacher when stationary.

If it's raining and we can't go out, we can watch a dvd, the sattelite
system etc, that's about 5 or 6 amps to run that,

If the laptop battery is flat, then the psu pulls around 8 amps to
re-charge it and run the laptop at the same time.

we have phones, camera's, the pda and so on to charge, each little charger
is an amp or so when in use,

If it's hot we have 2 turbovents, they pull about 2 amps each,
if it's cold we have an eberspacher central heating system, that thing
pulls 11 amps when the glow pin is operating, then the water pump and
combustion blower motor pull about 2 amps from then on.

our lighting needs are pretty low mind, a max of 10 amps when every light
in the van is on, we have 4 10 watt halogens that rarely get used, the
rest are fluorescents and cold cathodes.

For charging the battery bank (460 amp hours) wa have a 125 watt solar
panel, produces an average of 50 or so amp hours on a good sunny day
(according to the charge controller)
When driving we have a dedicated alternator on the engine that charges
just the leisure batteries,
And we now have a 70 amp 12 volt generator to get the battery bank charged
up fast,

We also have a little 20 amp 4 stage sterling charger, but that only gets
used at home when on the drive, as we very very rarely are anywhere near a
power point to plug into.
i could use a mains genny to run the charger, but it'd take most of the
day to re-charge, where as the on board 12 volt genny can do it in a
couple of hours max.

I imagine most people on here would be horrified at the ammount of power
we use, but we make all the power our selves, the genny runs on lpg so is
pretty clean, and in the summer the solar panel keeps the batteries toped
up most of the time,

But that's where the problem is.... my solar panel cost me £380 (that's
for a 125 watt panel, from a bloke in our club who imported a load from
america) and the charge controller for the panel was another 80 quid.

The 12 volt genny... £20 for the lawnmower from an autojumble.. electric
start engine too, £10 for the steel to make the cradle, the alternator i
already had, but would have been £15 from the scrapper, a couple of mini
engine mounts for a fiver, 5 quid for some flexi exhaust hose to pipe the
thing upto a decent silencer, 5 quid for a car's backbox from the
scrapper, a few relays and a key switch to start the thing from inside the
van,
and then the lpg conversion bits, that was the most expensive part at 80
quid,

But baring the lpg bits, the whole generator cost me around 50 quid, then
add on the lpg bits brings it to 130 or so quid,
and for that i get 70 amps of charging power at the flick of a switch,
i guess i could get a 10 maybe 15 watt solar panel for that money?? what
use would that be tho, 1 amp of charging power or 70 amps,
that's why so many people choose generators... the day we can buy say 50
amps of solar panels for a couple of hundred quid is the day generators
will become obsolete, but that day is still way off unfortunately, so in
the mean time people just need to be considerate when using a generator.

i know i will be, if i'm parked close to anyone and need to run it i'll
ask if they mind, if they do then i'll move somewher where i can run the
genny without bothering anyone and come back when i can be quiet,
and if i am running the genny, all it'd take is someone to politely ask if
i would shut it down as they are trying to sleep in the sun, relax or what
ever, and i will,
and it will be run only for the time needed to put the juice back into the
batteries, not to power anything in the van (as it dosent do that anyway
unless i ran the inverter at the same time)

Anyhoo. no one need worry about being next to me and my generator for a
few months, as we're buggering off to europe in a weeks time, if you did
end up parked next to us on a wohnmobile stellplatz and needed to charge
your batteries, just ask and you can plug into the outside mains socket
and i'll transfer the sinewave inverters output to that socket so you can
use your mains charger whilst i re-charge my batteries,

BTW, someone asked what a stellplatz was earlier in this thread, it's a
motorhome stop over place in germany, there's about 3500 of them all over
germany, range from a few spaces on a carpark, to a mini camp site with
200 places, almost all have waste water and toilet emptying and fresh
water facilities, (usually 80 litres of water for a euro, and free to
dump) some do have electric, either free, a euro for a few hours or for a
few killowatt hours,

They charge from nothing to 10 euro's a night to stay on them, 80% of them
are almost in a town or village centre, or have tram links into the
nearest town, some are right in the middle of a city,

But they are for motorhomes only, on most of them there's a 3 to 5 day max
stay period, as they are ment for people traveling around the country, tho
some have a 30 day time limit, we stay almost exclusively on them when we
go abroad, tho we are going back to germany to see a close friend who's
got cancer, (he's got bowel cancer, which started out as chrons disease...
which is what i've got) he has a motorhome too, so we go over and meet up,
and travel around a bit together,

anyway, that's enough waffle now,
<hippy mode on> Don't be afraid to be an individual, live your life to
the max, do the things you want to do today, as there may be no tommorow,
and above all, have fun doing what ever you do, there's too many miserable
sods in this world, leave them to it and enjopy life.



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No Carbon Neutral then?

OH what the hell let the planet burn and the quicker the better?

I thought getting away from it all was what it was all about. Not taking it
all with you.

Peter




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