RV solar with power inverter

I agree with rabird. My family and I live in a tiny house, powered solar- very similar to a camper - and struggled with going back and forth from DC to AC and visa-versa and figuring out numbers. With time we did. For context, a small electric heater on low runs at 1300 Watts, on high 1500-1800. We run our electric fridge on a 1000 Watt inverter. The peak to turn on the pump starts the fridge with about 1000 Watts, so keep in mind peak power to turn things on while other things are running.

Laptops run usually just under 100 Watts and charging things like phones and tablets use very little energy, usually around 10W each. An air conditioner runs between 750-1500W. So it all depends on what you want to run. If you plan to run everything from one inverter it is better to go bigger than smaller. I wouldn't even try to run a small electric heater with anything less than 2000 Watts.

Most devices have running and peak watts on a label somewhere. I would suggest writing all of these down and getting to know them very well. Always run higher, don't push the inverters because they will blow and that is not fun.

Ultimately I would suggest at least 1500 Watts if you want to run multiple things. From your list above, it sounds like the coffee maker will use the most, I think they run between 100-150 Watts. If the coffee maker it the biggest thing and you don't plan to plug much else in you will be okay with 1000 Watts, but again, don't push them, bigger is better.

Also, we ran with a 300 W system and 3 deep cycle batteries for a while, in winter this is not enough but in summer you will be okay with 200 W system as long as you don't run much more than you listed above.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask more questions.

I think that you will be okay with 1000W. I use a Duralast 1000W and it has a digital output so you can monitor how many watts you are using, it tells you potential energy as well and it has a shutoff if you pull too much from it or if your panels give it too much energy. I think many inverters have these protective features so if you want to start with 1000W and just experiment with a digital output to see what you are using that would be a good way to go.

As far as mounting goes, you want the inverter as close to the batteries as possible. We wanted an inverter in the back of the Tiny House but our main bank is in the front. So I don't know if this is legit but I ran some heavy gauge wire from the battery bank to a closet in the house where I have three gel-cel four wheeler batteries in parallel stashed. The panels are hooked up to the battery bank. The bank charges the closet batteries and the inverter pulls from there. I hooked this up over a year ago and it has worked great, might want to try something like that. In essence I have two battery banks, one for the inverter and one for everything else.

YW