A hairdryer issue!

Phantom

Phantom

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The wife has a 240v travel hairdryer rated at 650w. I bought an Edecoa 1000/2000w pure sine wave inverter thinking that would be plenty to run it. On full it trips the inverter out after a couple of seconds, but it is okay on low which the battery monitor says is drawing 28Ah, which I guess is only about 350w? I think on full I saw the battery monitor read about 55Ah before it cuts off, which appears to about tally with the 650w rating. Maybe my batteries are not that great and it is actually tripping out on low voltage due to the higher draw? They seem fine otherwise so I am going to test them out of curiosity. Either way it looks like wifey will just have to get used to having her hairdryer on the low setting! 😉
 
First you did not require a pure inverter as no electronics on dryer, a 1000 to 1500 soft start would be ok, to run without a low voltage id say at least 3 100ah batts would be required, did you try running the engine when using it, if it works then it is a voltage drop and not an inverter issue.
 
Two reasons why it may not work
1. Too much load. Should not be issue
2. Too low supply voltage. This is what you suspect and sounds most likely reason to me.

I would put a meter on the inverter terminals, check the voltage, switch the hairdryer on the 'good' setting and check, then switch on 'bad' setting and check voltage.
Higher the current draw, greater the voltage sag, even on good batteries. The Edecoa Inverters are pretty decent inverters but one thing that is not good with them is the DC cabling supplied is pretty poor. It is a bit thin and I think might also be copper plated aluminium as well?
If the reason for the shutdown IS low voltage, but the voltage at the battery terminals is still ok when the inverter goes into shutdown then the solution may not be a different inverter or new batteries but better beefier cabling?

Apart from which .... Actually running the hairdryer at the lower setting will take less out the batteries even taking into account the longer running time so might not be a bad idea anyway.
 
I am in the process of testing my LB true capacity and checking out a few other electrical things. I disconnected the solar and trickle feed to SB so purely using LB. My fully charged LB had settled at 12.9v according to my battery monitor, 12.88v by my multimeter, and 12.85v by my Victron smart solar.
I used some power up and tested the hairdryer again. On low it drew 32A and the battery voltage dropped from 12.62v to 11.99v. On high it drew 70A and the battery voltage dropped to 11.8v. The inverter did not trip at all and the battery voltage recovered to 12.62v.
It seems to be an 850w hairdryer despite a 650w sticker, even the model number is 850. Maybe the battery was at a lower state of charge when the inverter tripped before. I'll still test the LB capacity.
 
I connected my inverter to my hook-up socket and put my fridge on 240v. The fridge uses about 11Ah. Today I used 66Ah and afterwards LB settled back at 12.41v, which looks to be on track for full capacity. Though I will still run it down to 12.05v for better accuracy.
 
For the money spent on a high end power pack, you'd be better off upgrading the vans electrics using victron equipment. A 2000 VA Inverter or Multiplus should solve your excessive demand requirements. But remember the 12 volt current overhead would be in excess of a 150 Amps.
So a whole system upgrade or you'll be disappointed.
 
I think the Ecoflow packs or one of the many similar ones are good and have their place (y)

But their place is rarely in a Motorhome despite what numerous YouTubers seem to think (n)

For Tent Camping, or a small camper I can see value in that approach for sure, but in a van where you have an electrical system in place, it really is not the best overall solution and something along the lines of what Mark is saying.

Powerpacks are convenient no doubt, but at a significant price.
 
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Battery capacity seems fine though a 400w load pulled the 210Ah bank down below 12v whilst in use, is that normal? But LB voltage recovered back okay after.
We are very light power users so LB does not normally go below about 80% which throttles solar charging from our 120w panel. But now LB is run down some it peaked at 98w today, though will likely take a few days for LB to get about full, it made 350Wh today, so about 29Ah back in.
Whilst the battery was showing 12.65v and 67.8% charged I though it would be an ideal time to test the hairdryer again. On low at 32A the battery voltage dropped to 12.22v, and on high at 70A the battery voltage was pulled down to 11.97v. Surprisingly the inverter has not tripped at all during testing, but I think it has a cut off of 10.5v?
But as previously said I am not going directly off the inverter but via the hook-up and MH 240v sockets. It did seem odd though that the mains battery charger, though switched off, still had an illuminated light even after the live feed was disconnected. Though it does seem normal for both inverter connections to read live, something to do with it being a floating circuit? I had disconnected both battery charger feeds for elimination purposes as well as it seeming a bit weird. I'm not sure if that was a factor in the inverter tripping out but have not reconnected them yet? No worries though as her ladyship can now dry her hair! ;)
 
If the load is 850 watts, the inverter will be drawing at least 900 watts, probably nearer 950. At 12v, that's 75 amps or more. Unless you have a very short cable length, you will need hefty cables to avoid significant voltage drop.
Assume that it is three metres to the battery. That's 6 metres of cable there and back.
To keep the voltage drop below 1v, you'd need 50mm2 cables.
Half the distance and you might get away with 15mm2, but I'd suggest 25mm2
 
Geek said:
If the load is 850 watts, the inverter will be drawing at least 900 watts, probably nearer 950. At 12v, that's 75 amps or more. Unless you have a very short cable length, you will need hefty cables to avoid significant voltage drop.
Assume that it is three metres to the battery. That's 6 metres of cable there and back.
To keep the voltage drop below 1v, you'd need 50mm2 cables.
Half the distance and you might get away with 15mm2, but I'd suggest 25mm2
Click to expand...
The inverter is mounted by the LB using about 2' of 16mm2 cables. The inverter draws just under 1A no load. It seems to be fine now so not quite sure what the previous issue was causing it to regularly trip out under max 850w?
 
Phantom said:
The inverter is mounted by the LB using about 2' of 16mm2 cables. The inverter draws just under 1A no load. It seems to be fine now so not quite sure what the previous issue was causing it to regularly trip out under max 850w?
Click to expand...
Voltage drop. The cables are inadequate for the higher load. I suspect they are the ones supplied with the inverter and will almost certainly be undersized and not copper (how floppy are they? Very flexible or are they quite stiff and hard to bend?
 
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