How much power will I need?

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:21 pm

I'm not doing anything heavy duty regarding power. I'm almost definitely going to have an RV with a generator. But how do you estimate power requirements (generally)? If I have an RV with, for example a 4 KW, generator, how much power IS that exactly, in practice? Will that leave me with power to run exterior lights and a drill press? What if I decide to bring my video projector and run that? What about deep cycle batteries and generators? I'm trying to NOT run the generator unless absolutely necessary (due to noise considerations -- kinda anal about being a good neighbor). Information/resources on estimating power requirements?

Tiahaar · Post by **Tiahaar** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:00 pm

Hi DP, oh yeah 4KW will be plenty for that stuff. You can figure the load easy enough by adding up the watts...a couple hundred for lighting, maybe 450 for the drill press, and you have 4000 to play with. Have you got a deep cycle battery (or two or three) and an inverter? That will get you power for the small lighting stuff when not running the gen, and if you have an automotive type battery charger to recharge the deep cycles while running the genset for the big stuff you can be more efficient, much more so than using the little battery chargers built into some RV converters (that get you 12v from 120ac).

As long as you're not running an AC...geez those things would suck all that power to get started. Hope to see you and your blackrock drilling setup out there!

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 5:06 am

If you plan to attend any PREVIOUS Burns, you'll need at least 1.21 gigawatts..

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:56 am

Thanks Tia. It's a good start. I'll start looking into this more on the RV forums, too. I think some RV's come with deep cycle batteries or I'll buy one for the lights and stuff, etc. etc. Learning. Thanks.

Tiahaar wrote:Hi DP, oh yeah 4KW will be plenty for that stuff. You can figure the load easy enough by adding up the watts...a couple hundred for lighting, maybe 450 for the drill press, and you have 4000 to play with. Have you got a deep cycle battery (or two or three) and an inverter? That will get you power for the small lighting stuff when not running the gen, and if you have an automotive type battery charger to recharge the deep cycles while running the genset for the big stuff you can be more efficient, much more so than using the little battery chargers built into some RV converters (that get you 12v from 120ac).

As long as you're not running an AC...geez those things would suck all that power to get started. Hope to see you and your blackrock drilling setup out there!

dragonfly Jafe · Post by **dragonfly Jafe** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:47 pm

I keep hearing rumors that if you use a generator on a rental RV, there is usually a per/hour charge in addition to the normal rental. If you are renting, you may want to look into this....

Most people find one of the 2k generators sufficient (but then they aren't arc welding or running big power tools). You can get the ultra-quiet ones and your neighbors would appreciate you even more, you can sometimes even rent these.

Determine your load (in watts), mutliply any motors by 4x (to account for start-up surge), then size a generator that can handle this much at 60-70% of full-load (never plan on using ALL of the watts in a generator), and you will not have problems.

MissNev · Post by **MissNev** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:38 pm

220, 230; whatever it takes.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Sun May 01, 2005 1:58 pm

Thanks Jafe!

No more rentals for me. Rental RV's are great but it doesn't make sense if I can afford to buy a used one (in fact, going to look at a cheap used one today) so a charge for generator hours isn't as important as wanting to run the generator as little as possible (due to neighbors).

Besides the generator that should come with the RV (which are fairly quiet and can be made quieter with a little work), I'm also looking at the Honda EU generators.

Thanks for the math!

dragonfly Jafe wrote:I keep hearing rumors that if you use a generator on a rental RV, there is usually a per/hour charge in addition to the normal rental. If you are renting, you may want to look into this....

Most people find one of the 2k generators sufficient (but then they aren't arc welding or running big power tools). You can get the ultra-quiet ones and your neighbors would appreciate you even more, you can sometimes even rent these.

Determine your load (in watts), mutliply any motors by 4x (to account for start-up surge), then size a generator that can handle this much at 60-70% of full-load (never plan on using ALL of the watts in a generator), and you will not have problems.