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Kistler · 05-18-2003, 02:19 PM

We have decided we miss the microwave at lunch time at reststops or where ever we stop without shore power.

I suspect I already know what the answer is

I have a SUV (see sig) and I don't think I can lift a 4000 watt "portable" generator in and out of the SUV. We would be riding with gas/oil fumes probably also and that is a negative....

IF we had ordered a new trailer rather than taking one off the lot, could we have gotten a generator?

What do you do with this problem?

85MH325 · 05-18-2003, 02:22 PM

They are making larger and larger 12v to 110 inverters all the time. I have a 300w one that we used in the motorhome going down the road to power the TV, VCR, and ubiquitous Nintendo game.

I presume you could find one large enough to run your microwave off-grid for a short time. I don't know how long your batteries would last running a 1200 or 1400 watt microwave that way tho...

Kistler · 05-18-2003, 02:30 PM

85MH325, thank you.....now that sounds feasible. Maybe someone will reply with details about size of inverter....

We are talking a at-the-most 5-7 minute warmup of ???? I actually got tired (read tired of spending money on it) of the generator maintenance.

Kistler

femuse · 05-18-2003, 02:32 PM

We have a Honda 1000i.

We use it when we camp at WalMart. We make coffee and run the microwave (not at the same time).
It will run a Sunbean 600 W (cooking power) with no problem. Bought it (the MW) at WM for about $33.00

femuse · 05-18-2003, 02:38 PM

Inverter

I just saved this info from somebody very knowledgeable, Lou Schneider on the Escapee Forum. (we intend to follow his advice)

" I use my microwave on my inverter all the time. I have a Dometic 1250 watt microwave and a Whistler 1500 watt modified sine wave inverter that I bought at a truckstop. With a modified sine wave inverter, the power drawn by the microwave will decrease and the cooking time will increase compared to using true sine wave power. If the microwave worked at 100% power on the inverter, it would draw about 100 amps from the batteries, but in actual use it's draw is more like 70 amps and the cooking time increases by about 50% compared to using it on sine wave power, but other than that the microwave works fine.

The thing to remember is you're only drawing that power for a short period of time.

70 amps * 10 minutes of use to warm frozen leftovers or cook a TV dinner is about 12 amp-hours. I have two golf cart batteries so that's 1/20th of my rated capacity, or 1/10th of the usable storage. You don't want to draw the batteries down more than 50% of their rating for best battery life.

Make sure your inverter's primary cables and connections are large enough to handle that amount of current."

Kistler · 05-18-2003, 02:38 PM

Sounds good and the price is right

I hada heck of a time lifting a 4000 watt Honda in the late 80's and I was younger then. I take it the 1000i is really portable.....

You can probably haul yours outside... Inside is a problem for me.

Kistler