Seabreeze LX House Battery

[drferrell]

we have a 2006 seabreeze lx and are about to depart on a 30 day trip up into maine. there will be a couple of parking lot overnights i.e. walmart. rather than run the generator i was planning to just run the inverter off the house battery to use the tv/sat for awhile before turning in. any idea how long i could do that before i risk draining the house batteries? thanks in advance for the assist

[Belgian]

We can use our TV for about 4 hours. We don't have satelite so I can't help in that area. Usually what happens is the inverter will kick off when the batteries get too low and the TV goes off with it.

[Bill WA6YBD]

Your average current draw for the TV and satellite will be approximately 10 amps. Your house batteries (2, 6 volt batteries in series) should be approximately 225 AH batteries. In theory you should get about 20 hours however several things come into effect and the amount of time will be slightly less. About 15 hours. However if you want your batteries to have a long life it is best to never discharge them more than 50% of their capacity. So 7.5 hours based on the above numbers. In any case never allow the voltage to drop below 10.5 volts. As mention in the above post your inverter should drop off line around 10.5 to help prevent you from damaging your batteries. If run any additional lights that will also decrease the time. These estimates are also based upon new batteries. If you much less time then estimated it may be time for new batteries.

In short, if your batteries are in good shape you should have no problems.

Have fun boondocking ~ Bill

[drferrell]

thanks for the quick response ... 4 hours will be more than enough!

[drferrell]

thanks for the quick response with good details bill ... do you know if the house batteries are being charged while driving even though the gen set is not running?

[Bill WA6YBD]

Yes they are charged when the engine is running. The system will first charge the truck battery to replace any energy used up for starting. As soon as the truck battery is charged the house batteries are connected the alternator and they are charged. The house batteries can take an hour or two to reach full charge depending on how far they were discharged. It's all automatic.

~Bill