Worth its weight in gold. 4 comments

Since I have more batteries than I did last winter, when Arizona was so rainy and cloudy, I figure I should have plenty of battery storage for my needs, so I should look for ways to limit my electricity use so my batteries last longer, even when it is cloudy.

One thing I'm going to do is use my electrical gadgets more efficiently, such as how I charge my cell phone and my Verizon MiFi dongle that gives me my Internet connection. Right now, I have to run my inverter, which converts my DC battery current to AC normal house current, even though those two gadgets use DC current to start with. So I'm wasting electricity by changing those gadgets from DC to AC, and then back to DC again.

Another thing I can fix is my 13-inch laptop, which usually stays on all day; like all laptops, it is also a DC gadget that gets converted to AC and then back to DC again in an RV. I believe Amazon has some magical electric things that will let my laptop run on my batteries instead of the AC my inverter produces.

You may wonder what the point is, and the answer is: every time your inverter changes DC to AC, it loses a small percentage of the electricity; then, when you change the AC back to DC, you lose a little more, which is very inefficient. And in an RV, you can only allow inefficiency when you're plugged into shore power, but when you're a boondocker, every watt is worth its weight in gold. And every amp is all important.

Theboondork