Microwave with Solar Generator?

[RVA Overland]

Was thinking a little crazy this morning and was wondering about possibly adding a microwave to the bed of the truck. I have an EcoFlow 600 puts our 1200W peak, was wondering if anyone has played with this at all and if the internals of a microwave could handle the bouncing and rough use being offroad. May just want for on road trips like softball tournaments which is where my fridge gets the most use.

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[AzScorpion]

I think it should work fine. I use to have a microwave that I carried in one of my work vans back east. We primarily did new construction so it was great for reheating food and in the winter heating up soup/coffee on site. I just left it in there year round and that thing got tossed around a lot and still worked fine. It wasn't anything special either just a cheapo $99.00 special.

 

[RangerFitz]

I run a small one with our ecoflow delta, draws 300-400 watts. We tow a small camper that we keep it in. Probably not as bouncey as what your describing, but microwaves really don't have a lot of moving parts just store the glass turntable properly. Just buy a cheap one.

 

[ProtonDecay]

1200W microwave radiance translates to about 1320W draw, more or less, which is 110 Amps from your power source. We have a bank of four Battleborn 100Ah LiFePO4 feeding a Victron 3000w charger/inverter and that setup works just fine as long as it is just the microwave, but if we also try to run the AC (another 1200W) then that's too much draw for the batteries and we throw an undervoltage error. There are newer design LiFePO4 batteries out there (Ampere time is getting good reviews) that can handle that amount of draw from one battery (for example I have room for two of their 400ah):

Anyway, yes, it can be done fairly easily, but can get pricey to have something that really works. Our rooftop 400W of MPPT solar keeps the battery bank charged up enough for several minutes per day of microwave activity during the longer days.

You could probably make it work with a somewhat smaller inverter, like the Victron 2000W, but in order to satisfy the current draw you'll need something like the above battery or a bank of smaller ones).

 

[SigOris]

1200W microwave radiance translates to about 1320W draw, more or less, which is 110 Amps from your power source. We have a bank of four Battleborn 100Ah LiFePO4 feeding a Victron 3000w charger/inverter and that setup works just fine as long as it is just the microwave, but if we also try to run the AC (another 1200W) then that's too much draw for the batteries and we throw an undervoltage error. There are newer design LiFePO4 batteries out there (Ampere time is getting good reviews) that can handle that amount of draw from one battery (for example I have room for two of their 400ah):

Anyway, yes, it can be done fairly easily, but can get pricey to have something that really works. Our rooftop 400W of MPPT solar keeps the battery bank charged up enough for several minutes per day of microwave activity during the longer days.

You could probably make it work with a somewhat smaller inverter, like the Victron 2000W, but in order to satisfy the current draw you'll need something like the above battery or a bank of smaller ones).

110 amps???

 

[ProtonDecay]

110 amps???

Yep, the microwave will take 1200W, more or less, so 1200w/12v=100A, and then the inverter will take 10-15% more so lets say 120w/12v = 10A. So, yeah, 110Amps, give or take.

Even the 200Ah LiFePO4 batteries max out at 100A, but AmpereTime claims their 400Ah battery can sustain continuous 250A, which is why I suggested something like that as opposed to a bank of 4 100Ah LiFePO4.

And I wouldn't try this with a 1200W inverter, as in my experience their sustained output only applies with perfect input voltage and current, and anything less than that will throw an error or fry the inverter when it is under max continuous load for very long. To be safe I would go 1800W or 2K. Victron has a 2K inverter, https://www.victronenergy.com/inverters-chargers/multiplus-2000-va, which is very much like my 3K, and I have been very happy with that.

You could get a less powerful microwave, and then get away with a smaller battery and inverter, but the math still applies.

 

[SigOris]

Yep, the microwave will take 1200W, more or less, so 1200w/12v=100A, and then the inverter will take 10-15% more so lets say 120w/12v = 10A. So, yeah, 110Amps, give or take.

Even the 200Ah LiFePO4 batteries max out at 100A, but AmpereTime claims their 400Ah battery can sustain continuous 250A, which is why I suggested something like that as opposed to a bank of 4 100Ah LiFePO4.

And I wouldn't try this with a 1200W inverter, as in my experience their sustained output only applies with perfect input voltage and current, and anything less than that will throw an error or fry the inverter when it is under max continuous load for very long. To be safe I would go 1800W or 2K. Victron has a 2K inverter, https://www.victronenergy.com/inverters-chargers/multiplus-2000-va, which is very much like my 3K, and I have been very happy with that.

You could get a less powerful microwave, and then get away with a smaller battery and inverter, but the math still applies.

I likely am not understandin, a 1200 w - 110 vac uWave is not going to draw 110 amps

 

[oldnslow]

Yes, it will. The uWave will draw around 10A from the inverter at 120VAC, and the inverter will draw about 110A at 12VDC from the battery. ProtonDecay has the math right. Power (W) divided by voltage (V) equals current (A): 1200W/12V=100A, plus the 10% loss from inverting = 110A.

My experience is that a 1000W uWave may well draw more 1200W of power. The "1000W" rating is cookiing power, not input power.

In general you don't want to run your inverter at its rated power. The efficiency usually drops off (somewhat sharply) over about 95% or so.

 

[ProtonDecay]

So I remembered this thread while heating something up just now and took the following snapshot of the inverter monitor.

As you can see, the battery bank is getting hit for 1462W, but the microwave is only pulling 1257W, so in this snapshot of efficiency we get (1462-1257)/1462=14.02% inversion cost. One other interesting thing is that my battery voltage without load was around 13.2V and it dropped to 12.1V under load. Thus my current debate about chucking the 1 year old Battleborn 100Ah bank for two of the AmpereTime 400Ah. I would add only 30lbs to the trailer, but pick up another 400Ah of power and likely be able to "use" more of the capacity of the battery before tripping low voltage.

Anyway, net-net, we should probably amend the earlier math to bake in a 14-15% loss rather than the previously assumed 10%.

 

[EJH]

Like some of the folks above, I would want at least a 2000W inverter to power a microwave. And your battery needs to support the current draw for that. If you can get a microwave to work with a 600W sustained, 1200W surge battery back up, please post here. That would be cool.

Most of us with RVs or travel trailers have microwaves in them that bounce down the road for thousands of miles without issue

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