Inverter wattage to power a vacuum cleaner?

[ArJayAytch]

Can anyone offer an opinion, please, on the inverter wattage needed to power a vacuum cleaner?

 

Thanks

 

Richard

[steelaway]

Can anyone offer an opinion, please, on the inverter wattage needed to power a vacuum cleaner?

 

Thanks

 

Richard

Hi Richard

 

As with all electrical items on a boat the first rule is to read the wattage of any item before you buy it (it will be written on it some where)

A domestic vacuum cleaner can be up to 1400w therefore you will need a minimum of 1800w but I dont think you need any thing like that on a NB.

I have a little re-chargable - lasts about 3 hours between charges takes only a little room to store and cost £35.

If you have a 1800w inverter then that is the maximum load - at any one time - otherwise the inverter will overload and switch off

Remember always look for the watts. Womens hair dryer are the biggest problem.

[Yamanx]

I have a small rechargable vacuum cleaner and its practically useless, it'll pick up bits from the wooden floor at a push but dog hairs on the carpet, forget it.

 

So every now and then I take the Dyson, 1000watt, from in doors down to the boat and have a good clean round, I use a 2000w modified sine wave inverter without any issues at all, I usually have the engine running whilst I'm doing it, but thats mostly because I have the engine running for an hour or so each time I go down the boat to have a clean, do small jobs etc. anyway.

 

I also have a 1000w modified sine wave inverter (Runs the other side of the boat), and the dyson will work off of it for a while but the inverter doesnt like it after a bit and cuts out.

[Chris Pink]

Interesting bit of real world maths;

 

My vacuum cleaner (Bosch wet and Dry) 1100W, my generator 1400 KVA, say 1200W on a good day, my battery charger (35A @ 12V) 420W_ efficiency say 480W total 1600W.

 

They both run at the same time happily, without slowing the generator at all, I think it's a suck-it-and-see kind of thing.

 

One thing of note, it takes a very good inverter, sine wave or good quality modified sine wave to run an electric motor, one of the cheaper inverters would be in danger of burning out the motor windings. And the startup current for such an inductive load will be at least a factor of 2 higher.

[Yamanx]

Interesting bit of real world maths;

 

My vacuum cleaner (Bosch wet and Dry) 1100W, my generator 1400 KVA, say 1200W on a good day, my battery charger (35A @ 12V) 420W_ efficiency say 480W total 1600W.

 

They both run at the same time happily, without slowing the generator at all, I think it's a suck-it-and-see kind of thing.

 

One thing of note, it takes a very good inverter, sine wave or good quality modified sine wave to run an electric motor, one of the cheaper inverters would be in danger of burning out the motor windings. And the startup current for such an inductive load will be at least a factor of 2 higher.

 

Probably because your battery charger is not charging dead batteries?

[Chris Pink]

Probably because your battery charger is not charging dead batteries?

 

I don't think so, i had a 600KVA generator (now defunct) that i could stop with the battery charger. And i have a control to turn the charger up and down and being of a curious nature have played with this anomaly.

 

My impression was that although the Bosch was rated at 1100W it didn't actually use that much, possibly as a result of manufacturer exaggeration - vacuum cleaners seem to be rated on wattage.

Edited January 10, 2008 by Chris Pink

[chris w]

I run a 1200W vacuum cleaner from an 1800W Sterling quasi sinewave inverter with no issues at all.

 

Chris

[NB Alnwick]

I run a 1200W vacuum cleaner from an 1800W Sterling quasi sinewave inverter with no issues at all.

 

So do we - our's is a modernish Dyson - works fine but so as not to flatten the batteries we usually use the vacuum cleaner on the move - i.e. when the engine is running . . .

[ArJayAytch]

Thanks to everyone for your opinions and info. I'm impressed that I got 8 responses within a day!

 

Richard

[Keeping Up]

Do look around for a low wattage cleaner, they can be quite good. We bought an 850 watt VAX recently, I'm very impressed by it, it works well and folds up very small. I didn't buy it from VAX themselves they said it was obsolete, so I bought it from an eBay shop at half the price.

[Canal Shop Man]

We are now stocking an upright vacuum cleaner rated at 400 watts (£65.00) which looks quite useful. Alternatively we are also stocking a shoulder-carry 1000 watt vacuum cleaner (£105.00) which is helpful for getting round those awkward spaces, corridors, etc. They will both be on our website shortly . . .

[moggyjo]

Hi Richard

 

Womens hair dryer are the biggest problem.

I've got a old hair dryer 450 watts that used to belong to my Gran, it needs replacing, I thought no problem just get another, wrong, I've looked everywhere they seem to bee mainly 2000watts tha smallest around 1200watts, I dont know if the 12v ones are any good, anyone got one?

[NB Willawaw]

I think John Orentas had one he wanted to give away..

[Keeping Up]

I've got a old hair dryer 450 watts that used to belong to my Gran, it needs replacing, I thought no problem just get another, wrong, I've looked everywhere they seem to bee mainly 2000watts tha smallest around 1200watts, I dont know if the 12v ones are any good, anyone got one?

The 1200 watt ones are fine, most of them also have a half-power switch so you can run them at 600 watts.

 

I've never seen a 12 volt one that was any good, even if you run them until the battery is flat you'll just have warm wet hair.

[CampinGazz]

i run a 1500 watt hoover (built into my motorhome, just a cheapo bagless pull along hoover off ebay, put the main unit in an under floor locker, connected some 44mm pipe to the suction hole, to a tee, then to the inside of the van to proper domestic centeral vacuum sockets, 3 meter centeral vacuum hose and a turbo brush on the end of the wand, works bloomin brilliantly... till the filter gets clogged with mutt hairs)

 

anyhoo, ran that off a 1600 watt soft start quasi sine wave inverter no probs for a year, now run it off a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter (changed inverters only to enable me to run the washing machine)

 

even tho the hoover is right on the limit of the inverters output, it handles it fine, never measured the start up surge, but not had the inverter protest (the pure sine wave inverters don't have as much of a surge rating as the quasi sine wave jobbies do)

 

My gf uses a small travel hairdryer, not the really tiny ones you get from caravan shops along with a travel iron, that's the size of a fag packet, but it's rated at 1200 and 600 watts (2 speed) and apparantly the folding travel ones are rated even lower, sold in caravan shops for use on camp sites abroad where you can get as low as a 2 amp power supply.

 

i always remember years ago there was some bloke who'd invernted a cordless hairdryer, but have never seen it come to market.

 

it worked like those cordless hair straighteners you can get (quite sad i know this much about hair styling stuff when my haircut is a tuppeny all off

 

anyhoo, those hairstraightenrs use a gas cartridge and hence heated by gas, the hairdryer used the same gas cartridge (obviousely so they can be overpriced as sold by braun i think) that took care of the heat production, and a small DC fan ran off a rechargeable battery took cair of the blowey side of the dryer.

 

bloomin ideal i'd have thunk, especialy for the more back to earth campers who use tents and all that, but also those who like/need to conserve power.

 

I also remember many many years ago seeing a catalouge for accesories available for eberspacher night heaters, the origional D1L's fitted to trucks, (the ones with 3 or 4 external boxed with the electronics in them, and took 20 or so amps for the glow plug to start up) one of the accessories was a hairdryer... a 6 foot length of hose with a right angle difusser nozzle on the end, the open end plugged into the round heat outlet socket on the heaters output piping, just turn the heater on, warm the cab up, then do your hair... it was discontinued not long after it's launch, guess there werent that many women truckers back then.

 

but when i had blown air heating in my van i did toy with the idea of making a hairdryer pipe up, now got wet centeral heating, but could still do it if i added a small heater matrix and fan fixed in the bathroom, and a socket for the hairdryer wand to plug into... or mount/duct it to blow above head height like a fixed hairdryer?