Camper/day van inverters & leisure batteries

Just getting to the stage of looking at these for the T4, what amp batteries & wattage inverters are people using in their builds?

Looking at having a bit of lighting, 3 240V plugs (1 external to feed things like heat guns which are quite ‘juicy’) and maybea small fridge unit (small coolbox type volume)

I have a 110Ah leisure battery to do lighting and inverter (400W) and for short periods fridge.
TBH we only run the fridge when hooked up or driving
The invert is only used for computer/tablet charging. We dont plug in more than one device at a time.

Ive never run a hefty device off the lesiure battery and I wouldnt want to. Lighting is low draw as are laptop chargers really.

Heating things would be a bad thing IMO

Really you only want to be running stuff through an invertor if you have to. They are not terribly efficient and you can flatten batteries quite quickly. Lights and fridge would be better running direct on 12V. Keep the invertor for those few things that need 240V. My camper had 2 x 110ahr batteries and a 800W invertor I could run basic power tools (drill, jigsaw, small grinder) with this, though not for long without the engine running.

Edit: Also had a small 150W ‘can’ invertor if just running low power stuff, eg chargers for things I don’t have 12V chargers for. This had significantly less draw than the same load on the bigger invertor.

I got two 110ah batteries one under each seat of my T5 plus a solar panel on the roof, I run lights and a fridge plus chargers for laptops/pads/dsi/phones but all off 12v. I have an inverter just in case but never use it, if your pulling lots of power your going to want a hook up no? with a mini fuse box – again managed to squeeze all this under the seats with the hook up point under the bonnet in mine.

if you need a heat appliance when out and about, you really need to look at a gas version.

You will want to measure what you are intending to run and then calculate the capacity you need. Then multiply that number by at least 2 unless you intend to buy a more expensive deep discharge battery. Batteries can get damaged if you completely discharge them so you never want to get there.

Sorry should have explained better, lighting will be 12v,
don’t need any heating or if we do we’ll fit a gas/diesel powered unit.
The heat gun was an example although I’d probably use a blow torch if needed.
Charging a compressor would be very handy though probably only need to do this once a day so can put engine on for that.
the van will be a race events so no hookups available generally.

We dont mean heating the van, more any appliance that heats something. Just not going to happen over an inverter.

For the compressor you need to find out what juice the motor takes and whether you can a) supply the amperage and b) long enough. Im not sure Id want to run even my small one off a battery – or are you talking about those little 12v compressors for slowly pumping up tyres?

You won’t get a sensible inverter to power the kind of things you seem to be talking about without killing the battery very quickly. If you need that kind of power then get a generator to run when you need. Leisure batteries and inverters are only really suitable for low power stuff, tv, laptop etc rather than large draw items.

Pants, never mind, will just use the external for lighting the marquee then and basic internal stuff.
Will maybe look into an generator too but they are horrible things to have next to you at events.

I suppose in theory you could have a compression pump running off the engine itself to charge a compressed air tank, expect it’s been done before on one of the military T4s at some point, the air ride systems have a couple of compressors to charge the air bags and tanks so might look into that, cheers all 😀

In the Land Rover off road world the done thing is an air con compressor to charge a small air tank, often from small trucks with air brakes. The compressed air is used for locker activation (small volumes) and tyre inflation.

If you think a generator is nth nice to have near you at events what do you think everyone else feels about it.

If you think a generator is nth nice to have near you at events what do you think everyone else feels about it.

Yep that’s what I meant pretty antisocial things unless you spend several k on a super quiet honda