Tech – RVHobo Network

Microwave, Solar and the RV

So you have a solar powered RV and are considering using a microwave oven or want to know more about it. If you are not a Boondocker and prefer those full-featured RV “parking lots”, this article doesn’t pertain to you. If you are a boondocker and are living completely off the grid, there are a few things to consider in purchasing and using a microwave oven.

Will it fit?
What is on the electrical circuit and how much power do these consume?
What size is your inverter?
Is your Inverter Pure or Modified sine wave?
What will the total wattage load be at any one time?
What is the size of your battery bank?
When will you be using the microwave?
What wattage microwave to get (700 – 1100)?

Once you know the size and how much room is on the circuit, the biggest question is what wattage microwave to get?

Energy Used = Watts x Time

Dispelling the Myth: To heat/cook food in a microwave, regardless of the wattage of the microwave, will use the same amount of energy (electricity) to get the food to the same temperature. For the doubters:

Energy = 1100 Watts × 210 seconds = 231,000 Joules
Energy = 700 Watts × 330 seconds = 231,000 Joules

Also, note that due to a microwave’s inefficiency, they do not cook at the same energy as they draw. Connecting to a watt meter while running our 700W-rated Hamilton-Beach microwave gave a reading of 1050 watts. This has to be taken into consideration with your power requirements. Higher-priced microwaves may be more efficient but the only way to know is to check it using a watt meter while the unit is running.

Once we are armed with knowledge, and yes, we all want the food A.S.A.P., the choice comes down to the remaining factors.

What will we be running at the same time? If you have an electric coffee maker that uses 900 watts and you want to run the microwave at the same time, without anything else running, you would be at 2000 watts, or 1600 watts respectively for an 1100 watt and 700 watt microwave. Then add in the other electrical items you will have running and you will need approximately a 3000 watt inverter and if they are both on the same electrical circuit, that will have to be at least a 20 amp circuit (see your circuit breaker size).
Inverter Requirements: a) With a 3000 watt or larger inverter, and a 20 amp, or separate electrical circuits, you have part of what is required to run an electric coffee maker and microwave at the same time. b) For the rest of us, a 1500 watt inverter will let you use both your microwave and electric coffee maker, just not at the same time. This works fine with most existing RV electrical wiring that have 20 amp, or even a 15 amp circuit (look at your AC circuit breakers). c) Before you run out to get that new microwave, you have to have the batteries required to handle the load.
Battery Bank Requirements: Your battery bank is of great importance, more so if you will be using your microwave after solar hours. When your inverter makes power it draws directly from your batteries. Solar, wind or even hydro-electric energy sources simply recharge the batteries. If you have a watt meter hooked up to your solar system, you will have noticed that the batteries show more voltage when the sun is on them and less when you make coffee (yes, with an electric coffee maker). By now, you know when things are off and the sun is down, you get a true reading, not one inflated by charging, or deflated by a high load. While you can do it with less, we recommend a minimum battery bank, for using your microwave and electric coffee maker using a 20 hour rate at:
- Same time: 900 amps
- Separately: 600 amps.
Pure Sine & Modified Sine Wave Inverters: If you have old appliances, a modified sign wave inverter will work. On many, not all, new appliances, some will require a pure sine wave inverter. You may have the tool you need to test. If you use a generator not named an “Inverter”, you are most likely using modified waves. If all of your appliances work fine, you can use a modified wave inverter. Having said that, we highly recommend a pure sign wave inverter.

Conclusion: If you have a BIG RV and an unlimited budget, or are always plugged into power, the 1100 watt microwave is top shelf. Because of available space, sometimes old circuits, and the size of our inverters and battery bank, a 700 watt microwave is fantastic.

Save BIG With Your Existing Cellphone Technology

What the cellphone companies don’t want you to know. Our cellphone savings alone: $2951.40!

Cell Phone charges have become a major expense to almost everyone around the globe. If you want better services and drastically reduced costs, you should read this article.

Our goal was to break away and/or minimize traditional cell and phone charges while providing an even better user experience while saving BIG money! We are going to tell you exactly how to do the same.

If you already have a smart phone and high-speed internet connection with WiFi, you have the perfect infrastructure to start big savings right now. Continue reading Save BIG With Your Existing Cellphone Technology

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GlobalStar: Satellite Phone & “SatFi” Hotspot

GlobalStar, the producer of the world’s best known Satellite phone, has clearly transformed itself since 2002, when we purchased our first sat-phone for our Baja to Alaska trip. Let’s start off with the basics: these phones work, period. Our first phone was about the size of the first wireless house phones, and can be seen at the bottom of this article. GlobalStar’s new sat-phones are much smaller, but still use the same large antenna that was used on our original phone. The fact is, anyone can use the phone to make a call. The main advantage is that you can make a call from just about anywhere (Coverage Map) and you can connect to the Internet with your sat-phone as well. Globalstar’s Service Plans range from $24.99 to $149.99 per month. The minutes range from $2.50 to $0.50 per minute depending on the Service Plan. That is a far cry from the $5.95 per minute rates of our first phone, with the phone itself costing us just shy of $1200. The downside of this great product is that, while it has come down in both size and price, it still carries a $499 price tag, and you don’t get a discount for signing a service contract.

Before we go much further, we want to be very clear on what the Internet connection available on the GlobalStar sat-phone will and will not do. This will most decidedly affect your expectations and whether or not you will be happy with the service. The data transfer rate is 9.6 kbs. For us older folks who remember things like DOS and Windows 3.0, that’s a 9600 baud modem that’s built into the phone. Now before you young kids walk away shaking your head, that was the hottest modem on the planet in the days of the BBS. Here are the GlobalStar Data Services Specifications.

Here are the Good and not so Good, realities of using a 9.6 kbs transfer rate:

Performance Good: texting and emails without large attachments (no photos);
Performance Better than Nothing: text-based websites, small file uploads and downloads (small photos);
Performance I Don’t Have a Choice: weather websites, pictures, files of 1/4 megabyte or less;
Performance Don’t Make Me Laugh: videos, large pictures (1gb+), etc.

GlobalStar offers a system they call Express Data that they claim will increase data transfers up to 5 times. Express Data is data compression software that you install on your computer that they claim, “is used to accelerate web browsing, web-based file transfers, uploading and downloading of all native FTP file transfers, and all types of e-mail and e-mail attachments”. While I have not tested it, experience tells me that it is highly specialized and should benefit users in many, but not all cases. For example, many websites already use HTTP data compression as defined in the RFC 2616 specification. We hope to evaluate GlobalStar’s data services ourselves as soon as we hear back from GlobalStar. Until then, we don’t feel qualified to report as fact the expected effect of their Express Data package. We look forward to an in-depth evaluation of their new data packages and will report a true evaluation here at rvhobo.net.

What we feel you can expect is this: The bottom line on the sat-phone Internet/Modem connection is that it will be there when there is nothing else, and texting and emails (without attachments) will work pretty well. If you have visions of game sites and surfing the web the same way you do from your Verizon or Comcast high-speed Internet connection, or even 3G for that matter, you will more than likely be disappointed. Think cellphones before 3G.

Top Shelf: We have been getting a tremendous amount of interest in these phones and their included Internet service. We mentioned them in our article on saving money with MiFi over cellular service, and how they can fill the gap for RVers who want to go up to Northern Canada and Alaska, or south of the border to Mexico, where cell service is sparse. Up North you also lose traditional satellite Internet service and even your RV’s TV satellite won’t work. They use special 4′ dishes up there. When money isn’t a problem, just get the new GlobalStar sat-phone and sign up for one of their Service Plans, and you will be talking, texting and surfing anytime, and from anywhere, your entire trip.

On a budget? A great surprise for Jenny and me while researching the sat-phone was something new, at least to us, called SPOT Connect. A little larger than a MiFi card, it connects to your Smartphone without a cable via Bluetooth. It is limited to text messaging, e-mail and emergency SOS messages that include your GPS location and a link to Google Maps, pinpointing your location.

If you want to keep friends and family advised of your trip, you can use the built-in interface in SPOTConnect’s Smartphone app and use your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The SPOTConnect device is listed with a cost of $169.99 with a yearly subscription of $99. That gives you SMS texting, e-mail and emergency service from anywhere. The good part is, your first year’s savings will be $712 over the sat-phone with the Orbit 40 Service Plan. That should help us travelers heading North and South of the borders to sleep a little better knowing we can get in touch when we need to, and still be able to afford to go out on the town a few times during the trip.

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