Inverter Arrived..

I ordered the inverter for the Vito on Thursday of last week, and they said it would ship on that day or Friday. I gave it a couple of days slack and called them today - Wednesday. He gave me all the tracking numbers, and before I'd even finished writing them down, there was a knock at the door. There it was. I rang back and told them, they thought it was amusing too 8)

It's actually different to the one in the photo linked above. This has 4 Seven-Segment displays (you know, the '8' that lights up to display different numbers) and a button so you can see how much current it's using, the internal temperature, input voltage, output voltage, and other funky things.

The only downside is that it's big. REALLY big. I didn't actually pay too much attention to the dimensions when I ordered it, but the website says "120mm X 270mm X 530mm" Yeah, I should have looked at that 8-\ Almost half a meter long. I'm not sure where I'm going to be able to mount it, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. It SHOULD fit underneath one of the seats.

The things I want in the Vito are, in order of importance:

• 240v (Inverter, Organised)
• UHF Radio (TX4300, Organised to be installed on Friday)
• Second Battery (Would be nice, especially if I start doing lots of work IN the van)
• USB Ports to charge stuff (Car Computer, will organise that later)
• Some sort of Work Area (a bench that swings down from the wall, possibly?)
• HF Radio (Barrett 950, which I already have, but needs some parts replaced)

The Barrett is actually one of the worlds best HF radios. Extraordinarly good, ludicrously expensive, and it's been sitting in the garage for almost 4 years now. It'll sit quite nicely on the bullbar when that gets installed, in 3 weeks or so.

The bad news about this is that there's a going to be a lot of current draw that could be happening, which is why the second battery (or possibly even 2 batteries) is going to be required. The Inverter can pump out almost 10A at 240v - but to do that will require a draw of 250A at 12v. The cable I need to run from the battery to the inverter and not suffer from current drops or, really more serously, fires, is what's called AWG #2/0 - which is almost 2cm in diameter. That's a big bastard thick table. The HF radio isn't so bad, but it will still need AWG #0 cable, which is about 1cm in diameter.

The important point is, is that whereever the batteries are, that's where the inverter and HF radio's going to be.

Now, Tharyn's going to be reading this going 'Why the smeg did I let him have posting access to my blog?'... Well. I dunno either baby 8)

--Rob