John, Obviously a good question, but I have not tried this personally, and therefore do not have a definitive answer (although I keep an inverter and the charger onboard). I am tentatively going by the following passage from the operating manual: "The battery electronics also allow the battery to be charged when in use (charging and discharging at the same time). In this case, the input power displayed in the tiller represents only the power taken from the battery. If the charging power is higher then the power consumed by the motor the display indicates a power consumption of zero watts." Elsewhere the manual states that an inverter must put out >80 watts. What I don't know is whether my 400 watt inverter will cause the motor to draw more amps from the house battery than would my 150 watt inverter, and what speed I could maintain on one inverter or the other while keeping the motor's battery from discharging. My guess is that both batteries will discharge at a usable boat speed, but the range will be extended significantly. Since I brought this up, I will carry out a trial at Lake Havasu in February (if not before), and report back. This will hurt badly if the winds are good, but it won't be so difficult if a dead calm day pops up. Tom Jenkins On Nov 25, 2012, at 3:11 PM, John Schinnerer wrote:
Aloha,
On 11/25/2012 12:36 PM, Tom Jenkins wrote:...
my Torqeedo Travel 1003 electric outboard is about as green and practical as you are going to get for at least several years. I carry an extra battery, plus a small inverter to run the unit off my main battery,
Are you saying the Torqueedo can run directly off the the inverter? Without having to wait for its own battery to take a (sloooowwww) charge from that source?
thanks, John S.
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com