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All summer long we don't hook to shore power. It would be nice to have even warm water for showering. And we have 540 watts of solar power, more than we need, actually.
Does anyone know if Raritan hot water heaters can be powered by 12v instead?
After doing some measuring, it looks like the 1100 watt heating element is a 13 ohm resistor. I could invert 12v to 120v AC and then step down 2:1 to 65 volts AC to drive the heating element at 277 watts. But solar panels can drive even low resistance loads, so it would be much simpler to go direct from panel to heater (or charge controller dump load to heater).
How about it, anyone know if there's a limitation that precludes this?
Regards,
Brad
Does anyone know if Raritan hot water heaters can be powered by 12v instead?
After doing some measuring, it looks like the 1100 watt heating element is a 13 ohm resistor. I could invert 12v to 120v AC and then step down 2:1 to 65 volts AC to drive the heating element at 277 watts. But solar panels can drive even low resistance loads, so it would be much simpler to go direct from panel to heater (or charge controller dump load to heater).
How about it, anyone know if there's a limitation that precludes this?
Regards,
Brad