Thank you Jimsbarbeque! WE took your advice Neat power source for pellet cookers

Big Poppa

Administrator
Jim was at our contest awhile back in Lancaster California and we were discussing the power issues we had at the contest with the GFI's and the ignitors on the MAK and Memphis tripping them. Jim said "whoy dont you get some batteries and an inverter....

As you have seen Jim is a very talented guy......Here it is the Jimbotron!
P1000002.jpg


Its a little out of focue..but it is two yellow toppep optima batteries and an inverter built into a stanless steel cart with a drawer for our probes. This thing is amazing. Based on our calculations we can run two pellet grills, a stoker and a guru for three competitions without recharging. It will run all of the above and two of our lights in a pinch.

In comp there are always horror stories of losing generators, drunk people tripping over the cords in the middle of the night. WIth the Jimbotron we are totally seflf sufficient with a generator in the Big Poppa Smoke Mobile for charging or backup

Thanks Jim!
 

Phrett Bender

New member
A good deep cycle battery and a plain ole 800 watt inverter should run a pellet grill with several starts for over 24 hours. Two batteries give you the multiple cooker ability!! I'm going to do something similar with a 15watt solar panel to charge the batteries, and an inverter that is a charger also and transfers wall outlet power to the batteries, uninterrupted, should a power loss occur. From what I've read a pure or modified sine wave inverter is not required for a grill, but always recommended. Not a bad setup to have in the event of any type of power failure or interruption. It will run many things besides the grill!
 

3Bs-Bar-B-Que

New member
yep I have a deep cycle and a 1200 watt inverter to run 2 pellet cookers and 1 ugly drum with a stoker hooked to it for all comps i have done this yr.. it works great no more power problems
 

vesteroid

New member
You guys need to consider triton batterys linked in series to power that unit.

Anyone who dry camps seriously in a rv uses these.
 

jimsbarbecue

Moderator
I ran the pellet grills with my inverter this weekend. The inverter I have has a transfer switch so you can be using shore power and if it goes out it automatically runs on the inverter. The only thing I am not sure of is if the transfer may reset the grill.I still think running it on a inverter with a battery charger when shore power is available is a good system. I like the setup. As I mention some small generators like a Honda 2000 has battery charger built in just need the cables. I assume you are using fluorescent lights as they drawn a 1/10 the power of regular lights. I am still figuring how to assemble ours. I like the cart idea. I want now for long cooks so voltage interruptions don't upset it. I like the cart.The optima batteries are nice as they are any position and can be mounted in a passenger compartment.
 

Big Poppa

Administrator
Jim Ill find out just how much power we used for the last comp in the morning Thanks again You are a great guy!
 

Smokin Joe

New member
I cook comps on two FEC 100's. I use to golf cart batteries hooked together along with a charger for them. I then installed a inverter to run the FEC 100's. My smokers never see shore power. The battery charger always keeps the batteries charged, so when power goes out you have a full charge on them. One thing that I have learned about shore power at comps is that there is always surges. This keeps your circuit boards from frying. Just my 2 cents.
 

squirtthecat

New member
Guys, what inverters (brand/model) are you using? I've got a little B&D inverter, but it isn't powerful enough to start my Traeger from scratch. (the hotrod trips it's internal breaker)
 

jimsbarbecue

Moderator
I use true Sine xantrex inverters. With the true sine it will run anything computers battery chargers for cell phones or makita power tools etc.
Here is a photo of the inverter temp set up in front of our motorhome
The first is the load with two MAKs running
BBQ_2010_0323.jpg


Was using 75 feet of extention cord

BBQ_2010_0322.jpg
 
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jimsbarbecue

Moderator
Big Poppa was the Lakeside cart something you had or did you find somewhere in socal to get a fair price. I am putting one together and the size looks good. My only other ideas is a laptop and wireless router for the stoker. Or at least the router so you could use it with your smart phone when in range
 

jimsbarbecue

Moderator
I use pure sine 600 watt. Whichs easily runs two pits and should run 4. Most Pure sine wave invertor start at 600 watts. I run the pits and some flouresent lighting all with the invertor. The lights remind me I have the invertor on.
 

TTNuge

New member
Some of the motorcycle guys have been switching over to a Lithium-Iron style battery such as this one...

H-38120S Headway LiFePO4 Cell

I wonder how they would work in comparison to something like a Yellow Top. If I understand things correctly the cells above are 3.2v so hooking up 4 in series, and then those 4 in parallel to another 4 in series would be similar to a pair of Yellow Tops hooked up in parallel. It would be a bit more compact for sure...
 

TTNuge

New member
Some of the motorcycle guys have been switching over to a Lithium-Iron style battery such as this one...

H-38120S Headway LiFePO4 Cell

I wonder how they would work in comparison to something like a Yellow Top. If I understand things correctly the cells above are 3.2v so hooking up 4 in series, and then those 4 in parallel to another 4 in series would be similar to a pair of Yellow Tops hooked up in parallel. It would be a bit more compact for sure...
 

firehouse_bbq

New member
Nice looking set-up BP. I use something very similiar for our pellet smokers. Have two 6v golf cart batteries, and a Tripp-Lite inverter/charger hooked up. Inverter has a built-in transfer switch so when power is available, I am running off 110, but if for any of the many reasons mentioned by BP that the power is cut, it automatically cuts over to battery power. At our farmers market when there is NO power available, we run off the batteries. We have powered three pellet cookers for 24+ hours on the batteries with power to spare.

It is a great set-up.
 

TTNuge

New member
Question about battery chargers related to this. Can you use just a regular battery charger and hook it up to one battery and have it charge both since they are connected together or do you need a dual bank charger? Also, with either way do you need to disconnect the batteries from one another while charging or can you keep them connected?
 
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