Whirlpool 4 ring Induction Cooker top off inverter

[brightontrader]

I posted a while back about issues I was having and had a few people ask about my experience fixing them, well I have and here is what I did.

1st: With a 1.6kw Victron pure sine wave inverter I was only getting on smallest ring (manual said drew 1.2kw) it clicking on and off, half worked.

Posters suggested battery cables not up to it and also inverter too far from bank.

So I moved inverter and cabled with 11mm cables, and in the process discovered another battery bank hidden away in the bilges midships, put there to drive anchor and roller furling motors presumably (24v). All cabled with too thin cables, so re wired the lot.

At the same time discovered boat's ring main 240v was wired for only 16amp, so rewired entire boat for 32amp. And also changed all sensor/relay switching to manual, so SP, inverter, genny all now can see whats on or off.

When finally yesterday I tried the cooker after spending a small fortune, same problem existed with cooktop.......

I had bought on ebay a 5kw Mastervolt inverter (£700) from a dismantled government nuclear fallout shelter, one of 4 on sale....but from posters on here decided then to not use it as worried about battery capacity, drain and cabling.

Anyway, after the unbelievable shock that the Victron would not run even 1 small ring of the 4 ring induction cooker, even though the Victron should peak power according to Victron 2.8kw, and the smallest ring only use 1.2kw, and I was also under impression that induction had no start up peak requirement, I drove home and hauled the 48kilo 5kw to the boat and fitted it.

Not only did it work perfectly, ran 3 of the 4 rings, but in practice will really only use 2 at sea, mainly one, but it didn't impact the battery bank that much, totally acceptable and with a large 80 amp alternator on main engine, a prop shaft 60amp alternator and (should all that not be enough,,,a 6.5kw genny plus a new mastervolt 120amp SP 240v/24v charger I am in business.

Summary: Using a very large inverter seems madness but am only using whatever power I pull, batteries do need heavy cabling with inverter closeby. Inverter seems to tick over without resorting to using cooling fan when only delivering about 1.5kw, when driving freezer and fridge compressors and a laptop was drawing same power as Victron 1.6kw was....

so buying the 5kw mastervolt worked for me and induction cooktops as you Americans call them (us "hob") now seems the way to go if you don't want gas on board as they are so efficient there is virtually no wasted heat.

I am thinking that cooker will in practice use very little power, as using full power on induction usually results in burnt bottoms of pans unless boiling only water as they are so powerful, they will simmer on 3 out 9 setting, waste virtually nothing, the waste power is going to be in the inverter, probably same as would have lost in Kilo joules from either gas heat lost in air around pans or other electric cooktops in heat lost waiting for them to heat up, then dispersed.

So anyone in the UK looking for a cheap 1.6kw Victron should contact me...

[BigBeakie]

Great feedback on that, so thanks very much for sticking with it to find a solution.

This is very good news for us planning an electric boat

Now, about those electric BBQ's......