Battery life using 6000 watt inverter

[ggpa]

I have four 125 ah batteries powering a 6000 watt inverter. The inverter is supposed to have a no load draw of 2 amps. I have a 12 amp 120volt Ac load. How long should I be able to operate before drawing my batteries to 50%

 

[ggpa]

By the way, the batteries are 12 volt deep cycle. They are connected in parallel

 

[anorlunda]

Using very rough numbers, about 2 kwh from those 4 batteries.

A better way to express it is to recharge whenever the loaded voltage drops below 12V, of 12.2V when rested and at no load.

 

[CWatters]

I have four 125 ah batteries powering a 6000 watt inverter. The inverter is supposed to have a no load draw of 2 amps. I have a 12 amp 120volt Ac load. How long should I be able to operate before drawing my batteries to 50%

The output of the inverter is..
12A * 120V = 1440W
If the inverter was 100% efficient then the input would also be 1440W but that's unlikely. Efficiencies of >80% are possible. Using 80% that gives an input power of

1440/0.8 = 1800W
At 12V that's a current of

1800/12 = 150A or 37.5A per battery.

You say they have a nominal capacity of 125AH but only want to use 50% so they can deliver that 37.5A for
125/(2*37.5) = 1.6 hours. Call it 90 mins.

Your mileage may vary! Check the actual efficiency of your inverter.

Put the inverter as close as possible to the batteries and use fat cables. At 80% efficiency the inverter dissipates 1800-1440 = 360W so allow for cooling air flow.

I used a lot of lead acid batteries in the 1980's amd 90's. I found the key to long life is never to leave them discharged for long, get them back on a charger as soon as possible, ideally within hours of use. I found if you regularly left one party discharged for a week they didn't last long, well under a year. Once I got into the habit of leaving them on a float charger all the time they started to live a lot longer.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Batteries connected in parallel should be of the same type and the same age or they will (very likely) 'age' prematurely. Charge and discharge currents will not be shared equally if you use different batteries and using four random batteries can be false economy even if you get them cheap. Your deep cycle choice was good. The only good thing about car start batteries is that they can give you hundreds of Amps when needed.