Electrical loads

Nomad Life Wiki

Electrical loads are electrical burdens placed on an electrical system. You are using electricity to do something.

When van-dwellers and other nomads talk about loads, they usually mean user loads like lighting, running a laptop or even a microwave in their vehicle. Technically, though, it also includes system loads like charging the bank. Understanding this last part will help make power rationing and load timing easier to implement.

Parasitic loads

Parasitic (or vampire) loads are tiny, continuous electrical loads that can deplete your battery bank's state of charge over time. The classic example is a device like a USB outlet that uses power internally whether or not anything is plugged into it. Some inverters, solar charge controllers, and voltage-sensing isolators can have significant parasitic draws. Entertainment equipment often

Quick Search

Search for “electrical loads” on:

  1. van life discussion groups,
  2. van life web sites, or
  3. other pages on this wiki

Credit

Some content on this page was originally sourced from doku.php?id=electrical/12v:loads on RVWiki.

Wiki Tools

A user account is required for these options:

Table of Contents

  1. Jump to top ⤒
  2. 1 – Parasitic loads
  3. Resources
  4. Related Pages 🖺
  5. Wiki Tools
  6. Jump to Footer ⤓

Nomad Life Wiki