DC to AC for Kraken?

[afboundguy]

I have a Kraken coming and I have a 150ah Lifep04 battery and I'll be disabling the Kraken's charging capabilities for the BMS charger I have and with my calculations I will be able to run my two return pumps and two power heads for over 30 hours.

With all that battery backup time I was thinking of trying to add my AC skimmer pump to a 12V drive port as it's only 28 watts. I had thought about using a small car inverter and cutting off the cigarette lighter side and wiring it to a GX12-2 pin to attach it to the 12V drive port to see if that works. Any thoughts?

 

[Sole83]

I would not do that. The 12V drive port on the Kraken is meant for DC loads only and a car inverter can cause noise, startup spikes, or overload the port even at 28 watts. You also lose a lot of efficiency converting DC to AC. If you want to run the skimmer on backup, a dedicated low watt DC skimmer or a properly fused external inverter wired directly to the battery is safer. I would not risk the drive port or the controller from CoralVue.

 

[afboundguy]

I would not do that. The 12V drive port on the Kraken is meant for DC loads only and a car inverter can cause noise, startup spikes, or overload the port even at 28 watts. You also lose a lot of efficiency converting DC to AC. If you want to run the skimmer on backup, a dedicated low watt DC skimmer or a properly fused external inverter wired directly to the battery is safer. I would not risk the drive port or the controller from CoralVue.

Ironically this is irrelevant as I purchased an Icecap K3 skimmer with a DC pump so if the pump runs on 12V problem solved and if not I can just add a step up converter.

 

[thom_smith]

Ironically this is irrelevant as I purchased an Icecap K3 skimmer with a DC pump so if the pump runs on 12V problem solved and if not I can just add a step up converter.

Would need to check the specs but more than likely it runs on 24VDC. If it does then you can absolutely use one of the Force ports. If it is 12VDC as you seem to suggest then proceed with caution. The Kraken Drive ports have a 2.5A per port and 4A cumulative maximum. Depending on what you have off other Drive ports you may approach or exceed the cumulative maximum.