A 200Ah LiFePO4 battery is ideal for powering appliances while off-grid. Reliable and safe, these deep-cycle batteries can be used over and over again, with no memory effect to worry about. This is great news if you are running high-wattage appliances like a coffee maker off your battery. So can a 200Ah battery run a coffee maker?
Depending on the wattage of your coffee maker a 200Ah will run it for a given time. For a 1500-watt coffee maker, the battery can run this coffee maker for about 19 minutes. However, you can still hook up other appliances or use the coffee maker again on this battery as it leaves extra capacity.
We take you through this in this article.
Coffee Maker Power Consumption
Coffee makers come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The number of watts is determined by the size and capacity of the machine. A one-cup drip brewer will draw 1000W while larger models might use up to 1500 W. Most coffee makers require between 1100 and 1200 watts
With the wattage, we can calculate the amount of energy to run the coffee maker
Coffee Maker Watt-hour Requirements
Electrical energy is measured in watt-hours. The amount of watt-hours consumed depends on the device’s wattage and the length of time it is used. To calculate watt-hours, multiply the device’s wattage by the number of hours it is used.
For example, if an appliance with a rating of 100 watts operates for 10 hours, it uses 1,000 watt-hours (100 watts X 10 hours).
If you want to use a 1500-watt coffee maker for 1 hour, you will need 1500 Watt-hours or 1.5kWh of Energy.
Keep this number in mind we’ll use it later on.
How Many Amps Does a 1500-watt coffee maker draw?
In order to gauge whether our battery will support the coffee maker will need to look at the amp draw of the coffee maker. A 1500-watt coffee maker will need around 12.50 amps to run when using it from the standard 120V outlet. This is the number of amps that it will be drawing from the inverter. Depending on the DC voltage of the inverter you can calculate the number of amps the coffee maker will be drawing through the inverter.
To find out the number of amps the battery draws, you divide the wattage by the voltage of your system. In the case, you have a 12-volt system, you divide 1500 by 12
1500/12 = 125 Ah
In the case of a 24v system
1500/24 = 62.5
So you need a battery that you can safely pull 125 amps per for the 12v system and 62.5 amps per hour for the 24v system.
So will a 200Ah battery support this?
How Many Amps Can You Draw from a 200Ah Battery?
Amp-hour rating in batteries gives the charge in amps that can be drawn from a battery over a specific time given in hours.
A Deep Cycle Battery battery is intended to produce the charge for a long period of time like 20 hours. So for a 200 Ah battery, it should produce at least 10 amps over a 20-hour period.
However, you can go higher or lower depending on the appliance you are using. Deep cycle batteries are recommended to be discharged at 20% of their capacity so for a 200 Ah battery the max discharge per hour would be 40 amps meaning it can last 5 hours.
How many watt-hours is a 200 Ah Battery
You can use the following formula to determine how many watts can be drawn from a battery.
Watts = Volts x Amps
So if your battery is 12v and has a 200 Ah capacity, then you can draw 2400 Watts from it. This is for the full battery cycle. With the 40 amps max draw it means you can get 480 watts max per hour. You can push this to 50 amps or 600 watts per hour with LiFePO4 batteries.
How Long Will a 200Ah Battery Run a 1500-watt Coffee Maker?
Looking at our earlier numbers we need 1500 Watt-hours to run the coffee maker with a 125 amp draw which is not possible. However, we don’t need to run a coffee maker for a whole hour but how long will it run a 1500-watt coffee maker?
We already know the battery can support 480 watts but we need 1500 watts for the coffee maker to run for an hour. So how long is 480 watts?
(480/1500) = 0.32 hrs
In minutes 0.32 x 60 = 19.2 minutes
A 200Ah 12v battery will run a coffee maker for 19 minutes. This is without any other appliance drawing power from the battery.
This consumption will not deplete the battery and actually leaves extra capacity so you can run other appliances on this battery.
Conclusion
While we have concluded that a 12v 200Ah battery may not support the coffee maker. It is possible to use a 24v 200Ah battery the 62.5 it’s not impossible to support with a LiFePO4 battery. Check on the manufacturer’s recommendation. Battery bank systems including the wiring are also made to support a number of amps running through the systems so you should also have this in mind.