I often see questions surrounding inverter size and battery capacity on the boards, and being that I just had a Xantrex panel installed that can display the amount of Amps flowing out of my batteries; I thought I would measure the power consumption of various devices in hopes of answering some of those questions. I recommend Mark Nemeth’s “The 12 volt side of life Part 1” and “The 12 volt side of life Part 2” to anyone who is interested in their RV’s electrical system. Mark’s articles are refreshingly clear, concise and easy to understand.
Alright, we might as well start with the big dog! This is my 1,100 Watt Dometic microwave oven. It is easy to calculate the power consumption of a device by looking at the electrical plate near the power cord, or on the power brick. Dometic says the “rated power consumption” for this microwave is 1,500W. It is not uncommon for a device to consume more power, particularly at initial turn-on, than you might think without first checking the device’s electrical specifications.
1,500 Watts of AC power is about 150 Amps of DC power, which is why the inverter manufacturers always specify big cables for the larger inverters – 150 Amps is a lot of current. After putting a cup of water into the microwave and selecting maximum power, my panel measured 158 Amps proving, if nothing else, that some of this theory must be grounded in reality. Here are a few other gadgets that I measured:
- Satellite TV receiver: 3 Amps
- 20” HDTV: 7 Amps
- 17” LCD TV: 5 Amps
- Laptop computer: 5 Amps
- DVD player: 3 Amps
- Mobile phone charger: 2 Amps
Happy camping!
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TOM SIGL
LOOKING FOR INFO ON SOLAR BATTERY CHARGERS!! ARE THEY ONLY GOOD FOR TRICKLE CHARGE OR CAN IT WORK FOR , SAY, 20 AMPS?
Scrib
Terry – here’s the 1000/1800 remote panel:
http://www.captainsmarinesupply.com/xantrex-prosine-remote-panel.html
Terry Lesh
Where can one buy the Xantrex Prosine 1000/1800 Remote Panel, I can’t even find it on their website, or Camping World.
Terry
Scrib
Mark,
Yes – that is something I intended to write about, but my initial attempts at measuring the “phantom loads” of these devices was mixed (the inverter draws 2A at idle). I’m going to run over to CW after work tonight and pick up a Kill-A-Watt, which should work a bit better.
Roy
Mark Berg
It would be interesting if you could report back on the amp/hr. rating for televisions, etc. that were turned off. Most are using current in off mode. My own 19″ HD 720p Television has an yellow LED to remind you it is using current, unless you unplug it. This is the most comon problem for people complaining about run down batteries after a few days.
This is the main reason people must use the battery disconnect switch, the inverter DC output switch and/or unplug Tv’s, Vcr’s, etc. Almost all are using power when switched off. It wouldn’t matter if plugged into shore-power, but it matters alot when you pull the plug.