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Old 12-25-2008, 09:20 AM   #1
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When my batteries are at full charge, the RS2000 puts out about 4 amps at 13v to the batteries. However, the input is using between 4 and 5 amps at 120v. This amount is confirmed by the RS2000 and the surge guard transfer switch. The RS2000 should use approximately .4 amps at 120v to produce the 4 amps at 13v.

So, where is the balance of the input amperage going? A very small amount runs the fan and the electronics have some overhead, however this seems very inefficient to me and it costs me alot of KW hours at the electric meter.

Any comments would be appreciated.
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Old 12-25-2008, 09:20 AM   #2
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When my batteries are at full charge, the RS2000 puts out about 4 amps at 13v to the batteries. However, the input is using between 4 and 5 amps at 120v. This amount is confirmed by the RS2000 and the surge guard transfer switch. The RS2000 should use approximately .4 amps at 120v to produce the 4 amps at 13v.

So, where is the balance of the input amperage going? A very small amount runs the fan and the electronics have some overhead, however this seems very inefficient to me and it costs me alot of KW hours at the electric meter.

Any comments would be appreciated.
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Old 12-25-2008, 02:20 PM   #3
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Hi Retiredfields,
It may be inefficient, but what you have may be reality. I know my converter/charger draws more power than I think it should even with the batteries at full charge and nothing on in the coach.

One thought is the inverter. Do you have a combination charger/converter/inverter or is your inverter a seperate unit? My little 600 watt inverter draws a bunch of power, from the batteries just to keep itself going with everything else off.

This means I have a never ending cycle of the inverter drawing from the batts and the charger charging the batts.
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Old 12-25-2008, 03:30 PM   #4
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Ken:

If it's any consolation, my readings at the Surge Guard and RS3000 are the same as yours.

If I cut down on electrical use and only have one item running, the charging drops to 0 amps. However, there are lots of little draws going on (inverter and panels, fridge control board, thermostat, oven clock, my laptop, sound system standby, etc.).
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Old 12-25-2008, 05:07 PM   #5
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My readings are also similar on my RS2500.

I have the fridge running on 120vac but it is not pulling power when I am at the 4-5 amp idle figure. As for what is consuming the "extra" 120vac, I do have two digital clocks running, the microwave display, tvs and stereo equipment in standby mode, two powered splitter/amps on my tv cabling, and the Spendide washer in standby mode. {Standby means that the control panels are powered up, waiting in case somebody presses a button or uses a remote control.}

For the 12v loads I can see on the monitor, it doesn't seem that the charger should be drawing more than about 1A @ 120vac, Maybe 1.5A tops. Apparently the rest of the stuff adds up to 3.0-3.5 amps. That seems high, though.
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Old 12-25-2008, 07:36 PM   #6
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I can't say where they go but before I had solar panels installed, they tested the amperage draw with everything in the coach turned off. 2.7 amps draw. times 24hr doesn't take long to drain the batteries.
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Old 12-25-2008, 11:50 PM   #7
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Try turning off 1 AC circuit at a time and watching for current to drop. This Will tell you with circuit(s) is the culprit. Now realize your converters and inverter/charger are not 100% efficient; usually around 95% on average.
Also you can disconnect the battery bank and look for a drop in amperage the charger is consuming to keep the battery bank up.
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Old 12-26-2008, 04:01 AM   #8
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I forgot to mention that I have bypassed all 120v appliances on the output side of the inverter. The only thing it is doing is charging the batteries and powering itself.
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Old 12-27-2008, 01:22 AM   #9
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Could part of the amperage draw be that of the Surge Guard? How about your refrigerator? Do you have it in the LP gas mode?
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Old 12-27-2008, 02:51 AM   #10
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Ken, You would be surprised as to the amp draw from the transmission. It has kinds of little people in there doing various things. The electronics in the Alpine is quite extensive.
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Old 12-27-2008, 09:30 AM   #11
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Ken - Most power supplies/converters operate at about 85% efficiency (= 15% inefficiency) of max power. If your system is a 2,000 watt inverter, 15% x 2000w = 300w. 300w / 110v = 2.73 amps. So, there is an automatic 2.7 amp loss not counting any of the "standby" electronics.
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Old 12-27-2008, 02:58 PM   #12
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Its been about a year since I changed out the old Heart Combi for an RS2000 on my 2003. On the AC-side, I leave[while in storage]the power share setting on 5 amps--keeps the batteries charged and the residential frig runs fine. Cant speak to efficiency but 5 amps or less doesnt seem like much draw to me.

The DC-side has been more troublesome. Dont know how many amps the old Combi drew but the RS2000 draws 150+DC watts just to keep it "buzzing." If you are dry camping, 3-5 DC amps overnight is not going to put a big dent in yr batteries. I've tried the "load sense" mode on the RS2000 which does save dramatically on DC amps but there are two issues here: 1) the RS2000 doesnt like small parasitic draws[mircowave display/stereo/night lights/etc.] so you have to cut power to all these items; and 2)not sure the auto-defrost function on the Amana frig likes the load sense mode so the Amana tends to hang-up in pre-defrost and may not start cooling again until you manually advance the timer behind the grill [bottom/front].
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Old 12-28-2008, 12:31 AM   #13
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12v incandescent lights consume a lot of power. mine consume from 12 to 18 watts each. the ceiling fluorescence light fixtures use 30w each (2 tubes each). my reading lights use 20 watts each. all of these small? users add up to quite a drain on the battery. one 12w lamp uses about one amp per hour.
then you have the 12 volt appliances. the fantastic ceiling fans use about 3 amps per hour on high, 2 on low. my suburban furnace blower uses about 11 amps per hour but is doesn't run constantly. i don't know what the furnace control circuit uses. my norcold fridge uses about 1.2 amps per hr for the control circuit. the water pump uses about 7 amps per hr, but it doesn't run constantly. i haven't figured out how much the control circuit of the atwood water heater uses yet but i estimate that it is similar to the fridge.
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