TV Use with Inverter??

[fansill]

Now that we have our new to us Fleetwood Revolution we will be doing some Nascar races this year. My hubby loves to watch TV and our new coach has a 2000 watt inverter with 4 - 12 volt house batteries. My question is how long can my husband watch his TV without powering up the generator? He will want to watch a couple of hours during the daytime, before and after the race, and then he will want to watch TV late into the night and most of the Nascar lots ban the use of generators at night. I am afraid that he will do what he does at home...fall asleep leaving the TV on and I don't want to wake up to dead batteries.

And during the day...how long will it take me to recharge the batteries using the generator?

BTW... We have a 26 inch color tv, a satellite dome, and a receiver box.

Thanks for your input.

Faith

[wa8yxm]

It is hard to answer without additional information,, For example you said "We have 4 12 volt batteries.. I have 12 volt batteries here ranging from 17 amp hour to 130 amp hour, clearly some take more time to recharge (The 17 amp hour takes the longest, because it charges slower)

But I will assume your inverter is also your converter, Likely capable of up to 100 amps.

Some common 12 volt sizes

G-24, about 75 amp hours
G-27 Low side of 100
G-29 High side of 100
G-31 Around 130
D-8, about 220

Find out how big they are, add 'em up and if the batteries are at 50 percent divide by two

Divide that by 90% of your charger's output if it's a good 3 stage unit NOTE that some you divide by 80 or 70, depending on the charge controller

That gets you to about 90 percent,

Add 4 hours to that.

[John Hilley]

I have 4ea 6 volt batteries and probably watch TV about like your husband. We also use notebook computers for about 8 hrs per day. We have solar, but when We have to depend on the generator, we usually run it 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. We run it when we make coffee for breakfast and usually when we use the microwave for dinner. We have an IOTA 55 amp converter and our batteries are 225 amp/hr for a total of 450 amp/hrs, probably pretty close to what you have with 12 volt batteries. We actually carry a Honda EU2000i generator and use it most of the time rather than the Onan.

[DAN L]

faith,
my 26 inch rca crt tv (old style) draws about 130 watts ac power. that is about 13 amps of dc battery power per hour. i have never used my satellite antenna so i don't have any info on how much that draws. i use an analog to digital converter-dvd-vcr unit that draws about 18 watts ac. that is about 1.8 amps per hour dc from the battery.
i have a 300 amp hour battery bank, want to use only 1/2 of that, so i can run my tv for about 10 hours on the inverter.
if you have a flat screen lcd tv, the current draw is much less, about 13 watts ac or about 1.3 amps dc from your battery. led tv's draw less than that.
notice that i divide watts by 10, not 12 to account for inefficiencies and power losses in converting (inverting) dc to ac.
when you figure out how many amp-hours of battery capacity you have, subtract your users to compute how long your battery bank will last.
battery banks should only be discharged about 50% for maximum battery life. that is about 12-12.1 volts. a dead 12 volt battery is about 10.5-11 volts. a fully charged 12v battery is about 12.6-12.8 volts.
here is a good resource for electrical, battery, inverter, converter and charger info.

Electrical Tutorial

[ralper]

What is the TV amp rating. It will not use quite the full rating. What is the amp/hour rating of all your batteries times 50%. Divide the TV rating into the 50% of the battery rating and there are the hours available .

You should never use more than 50% of the battery rating or you will be replacing them very quickly.

You should have a Trimetric battery monitor so you always know the state of your batteries.

[Wayne M]

As for falling asleep with the TV on, many of the present day televisions can be set to turn off automatically. Look through the manual, or menu, if that is a feature you may be interested in. There may even be electrical timers that you could plug the TV into that will turn it off at a preset time, or time length.

[96 Wideglide]

Well, since Faith has'nt returned, I'll ask

will a 800 W inverter, power a 20" CRT tv, and satellite reciever/ dish, as well as a coffee maker ?

[DAN L]

Originally Posted by 96 Wideglide

Well, since Faith has'nt returned, I'll ask

will a 800 W inverter, power a 20" CRT tv, and satellite reciever/ dish, as well as a coffee maker ?

my 750w modified sine wave inverter powers both of my 26'' and 20'' old style crt tv's at the same time and the 2 digital converter boxes that we use as tuners. my inverter sometimes overheats and trips with this load. most of the time we just operate one tv at a time.
i do not know how much current your coffee maker or sat recv'r draws.

[John Hilley]

Originally Posted by 96 Wideglide

Well, since Faith has'nt returned, I'll ask

will a 800 W inverter, power a 20" CRT tv, and satellite reciever/ dish, as well as a coffee maker ?

It will run the TV and receiver, but probably not the coffee maker, certainly not at the same time as the TV and receiver.

[BigV]

You REALLY need to buy/borrow a kill-o-watt meter. Only way to know.

The CRT TV's in my house draw about 60 watts each. The LED TV's in the motorhome are about 30 watts each. Tivo is 60 watts and my blue ray is 25 watts.

My house is setup with an inverter backup for power outages. A 220Ah battery and 2k inverter. I can watch TV, run my internet connection and laptop all evening and barely draw down the battery. Knowing how much power things draw is the only way to plan. Phantom loads also need to be checked. I found our CRT tv's draw almost as much off as they do on.

[wa8yxm]

By the way.. When my rig was new we took a trip, We brought a co-driver (my wife refuses to drive this house) with us.. She'd fall asleep watching TV,, We have only one pair of six volt's (220 amp hours) and later I added a pair of G-31's. but she'd watch till she fell asleep, I'd turn it off around 1 or 1:30 when I got up to visit the half-head. and not fire the generator till we got up for the morning around 8am.

Of course lights, heat and other power suckers will affect that.