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Old 07-29-2013, 04:20 PM   #1
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How long can I watch a DVD on battery power?

We have a 2011 View 24K and whenever we try to watch a short DVD on the battery power from the inverter we end up using all our juice in minutes.
Does that TV / DVD player use that much power or is it the inverter? Also, there is a terrible buzzing sound that kind of goes in waves that makes TV watching a pain.
I guess my question is...is this somewhat normal or is this a symptom of a larger problem?
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Old 07-29-2013, 06:42 PM   #2
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Several questions before anyone can offer suggestions or help. How many and what type of batteries, capacity and type of inverter, how are you charging, how are you monitoring the charging?
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Old 07-29-2013, 07:55 PM   #3
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farley, If you have the optional 300 watt inverter it will pull about 25 amps at full load. With good batteries you should be good for 4 or more hours. Have you checked the water level in your batteries? Sounds like your batteries have deteriorated.
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Old 07-29-2013, 10:49 PM   #4
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Power= volts X amps 300watts = 120 volts X 2.5 amps

2.5 amps not 25 amps for a 300 watt inverter. The amount of time would depend on the amp hour rating and charge of the battery. Hope this helps
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Old 07-30-2013, 05:16 AM   #5
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Power= volts X amps 300watts = 120 volts X 2.5 amps

2.5 amps not 25 amps for a 300 watt inverter. The amount of time would depend on the amp hour rating and charge of the battery. Hope this helps
300watts = 12 volts x 25.0 amps. The inverter is sucking up amps from the 12 volt battery in order to
create the 120volts.
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Old 07-30-2013, 07:16 AM   #6
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pasdad1, Thanks, it is whats being pulled from the batteries that counts.
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Old 07-30-2013, 07:30 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by farley View Post
We have a 2011 View 24K and whenever we try to watch a short DVD on the battery power from the inverter we end up using all our juice in minutes.
Does that TV / DVD player use that much power or is it the inverter? Also, there is a terrible buzzing sound that kind of goes in waves that makes TV watching a pain.
I guess my question is...is this somewhat normal or is this a symptom of a larger problem?
Your "buzzing sound" is likely emanating from your inverter as you no doubt expected. I suspect it is not a pure sine wave output and likely introduces either RFI or other spurious voltages that are not filtered in your TV or DVD player. You probably do not have an oscilloscope to put on the line to see what spurious garbage is coming from the inverter so the more practical thing you can do is see if the buzzing sound is gone when on shore or gen power (inverter off) and then remove the DVD player to see if it is introduced through that device.

Suggest you get a "kill-a-watt"meter and measure the actual power consumption on your TV and DVD player. Many inverters have a power factor of about .8 or .9, meaning they consume 10-20% of the energy coming from the battery. So of you were consuming 100w for your TV/DVD the drain from your battery could be up to 120w. IMHO every RV owner should own a "kill-a-watt" meter. Just google it, I believe mine was less than $20.

Most smaller LED backlit TVs consume less than 40W. (I believe my LED 29" TV draws about 35W) and if they have an external Power Supply (AKA, Wall Wart) the real TV power input is likely 12V. Just eliminate the WW and power direct from the DC source thus reduce power loss from the inverter and the slight amount that would be consumed by the WW. The less power you draw through your inverter the less power loss will be realized hence the battery will last longer. If the noise is being introduced through the 120Vac TV power source, it might disappear also. You might be able to power your DVD player direct from 12VDC also thus removing the Inverter component.

LCD TV's (meaning not LED backlit) consume much more energy than LED TV do and of course the old CRT TV's are absolute power hogs in comparison.

I have an oscilloscope and have looked at my RV MSW inverter output and the the wave is like a stepping square wave with a bit of a sawtooth component. Not a pure sine wave, but no real spurrious ripples seen riding along. I do not have any interference on my TV from that inverter, but I have two other smaller portable inverters and one of those does cause TV interference and it has a messy looking output when viewed on the scope.

Hope this info was helpful good luck.
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Old 07-30-2013, 07:18 PM   #8
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As an experiment ... I suggest you start you engine to see if that changes the buzzing that you are hearing ... when your engine is running this should change the effective voltage of your batteries to about 13 volts ...

If the buzzing stops this tells you that the buzzing is dependent on the charge on your batteries ... remember that batteries that read 12.0 volts are only 50% charged
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