Inverters

[Jacothebrave]

Does a 2000W 220V inverter use more power than a 1000W 220V inverter when switched on nothing running or say both running 500W appliance.

[Randyonr3]

Some do and some dont, there are some inverters on the market that take the same amount or near that of power to drive them weather you are running a small appliance or a large one. XANTRAX is one that only uses what it takes to support the appliance used..

[S/V Elusive]

Watts are watts. Voltage is a component, but watts can be compared across different voltages. I*E, or I^2*R = Watts

The inverters will say what voltages they can handle. Otherwise, if object X needs 600 Watts, and your inverter puts out 2000, shouldn't be a problem.

also - remember that TYPCIALLY 220 VAC uses two legs of 110VAC.

[Hud3]

Some inverters are more efficient at converting DC to AC. Do a little research to find out which of the ones you're looking at are most efficient.

[Alan Wheeler]

All inverters have an idle current. What the current is depends on what tricks the inverter has. Some have a fixed fan that goes all the time for instance. So you are paying(with power use) the price of runnign the Fan. Some have a thermostat controlling the fan and some the fan comes on with current draw. Some inverters are running an output all the time. I mean by that, they have the output voltage present with a load or no load. That means they have a small amount of current consumption going on all the time. Soem inverters have a load sensign start up feature. So they have less consumption when no load is applied. For instance, my Freedom 25 is 0.4A idle, no output(no load) and 0.9A idle with 230V output(non load).
As to efficiency, some inverters are more efficient than others are producing the outout. But one of the big inefficiencies is the actually waveform produced. A pure sine wave has more "power" in it than a modified sine wave. There are inverters that produce better modified sines waves than others. That usually is reflected in the cost of the inverter. You can make cheap inverters these days, but they don't always perform that well. Problem is, you won't ever really know. unless you have two inverters side by side. One good, one nasty, but both of same recomended output. Plug them into a seperate battery source. Plug identical loads on each. Say an electric kettle. Then time how long it takes to bring the kettle to the boil. Measure the amount of energy consumed from each battery. In most cases, the ncheap and nasty would have required more energy to do that same work.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

. Problem is, you won't ever really know. unless you have two inverters side by side. One good, one nasty, but both of same recomended output. Plug them into a seperate battery source. Plug identical loads on each. Say an electric kettle. Then time how long it takes to bring the kettle to the boil. Measure the amount of energy consumed from each battery. In most cases, the ncheap and nasty would have required more energy to do that same work.

Dang!!!!!!!

[Alan Wheeler]

The reason I say that is because you will never ever be told the specs on the cheap one. Well , the specs that tell the real story that is. So the only way you will ever truely know is to do an AB comparison. But the easiest way to know, is that the really really cheap one is cheap for a reason. The really really expensive one is expensive for a reason. I have heard it does happen, but I expect it to be very rare, that you can find a cheap piece of junk with a very expensive price tag on it, just so as it tricks you into thinking it is something it is not. The one industry that this is the most common is the Home HiFi industry. Thankfully I have not found it in the Marine industry...... ;-) :-)