Invertor Power Drain Levels

[Len and Jo]

My "B" has a 1000w Triplite invertor in it coming off of the a size 30 battery.  I estimate that the no load draw of the inertor is approx. 10w (per hour).  That is if I leave the invertor turned on with no load for 24 hours it appears to drain about 240 watts out of my house battery.  In your experience is this high or low???? :-\.  I also know through the school of hard knocks that if I have the invertor turned "off" that it still draws 1-2 watts :-\ :-\ :-\.  The only ways to really prevent battery drain for extented periods by the invertor is to disconnect the battery.  Again is this slight drain considered nornal for an invertor???

 

[Jeff]

Len:

Our coach has phantom loads that use 5 watts an hour or so, The inverter uses another 5-10 when it is in standby.

Are you sure the load is from the inverter when it is shut off, not other systems in the trailer?

 

[John From Detroit]

Most inverter instruction manuals list their standby draw

These figures are from the Xantrex Prosine 2000 flyer

No load power draw (inverting) <25 W
No load power draw (search mode, 3 s interval) <2 W

Now, the Prosine has 3 off modes

1: Power search (IT checks to see if there is a load, if there is POWER UP, however it likes to have at least a 10% load by default (200 watts) or no power.  This can be interesting if you have low-power loads like I do.

2: Inverter off: (At the control panel)

3: Inverter off (At the inverter) this means OFF folks, no power draw, totaly disabled.

This last may be done remotely as well, but that's an option, it's also a relay

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

I'd say 240 watts per day (about 0.8 amps/hour) is fairly typical no-load draw for a large inverter. Because of that, we keep our 2 KW inverter off except when we actually need the big watts.  We have a separate 150 watt pure sine inverter that powers a pair of outlets where we charge cell phones, camera batteries, etc. and that stays on all the time. No load draw is infinitesimal on that - about 0.07 amps/hour or about 20 watts/day.