Inverter and TV

My inverter is built into the control center (inverter was installed as standard equipment.)
Is it true, the house battery will be charging while driving and therefore, the inverter will not be draining the battery?

Roadrat

Does your inverter have a cord with plug that goes into a cigarette lighter? If so, try plugging it into the dash cigarette lighter and operating the TV with engine running. If it works, the inverter is OK but needs to be connected directly to the 12 volt house battery using a cable with ring connectors. Inverters usually come with both kinds of cables and a connector in the middle to disconnect if desired. Make sure that you connect the red wire to the positive terminal and black wire to the negative terminal of the battery. If you are parked with engine not running or not connected to camp power, the TV plus inverter may run your house battery down after an hour or two. Inverters themselves consume battery power. It may be possible to connect TV directly to the house battery bypassing the little power supply box that plugs into the wall, get help from somebody with know-how.

Were all the outlets dead? On my rig, a popped GFI cuts all the 120 AC plugs.

Norm

roadrat57 wrote:
Passengers in the dining area when moving may want to watch a DVD. Seat belts are present outside cab area.

Roadrat

You might want to check with the in dash system to make sure it will work with the key in the ignition. Our Greyhawk has a Magnadyne system. When the key is in the ignition, the DVD will not display on it or on the TV. You may have to purchase a separate DVD player.

We don't even bother. The kids usually bring their laptops and watch what they want and use their headphones. That way it doesn't bother me while I am driving.

-Michael

I have a 2014 Jayco Seneca with the roof mounted Winegard RoadTrip in-motion satellite receiver as standard equipment. Auto tracking while underway. Don't want/need TV with commercials, so never hooked it up. Kinda' funny to think they would stick a $1400 receiver on the roof and have it locked out when driving.

Thank you to all comments on inverter.
Received word from Jayco saying "as a safety feature, tv will not run when engine is on".
How would a tv out of sight of the driver be a safety concern? The driver would have to leave the driver seat to watch the tv.
Anyway, I will locate the wire from the tv that is connect to ignition and disable it. Passengers in the dining area when moving may want to watch a DVD. Seat belts are present outside cab area.

Again, thank you all for sending good advise.

Roadrat

Our TV is connected via 12volt and we don;t have an inverter.

What unit do you have? My coworker/boss has a Forest River Class C and he had an issue with the plug the tv went in. His tv plugs in via a cigarette lighter style plug. Mine is hardwired. Anyway, they had to replace the plug end of the tv I believe.

Does the TV work off the inverter when the ignition is off, so you are running the inverter off of the house battery? If it does then it's the age old problem that they put a kill switch on the TV's outlet that stops you from watching while driving. Even IF the TV is out of view of the driver.

There is a small wire on the back of the outlet that you plug the TV into, it's usually purple, but mine was white for some reason. You cut the wire. Done.

roadrat57 wrote:
I guess I should ask , does anyone have an inverter that runs the TV while moving or stationary? I thought the inverter allowed tv use during quiet time at rv parks or camp grounds.

Mike

Our inverter powers the TV when moving or stationary.
We have a built in inverter that powers about 6 outlets.
When we turn on the inverter, the main tv goes into standby mode - a little red light on the tv is lit - the tv is receiving power.
Check the outlet at the tv to see if it is receiving power. If not, you may need to plug it in somewhere else.

Get a small lamp, or even an electric tester for 120 volt. Turn on the inverter. Use the lamp or tester and test every outlet to see which ones are powered by the inverter. Plug TV into outlet powered by the inverter to see if it will operate on inverted power.