Almot wrote:
Laptop might only need 1.5A but its wall wart charger is very inefficient. Between the wart losses and inverter losses I wouldn't be surprised to see 2.5-3.0A drawn from inverter. And it gets worse if you want to charge it - the battery losses come into play. In the end, if you are spoiled and want everything wireless, it may cost you 4-5 AH daily to charge the laptop battery, more when it's getting old.
My LP fridge, few LED lights and pump draw 20-25 AH, detectors draw next to nothing. 5 AH would be a significant correction to this budget. Not that I personally am worried about this, with 500W solar harvesting about that much even when it rains all day.
Hmm..
Laptop power bricks ARE switching supplies.. In reality by themselves are not "inefficient" and should be about 90% efficient..
Where the problem with efficiency comes in is when you run a laptop power supply from a inverter.. Then you are talking much less efficiency..
Personally, if the inverter is for just a laptop, I would suggest skipping the inverter and buy a laptop 12V DC to laptop 19V-21V power supply.. Then you skip the extra step of the inverter and go directly to the voltage the laptop needs.
You can buy universal 12V laptop supplies which will have different laptop plug adapters and is switchable to the voltage your laptop needs..
Even my cellphone chargers I use a plug in 12V to 5V USB charger, I keep several in my vehicles and even in my TT.. at $5 each they are dirt cheap and use next to nothing in battery capacity..
