Ok, folks it took me many many years to figure this out
Watts in a DC circuit = Volts times Amps. In a Dc Circuit, or in a resistive circuit, Power Factor = 1.0 always.
in an AC curcuit with either inductance or capacitance or both. (anything other than pure resistive, such as a light bulb) the power factor comes into play
Watts now equals Volts times Amps times POWER FACTOR
A Progressive Dynamics 9280 can put out what, about 960 watts at 12 volts (actually a bit more watts due to higher voltage) let us round to 1000 watts cause,,, I like ZEROS when doing examples.
So if it's putting out 1000 watts, well it has some conversion loss.. So now we are sucking perhaps 1200 watts.. or 10 amps at 120 volts... right... Sorry
There is power factor.. If the power factor is 0.8 (Someone suggested that is common) or worse yet 0.7) what I've seen suggested before)
Well now 1200=120*amps*0.7 so that 10 amps is up to 14.28 amps
Now that is what the circuit breakers see.
Correct the power factor and we are back to 10 amps.
