Solar Requirements - Confirmation
I'm taking a 3 month mountain biking trip through British Columbia this summer. Most of the time will be spent camping at National/Provincial parks without access to electric. When I really break it d...
Forum Discussion
It is confusing. "Efficiency" is simply watts in vs watts out.
Meanwhile, PF has to do with how much of the input as supplied (VA) gets used to make up the input watts. Or in this view, how much extra supply you need to get those needed input watts.
You also have some goings on where the PF of the same load appliance can be different depending on the input voltage being high like 126v vs low like 116v, which baffles me, but Mr Wizard seems to have some notion how that goes. Very mysterious!
Whatever, you need more than the advertised converter "watts" from the generator to run a battery charger, because they are not "resistive" loads with no reduced PF. Chargers are more like motors etc, which do have reduced PFs.
Checking the figures with my "PF corrected" charger and the Kill-A-Watt, it appears that the PF correction may come at the cost of some efficiency. Not quite sure. Anyway you are way better off generator wise with a higher PF even if you are not as efficient.
Since it is confusing, you will often see blurbs using "efficiency" and "PF" as though they were the same thing.
Meanwhile, PF has to do with how much of the input as supplied (VA) gets used to make up the input watts. Or in this view, how much extra supply you need to get those needed input watts.
You also have some goings on where the PF of the same load appliance can be different depending on the input voltage being high like 126v vs low like 116v, which baffles me, but Mr Wizard seems to have some notion how that goes. Very mysterious!
Whatever, you need more than the advertised converter "watts" from the generator to run a battery charger, because they are not "resistive" loads with no reduced PF. Chargers are more like motors etc, which do have reduced PFs.
Checking the figures with my "PF corrected" charger and the Kill-A-Watt, it appears that the PF correction may come at the cost of some efficiency. Not quite sure. Anyway you are way better off generator wise with a higher PF even if you are not as efficient.
Since it is confusing, you will often see blurbs using "efficiency" and "PF" as though they were the same thing.
