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
Joel_T wrote:
Not that it'll help me in future purchases :B but... 1VA = 1W. So what's the difference between a VoltAmp and Watt.
red31 wrote:
That is correct for DC but AC is always changing and some components cause V and A to be out of sequence, they can increase current without doing work, can decrease V without doing work.
Push on something at an angle, VA is your total pushing force, W is the force applied in the direction of movement. So ya need to apply VA to get W. Utilities have the extra on demand, a generator needs to provide VA, why I suggested a 520 watt battery charger for the OP's 1000 gen.
Perhaps this practical example as it relates to those of us who RV will help clarify why VA is so important for correctly selecting a genset for the task at hand ....
Let's say we have a converter / charger designed to deliver 60 amps to the batteries while bulk charging @ 14.4 volts. 60 x 14.4 = 864 watts, in which case a Honda EU1000i which is rated at 900 watts continuous would seem to be suitable. However, let's say that converter's PF is rated @ 0.7, which is pretty common for many converter / chargers. Plug that into this watts > VA calculator and we see that what we actually need that EU1000i genset to produce is 1234 VA. :E Problem is it can't, which is why an EU2000i would be the more appropriate choice in this case.
