BFL13 wrote:
So there you are after supper with DW watching a movie (10 amps say) and the furnace is on (7 amps say) and one light on (3 amps say)
So there you are with 20 amps draw for a two- hour movie, never mind the furnace going on and off)
So the difference is 20.5a vs 20.25a for two hours, or 41 AH vs 40.5 AH in the same time with the small inverter. This is a joke, right?
Yes, the difference is often not worth the trouble. Sometimes is is, when inverter draws 0.8-1.2A on idle 24/7, because you forget or don't care to turn it off.
3A light is a dinosaur. Mine are 0.3A (0.6A per double light), after conversion to LED of the same lumen output. 20 amps draw for a movie is a bit yesterday too. Good TV draws 2-2.5A, and MP3 or FLV files you can run on anything, probably even on thumb drive. In the end, drawing 5-7 AH for a movie and light, there is no notable savings on idle current even relatively to this low AH number.
But I think this math is flawed. Idle draw is a draw only when it idles. Like, keeping it on 24/7 without using it. When loaded, it's difficult to tell how much the idle draw affects the total draw because there is no "idle draw" then.
