Topic: What size inverter?

[Strideplayer]

I still travel in my travel trailer and go without electrical power once in a while.
Question - can anyone tell me what size inverter, pure sine wave, would I need to comfortably power arranger keyboard like Genos 2, or perhaps a P525, plus two monitors (JBL305) and perhaps an attachment or two? I'm clueless when it comes to power requirements.

Thanks, Strideplayer

[MikeS]

Genos1 power usage is only about 30W, Genos 2 should be similar. JBL305 max power usage is 127W according to rear power panel on unit, actual power usage should be less. That's 300W to cover the 3. Total power will depend on your attachments, can you specify?

The next step is how much battery power you will need. One way to determine this is to place a (cheap) power monitor on the mains power feed to all your gig equipment and measure the total power used for an entire performance, including idle time, in kilo watt hours (kWh). If your performance lasted 2 hours and used 0.3 kWh of power that's 300 watt hours / 2 hours = 150 watts average power but the inverter has to cover the peak power of 300W + attachments. The battery has to provide 300 watt hours of energy, for a 12 volt battery you would need 300/12 = 25 Amp Hour capacity but you have to allow for inverter and battery efficiency. At 85% efficiency actual battery capacity required would be 25/0.85 = 30AH.

Battery/inverter efficiency will depend on the battery type, lead acid battery efficiency depends on load and could be less than 75%. Lithium battery efficiency is much less dependent on load and battery/inverter efficiency can be 90%.

[Divemaster]

Take a look at Jackery Pure Sine Wave equipment.
Might suit your needs perfectly..

Check out this recent thread.


https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,67498.0.html



Keith

[Mikk]

When you first switch on a appliance many use a lot of extra power to get going. so you need to be able to check/monitor the of what you are going to plug into your inverter. Note that all inverters have to be close to the battery supplying the power. no more than 500 mm, 50 cm, 1.7 feet and you  must only use the ones supplied or ones that have a heavier amp rating
If your battery supply is not very easy to get to, like under the bonnet get one with a  WIRED remote. wireless remotes are unreliable on 5 inverters that I have tested. 
A common watt tester is one like this.
https://www.jaycar.co.nz/mains-power-meter-with-extendable-lcd-display/p/MS6108
which I use.
Very Important.
Many inverters I have used, low quality to high quality can at random switch off for half to 2 seconds(brownout) which could have a bad effect on sensitive equipment so all my  inverters are now  connected to UPS (uninterrupted power supply) so your appliance has a continuous power supply.
Here is one.
https://www.jaycar.co.nz/650va-390w-line-interactive-ups-with-lcd-and-usb/p/MP5205?pos=2&queryId=8634f734cf057b8d50bb2c88de789649&sort=relevance&searchText=blazer%20ups

Note:- if you don't use your UPS for a while make sure to plug it in occasionally to keep the UPS battery fully charged. I have found the BLAZER brand of UPS to be very reliable. Mine have had more than 5 years of continuous use.

[RayClem]

A couple of suggestions which I hope you will find helpful.

1. Rather than your JBL monitors which consume a substantial amount of power, you might switch to using headphones when on battery power. They are a lot more power friendly.

2. When starting up equipment, start up only one piece at a time. Do not put everything on a switched power strip and use it to start up everything at once. Many devices use a lot more power to start up than they do once running. Always start the most power hungry device first and let it settle down before starting up other devices.

3. Always test your plan with the UPS plugged into mains power and watch what happens to the output voltage. If you see a significant drop when plugged in, make some alterations to your plan before trying that on battery power.