Inverters drawing power on stanby

Hey Jim just read this five mins ago on another site.

http://forums.overlander.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=20394

Jim, I haven't yet read Navaramans report, but I can tell you this......

Out of the 3 units I have, the DSE 300 Pure sine wave does draw a small amount of power on standby, this is for both the circuitry & cooling fan.

On the other 2 units, I have simply left them on all of the time, with no noticeable drain on battery power.

Cheers

Wolfie

My 4 year old Dick Smith 300W non sine wave inverter draws 600mA quiescent current. I have put a switch on the fan both to save a bit of current when the inverter is powering a small load and because the fan noise irritates me when I'm in the bush, however the fan only draws about 50mA.

I imaging the above figures will be typical for non sine wave inverters although more recent designs may be a bit better.

Mike Harding

I find that extremely hard to believe Jimbo, theres simply not enough circuitry there to consume that much power. I would expect under an amp at the worst

A lot depends on the quality and type of inverter. None will draw anything like 5 amps, but a chain-store special 300-watt inverter may draw around an amp (due to magnetisation losses in the transformer).

Better quality inverters have a 'sleep mode'. They detect when something is switched on - and spring immediately to life. A typical 300-watt such device will draw a bit over one third of an amp whilst in sleep mode.

Be very cautious with cheap inverters: this is well and truly a field where you get what you pay for. A good sine-wave inverter still costs at least $1 per watt. Yes - you can buy them for a third of that. But it's really not a clever idea to do so.
Trust this helps
Collyn Rivers

Jimbo
Why not run your inverter through a multimeter on amps and see what it says
regards Ron

good call collyn
my 400 watt invertor can draw up to 1 amp just to account for heat loss magnetism and fan while on standby .
hard to believe people dont read there manuals?

everything comes at a cost.

why not fit a isolator so the unit is only powered when you think you will need it such as a fuse from the second battery (if fitted) or even a powered switch?

just a thought

My Prostar Solar regulator shows that our pure sinewave 1800 watt inverter fitted in the caravan draws 1amp when it is in standby mode. You can hear a fan going in it, so it has to use some power.

Brian