Hi, does anyone have any information on the use of a power invertor to run a tv & digi box? I understand that there are two types, which is the best one to use. Does anyone have any good or bad points about them. thanks Mariegwyn
The two types you may be refering too are Pure Sine Wave and Quasi (modified sine wave)
Pure sine wave costs a lot more money to buy and is as near perfect as normal mains electricity, Quasi is not quite as good a match. Pure sine wave is not as efficient at converting from 12v (for example say it took 11 amps to make 120w, a puresine wave would take say 12 Amps, Not accurate but just trying to indicate the principle.
Some TV's can experience a rolling line on Quasi Sine invertor, this only effects some CRT TV's but by no means all.
LCD TV's are not affected by Quasi (I have found) and digi boxes are also alright on Quasi.
2 questions, is it ok to run more than 1 piece of equipment off a sinfle inverter, ie Tv and Digibox? And the last question is what type of aerial would you use to pick up digi signals?
Yes you can run several pces of equipment of a single invertor the Only restriction is the power that the invertor can supply (and of course your battery bank!)
I have heard that the freeview boxes can be run successfully from Status aerials
Don't need an inverter for all digi boxes, some of them run from a 12 volt psu, just connect it to your leisure battery directly (via a fuse anyway) more energy efficient.
Come to think of it, the same statement applies to a lot of smaller lcd tvs.
A leisure battery is flat if it is registering 12v, on hook up even with a zig the voltage will be 13,8 volts that a 15% overvoltage, if it as any kind of decent charger/power supply this could reach 15 volts a 25% OVER VOLTAGE, in some cases this could destroy the equipment.
I have heard of lcd TV's being destroyed by direct connection (no first hand experience ie no-one I know directly)
Thinking of staying on site without hookup and would like to know if it is feasible to run a freeview dig box and a 15ins lcd tv. Iv`e got a new 110amp battery + a solar panel, this is the reason that I`m making enquiries about using a power inverter to run the above items. Would appreciate any help from anyone .
I wonder whethor you want to extend your stay with the solar panel or whethor you expect it to supply all needs and keep battery full, The feasability of this is down to panel size.
Lets say it uses 4 amps per hour to run TV set up, this would give 14 hours veiwing without the panel and if the battery was fully charged.
an 80 watt panel may put something like 10 Ah into battery in winter and maybe 20ah in summer, both of the above are based on Australian sun hours.
depends how long you want to watch tv for each day....
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