Inverters

[Sailor Bob]

Can anyone tell me if an inverter actually uses additional energy to
convert DC to AC? Is it a percentage in direct proportion to the
conversion?

thank you

Bob

 

[John Popelish]

Sailor Bob wrote:

Can anyone tell me if an inverter actually uses additional energy to
convert DC to AC? Is it a percentage in direct proportion to the
conversion?

Yes, it uses additional energy that must escape as heat. There is
some minimum loss, just to run the converter, unloaded, some
proportional losses, and some losses proportional to the square of the
load. If the designers concentrated on efficiency, all these losses
may amount to 5% to 10% of the full load output (90to 95 % full load
efficiency. All units are zero percent efficient at no load.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

"Sailor Bob" <boblinfortino@yahoo-dot-com.no-spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:vcCdnbGX2dNTkQTfRVn_vg@giganews.com...

Can anyone tell me if an inverter actually uses additional energy to
convert DC to AC? Is it a percentage in direct proportion to the
conversion?

John gave you some good answers. Let me add one thing -- if you model the
input power going to an inverter as something like:

Pin = A*Pout+B (watts)

....where A is perhaps 1.10 (~10% losses or ~90% inverter efficiency), the
constant loss term (B) tends to be proportional to the _maximum_ power the
inverter was designed for. It's not uncommon to see something like a 5,000
watt maximum inverter that'll sit there and dissipate 25 watts under no load,
because the designers figured normally you'd probably be running 2-4kW and,
hey, what's 25W vs. a few kilowatts? On the other hand, something like a
little 300W inverter would hopefully dissipate, say, no more than 3W under no
load.

Moral of the story (all other things equal): Don't buy an inverter _too_ much
bigger than you need!