Reassessing power usage. Anyone know the power usage of the Wineguard amplified wind up/down antennas used on many current vans? Been searching online and 12 volts is the only thing I can see listed.

Cheers, John.

John

I have the old type Winegard antenna, but perhaps the amplifier is the same, as you can just stick your type of newer aerial on as a retofit, so perhaps the power used is still in the same ballpark

Using an el cheapo DC clamp meter, so my figures should never be taken as gospel

My Wingard amplifier uses 0.5 amps

As a sidenote

13 LED lights, plus TV with amplifier OFF = a bit less than 4.5 amps

13 LED lights, plus TV with amplifier ON = a bit less than 5 amps

13 LED lights, plus TV using Sat Dish, through the Sat Box, not using aerial or amplifier, with the TV loud = a bit more than 5 amps

I notice that the amps increase and decrease, in proportion to the volume of the TV
I do not have 13 lights on at the same time, I just wanted to know what my worst case power scenario would be

I recently purchased an el cheapo Aldi Stirling 40 litre chest fridge, and below are my numbers from another post
The advertised usage of 3.7 amp, is in the ballpark, as on minus 22°C (the lowest temperature setting), and the fridge hot, my readings were 4.2 amp on MAX and 2.7 amp on ECO

Therefore my worst scenario power usage will be 9.2 amps for as many hours as everything is switched on

Hope that this info is useful to someone in the future

Thanks Tony, Much appreciated.

Cheers, John.

Yes, most things that have lights illuminated when they are switched off still draw small to large phantom currents. Likewise if they have a standby state they will have some large phantom current drawn by the circuit that is alive and awaiting a switch on signal.

I have an amplified TV antenna that draws about 3 - 400 mA of current. When off power I power the antenna and TV set through a Merit plug. When the TV is switched off the plug is pulled to kill the power draw completely.

I now have an answer to my OP. Just got finished installing a Victron BMV700 battery monitor in the van. It shows the Wineguard as using 3 watts when switched on.  Of interest also with summer rapidly approaching, it shows the Caframo Cirocco 2 fan to use 3 w on low, 4 w on medium and 6 w on high speed.

Cheers, John.

I thought that measuring the current draw of each of your appliances would be rather simple (or should that adjective apply to me).

My new 12v system is just about ready for installation .. just waiting for the last couple of components to arrive.  Hope it doesn't go bang or smoke when I 'throw the big switch'.

Although I have an (el cheepo $50 DC Programmable 0-200V 0-500A Voltage AMP Ah Power Combo Meter Battery Monitor) battery monitor unit   I was just going to record all of my usages by ..

1. Connecting my Fluke amp meter in the negative lead to the battery & recording the 'at rest' draw if any.

2. Then connecting each of the appliances individually in turn & recording the change.

3. As a check the next step is to connect the amp meter in place of the fuse for each appliance & comparing the draw when switched on against the results from step 2.

ps  ..  I will check what the battery monitor records at each step too.   This will give me some confidence in it, or lack thereof as the case may be.   It has a low V cut out facility too that I have wired via a spare 30a relay that I had lying about ....  fingers crossed.

edit ....

Off now to make up a spread sheet to record the results ...  will add a formulae to do the amps to watts conversion perhaps.   I hope that I still have the Excel skills that I relied on so heavily before I retired some 20 years ago.