Getting Started; Power Consumption - Cobra POWER 500W Owner's Manual

GETTING STARTED

This section provides you with the basic information about the inverter and a few tips before installation.
To get started, you will need:
1. A 12 Volt DC battery (i.e. vehicle battery. In order to understand how much current your battery must
deliver, divide the number of Watts from your AC appliance or device by 10.
2. Cables to connect your inverter to the vehicle battery. These come with your POWER 500W Inverter
and provide a length of 16".
DETERMINING THE POWER REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR PRO INVERTER
Before you turn on your power inverter and plug in an appliance or device, you will want to understand
its power requirements.
To determine the requirements, you will need to know the Watts of your device. This can be calculated by
multiplying the Amps by 110 Volts (See Below).

POWER CONSUMPTION

For each piece of equipment you will be operating from the power inverter, you must determine the
battery's reserve capacity (how long the battery can deliver a specific amount of current – in
automotive batteries, usually 25 ampere) or ampere-hour capacity (a measure of how many amperes
a battery can deliver for a specified length of time).
Example – Ampere-hour capacity: a battery with an ampere-hour capacity of 100 ampere-hours can
deliver 5 ampere for 20 hours before it is completely discharged.
To determine the battery Ampere-hour capacity you require:
1. Determine how many Watts each piece of equipment consumes. This can normally be found on the
product label.
power in Watts.
2. Estimate how long you need your appliance to
3. Now calculate the Amp-hour rating for the battery. You can do this by multiplying the total AC
load (in Watts) by the length of time (in Hours) needed to run your appliance. This will give you
the Watt-Hours needed.
4. Divide the watt-hours by 10 to determine how many battery (12 volt) ampere-hours will be
consumed.
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If only the Amperage is provided, then multiply the Amps by 115 to determine the
run.