How do you run your TV?

[senco 1]

Do you run your TV off a battery or a generator? I have a 13" TV/DVD player and can only watch 2 movies and my battery is dead. I'm running it through a 600 watt inverter to a deep cycle battery.

[landscaper]

i got a 13" tv/dvd (non-flat screen) and hook it to a 450 watt invertor (ithink it is 450) hooked to a deep cycle or reg. battery

[fishnhooks]

I run mine off the generator most of the time, but I also use a 300 watt inverter for when I don't. I am not for sure how many movies I can watch on the invertor but it is more than 2. Is your TV a tube TV or an LCD? LCD TV's are supposed to use less power than tubes. How old or how good is the battery you are using?

"hooks"

[Scott Stein]

maybe the battery is bad? not sure u dont say how old it is....try a smaller inverter too

[hovermn]

Batteries, but I have some doozies. Mine is a 13" Toshiba w/DVD running through a 300 or 400 watt inverter. It's just barly large enough to fire up the TV, sometimes taking several hits of the power button. Though once on, it works great.

Run time will depend on the size and age of your battery, as well as what else you're running, of course

[eyebjim]

I use a 400 watt inverter and I power a small under cabinet lcd tv (17 watts) and a sattelite receiver (27 watts) and it will run about 24 hours with a 125 amp hour 29 series battery. I ran last weekend from friday night at about 7pm til sunday at noon with one and it still had juice. I did turn it off for sleeping but it was on the rest of the time. I usually do not use any or very little light so that was with just the tv and sat (using the light from the tv for light). If I am using a fan and a couple of lights that drops to about 11 hours or so depending on dow many lights and how much I use the fan. Your tv/dvd player is likely about 60 watts so it uses a more than my 44 watts but you should get more than 4-5 hours for sure. try a new battery. You may save some power by getting a smaller inverter also. Last year I was only getting about 11 hours and I found that the battery was getting bad.

[senco 1]

My TV/DVD is a tube TV.It says 70 watts on the back of the TV. I tried a 400 watt inverter and it would not run it. Maybe my battery wasn't fully charged but the battery is only 2 years old. I only run the TV off this battery. I have a different battery that I use for the lights.

[hovermn]

Did you try hitting the power button several times? It sometimes takes 5-6 hits before she'll fire up because of the initial spike in power needed. Just a thought...

[senco 1]

Yes, I tried the power button several times.

[hovermn]

Here's another question. Is the inverter wired directly to the battery, or is it running through the 12V plug? To run my TV, I have to hard wire the inverter directly up to the battery, otherwise the inverter yells at me when I try to run the TV.

[senco 1]

It's wired directly to the battery.

[eyebjim]

On tube tv's there is a pretty big surge to start it up so you may need the bigger inverter just to get it running. The inverters are great with resistive loads but are not near as efficient with inductive loads like on the transformer of a tube tv. The inverter is probably using much more power than the tv is using because of that.

[cold one sd]

I ususlly run my generator to give my batteries a charge in the evening and I watch a movie or two at the same time. Everything in my shack runs off of batteries which is only lights, computer fans and am fm radio. I use two 12v 30 amp batteries to keep the weight down and it takes a couple hours to charge them in the evening.

[wplatehunter]

I run my portable DVD player off of a 12 volt battery. The same battery that runs the fans and lights.