Hi, if I have a 12 volt TV which states its power consumption is 8 amps, what size battery can I get that will run it for around 10 hours? I want to make a portable 12 volt pack for camping and fishing (away from the bus) with a battery from Maplins or somewhere, or perhaps from a golf cart or mobility scooter. Any help appreciated. Thanks. Ade.
If your battery was say 100Ah rated, it will supply 1 Amp for 100 hours. Dividing the 100 hours by the 8 amps your TV is using will get the amount of time the battery will supply power for: 100 divided by 8 = 12.5 The TV could be run for 12.5 hours with a 100Ah battery A small golf trolley battery is about 34 Ah rated so would only supply about 4 hours of power for your TV
Personally I would take a book but if you really need a telly to watch how about an iPad with pre downloaded films and TV program's
And don't forget that those numbers are best case, most chargers require a certain level of charge so once the battery gets low they will turn off for safety etc so real life is say you'll get about 10 hours. However, agree with sandy, get yourself a tablet or DVD player that you can charge before you go and then recharge if / when needed or get spare batteries for.
Actually the calculation is correct but you can't the the battery too low or it will ruin the battery and the TV won't work at probably less than 10.5 v or so so you could as a rule of thumb only use 1/3 of the full capacity of a fully charged battery. So you 100Ah battery will supply only 33.3Ah of usage before being flat and without damaging it. So you would get more like 4 hours from a 100Ah fully charged battery and it would probably take 12 hours to charge it fully back up again.
