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Old 05-28-2011, 10:33 AM   #6
israndy
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 11
Default Re: Battery Backup devices

If you have an APC already, fine, but if you are shopping for one for this purpose, don't. You already own the battery part of the equation, all you need is an inverter to have a complete backup power supply. Inverters are cheap these days. I just got a 400 watt from Duracell for about $40 on eBay.

Run that to the TV and you have 110v w/just enough power to have the TV on so you are not wasting energy. I had a 40 watt for almost a year and it was fine, but I could never eject the DVD in the drive, the unit would reset. Now that I have 400 watts it works perfectly, but I have to keep listening to the fan spin up for a second twice a minute. Might make sense to get a smaller or fan free inverter if this is something you are going to do a lot of, or just stash the inverter where it cannot be heard.

Now if your concern is that you don't wanna mess with the batteries in the RV by using them to watch the TV realize you would have the same maintenance issues with an APC of batteries needing replacement. If the issue is wanting more battery, which I am dealing with, you might want to look into getting two 6 volts to replace your 12 volt. Only slightly larger depending on where they are stored.

-Randy
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