AC200P fan coming on with almost no power draw

I am testing out AC200 to see how long and how much I can power on a full charge. I ran a small fan for about an hour and during that time, the watt usage was reading zero.

I then plugged in a fry baby deep fryer to drive the watts up and it was then showing about 1350 watts as expected. The fan turned on as expected. I ran this for about a minute satisfied that draw on watts was actually showing.

After turning off the fryer, the fan stopped after a minute or so, again as expected.

I then plugged in a small rechargeable TV to recharge the batteries. There is no watts usage showing as it must be pulling a very small amount, but after a few minutes, the fan turned again and the unit is warm on the top.

Is this just a situation were it got warm, fan started cooling it, turned off but didn’t fully cool it (kind of on the edge of turning on) and then the fan turned on again?

The unit is in my house at 74 degrees F.

I am new to this and really just learning about these units.

I will be running fryer later today long enough to cook dinner to see how it does.

those small fans do the same on mine…dont know exactly but anything under say 10-15 watts does not show,just a line of dots flowing,as for fan ,i have seen it come like that to,guess it dissipating heat…imageiw5

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So more testing… it seems that just having the unit on with AC ON, nothing connected and ECO turned off (so it doesn’t shut down), the unit itself is using 2% per hour. Is this normal? If so, then it would seem the MAX use out of the unit is less than 50 hours. Estimated operating time of 75 - 85 hours for LED lamp would be impossible if the unit can only run for 50 hours just on its own.

What am I missing?

most likely the residual heat from the 1350 watt load (takes some time to completely dissipate) was allowing the fan to turn on. You don’t have to wonder why the fan is coming on…each screen shows the temperature of the inverter, battery, unit temps so you can monitor the temps inside.

true if you leave it on …it uses power.
?do you know that just pushing the on/off button for say 2 seconds and the unit does shut down the screen/put the unit in standby…You need to hold the off button for more that 5 seconds to totally shut it down. if not it will continue to draw battery power with eco off.It will draw power with eco on /but will shut off after no load time out…i think this correct but somebody my have more info.If you are runnin a dc only load,shut off ac/inverter it run alot longer.

OK, I can understand it uses power when just sitting on since it is lighting up the screen and the button light. But it just seem excessive to me. The math (and manual) says you could do an LED bulb for 75 hours but in practice it seems you would be lucky to get 25 - 30 hours based on the draw of the unit itself. Seems a little disappointing to me but this is new, so my expectations may have been high about how much power I would get.

ac inverter is a power eater…and says you can use a led bulb?is it ac or dc bulb?how many watt bulb …i never read it,but something to think about,i have my ac200p over paneled with 4 x210 watt panels on garage roof,if im runnin a big load i plugin pv and do pass thru/if not i just run down to maybe 15/20 % charge up to 100% unplug as us make coffee/run fans/lights nick.nacks.

OK, makes some sense. The manual doesn’t specify if the LED Lamp is powered by AC or DC. It was the only estimate they provided that had a total of more then 50 hours.

As far as pass through, I have seen a mix on this. The manual says it supports it, but in the FAQ for the unit, the answer is: Sure. However, in order to better protect the cycle life of the battery, it is not recommended to charge and discharge the battery at the same time.

So I am staying away from that. If emergency then it will need to be done.

With regard to pass through, it works fine. Personally I like to keep the pass through to drawing no more that around a 50% ac inverter load. That way I am not running the battery discharge at 100% and charging at the same time.