Happy with the power demands of your "off grid" tv?

softdown · February 4

Switched from a 55” LG to a 43” Sansui a few years ago. Power consumption being 100% of the rational. But I still notice “significantly" lower battery bank voltage following an evening of tv viewing. Note that I exclusively use the “power saving” energy mode.

Kill-a-watt meter shows current draw of ~ 32 watts as I recall. Seems pretty low but stumped by steady drain on battery bank voltage when viewing night time television for hours.

So I thought hard about a smaller tv. Maybe ~32” or less. But looking at the projected energy usage was quite a disappointment. Plus they almost all have miserable sound and I do enjoy late night music videos.My sound bar has good sound but seems to take significant energy as well.

TLTR: Have you found a good small to medium sized tv with somewhat remarkable energy efficiency? Pretty decent sound an added bonus.

WaterWheel · February 4

My 55" tv draws 55 watts as I recall but my old Direct TV router/modem drew an additional 75 watts pretty much 24 hours a day.

Now days I use Starlink which draws about 50 watts on average but in freezing weather draws much more as it uses a heater in the antenna to melt ice.

softdown · February 4

Have heard that Direct TV is an energy hog. My router uses ~ 10 watts while the cell phone signal booster uses ~ 14 watts.

I did recently increase the speed of the router internet and that may have increased the power usage? Logic was providing a signal to Ring cameras in more distant locations. Seem to be working in spite of two walls of steel siding. Perhaps the signal passes through cut outs in the steel siding?

JRHill · February 4

Our highest usage for the day is in the evening until bedtime. During that time we use a 31" LG and DirecTV satellite, a 4' LED in the kitchen, a box fan behind the woodburner and the ceiling fan going on medium or low. The Starlink runs 24x7. Plus the various wall warts, etc. We have a 10 year old Panasonic BlueRay sound system we rarely use and my gosh that thing is a power hog. It's just the way it is, year after year. In the winter sunlight 'blackout' and in our climate, even for snow and sleet, we have the StarLink heater turned off as the normal power setting keeps it clear. But this year I did have to turn it on for and the build up slipped off in 2 hours - then I shut it back off for hopefully another few years.

The only thing that is of benefit is to do the daily generator run (2.5 hours) in the winter during the evening so that higher load is being covered with the inverter bypassing into the house while charging batteries at the same time.

Overall, with respect to conservation and efficiency, the biggest offender is the mandatory generator time each day during the sunlight blackout. I have done EVERYthing I can for efficiency and the generator is the worst offender, fuel prices are another conversation. For us a cheap 3.5k (continuous) inverter generator is the sweet spot. It can run on ECO mode at 50% rating and less than full load RPM, throttling up/down as necessary.

@ Mr Softdown, "I did recently increase the speed of the router internet and that may have increased the power usage? Logic was providing a signal to Ring cameras in more distant locations." Man, you are really getting into the nitty gritty and moving a Kill-A-Watt around, noting and calculating everything and keeping track of it as a project. Let me guess: in the end you probably changed little vs the already power conserving lifestyle you live?

So the question to the audience: what did you do that was the largest efficiency gain over all?

softdown · February 5

I’ve suffered energy creep since 2015. Good thing this valley is a solar energy paradise. I use the generator less than once/year.

My panels are at 45 degrees at a latitude of 37 degrees. They do great in the winter for that reason.

I’ve done nothing that saved a lot of energy since I’ve done nothing that uses a lot of energy. Well, there are the freezers and fridges but edible food can be on the important side. Thats my logic.

I’m always looking for ways to lower energy consumption.

Just added four more Ring floodlight cameras to the existing array of three. Seems to be consuming significant energy but too early to draw a conclusion. The last two were mounted two days ago in the middle of a cloudy spell. Battery voltage fell to 47 volts and sits at a paltry 48.8 volts at 6pm following a sunny day. I fear a battery may have bit the dust during the low voltage spell. One bad cell draws down the entire array.

I’ll know where I sit in 1-2 days of sunny weather.

Happy with the power demands of your "off grid" tv?

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