Members JAD. Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 I am doing some research on pure sine wave inverters, to be able to perform remotely at wedding ceremonies. I am a soloist, and plan to use an A&H Zed10FX mixer into 1 QSC K10 speaker (I presume the acoustic guitar & mic don't draw much/any power). What size inverter would I need for this? I have access to deep cycle batteries, so there's no issue there. The three inverters I am currently considering are 1500W, 2500W & 3000W continuous - but I feel like these could be too much? What about if I was to add a second K10? Any information would be greatly appreciated, because I need to make this purchase soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cappttenron Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 I think you would be surprised how little you need. I would bet 750W would easily run that. I have used a Honda 2000W generator to run a whole band. Not for a 5k people but guitar amp, bass amp, basic 1000W PA with two FOH and two monitors. I read my Yamaha DXR only draws about 100W per speaker. I would go to a place I can easily exchange the item and try a 600W which is much cheaper than a 1500W and I'm pretty sure it will do what you need. You need a good quality pure sine wave if your using equipment with computers such as DSP and keyboards or modeling. Maybe some of the engineers have more experience but I gained mine using inverters on my boat and some outdoor gigs. I also owned battery powered stagemate that was 100w and it would run about 3 hours on the internal battery which is about 1/10 the size of a car batter. Deep cycle batteries are the way to go. In my boat I used 2 six volt golf cart batteries run in series so they came up to 12 volts. They lasted a long time. Also on batteries there are group 24, 27, 31 are the most common. The bigger then number the bigger the battery and more reserve amps you will have. The equipment you listed should only use about the equivalent of about 3 100W lightbulbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 Instead of pairing an inverter with a deep-cycle battery, you might want to consider something like this if form factor matters to you at all: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WynnD Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 Some of the smaller Honda generators would be a nice choice. They're flexible, quiet and very portable. (There is a reason that I included a brand. Most are noisy.) The K10 might draw 500 watts each when being pushed outdoors. You could probably ignore the wattage draw of the mixer. I would watch to make sure you're getting only class-D amplifiers. I think that's what is in the K-10s. (They don't waste power like other amp types. I come from an era when a 100 watt amp would draw 250 watts. Class D amp of 1000 watts might actually draw 1050 watts maximum so you might actually have to dissipate 50 watts of heat. More likely, you probably will never draw more than 300 watts and then it would be pretty loud.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 An inverter that's 750VA is probably a good choice for 2 x K series. You can not size an inverter based on average power. With a dynamic load you must have the capacity for the dynamics, which are not totally averaged out by the power supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cappttenron Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 While the 1k Honda generator is nice its not cheap. Your talking 800 or 900 dollars at least. A good 750W invertor probably can be had for less than half of that. Make sure you pay attention to the input voltage. If your only using one battery you need 12V, larger invertors usually use 24V or more. I've seen mobile work trucks use 1500W invertors for Power tools and I know they draw a hell of lot more current than a small powered speaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fdew Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 If money is a factor I would be tempted to use passive speakers and a good quality car amplifier. Then you just need a small inverter for the mixer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 I use a Duracell branded powerpack which has a 600w inverter and a ~200w/hr (wheelchair?) battery built in. It is MSW and not true sine wave output but I've not had issues with that, YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JAD. Posted July 8, 2014 Author Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 Ok, great. Thanks all for the feedback thus far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Telecruiser Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 I have heard that when powering class D amps using an inverter it is advised to use a pure sine type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JAD. Posted July 8, 2014 Author Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 Ok, thanks Telecruiser. That was the plan. Does anyone know if there is any disadvantage (other than $) to getting an inverter larger than what I may need? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cappttenron Posted July 8, 2014 Members Share Posted July 8, 2014 I think a larger inverter wouldn't hurt other than the dollars. Make sure you purchase a quality product and pure sine wave inverters are much more expensive. That's one reason I went for an inverter on the boat because generators are supposed to be sized for the load. I could always charge up the batteries with my 4.5kw generator which was just big enough to run the AC and some other things. AC draws a lot of power when it starts up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 9, 2014 Members Share Posted July 9, 2014 Larger inverters have greater % static losses at low loads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cappttenron Posted July 9, 2014 Members Share Posted July 9, 2014 AH what does that mean? Static loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Telecruiser Posted July 9, 2014 Members Share Posted July 9, 2014 AH what does that mean? Static loss. And does this affect the sound of the system or just the power consumption rate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bobby1Note Posted July 9, 2014 Members Share Posted July 9, 2014 I've been using inverters and deep-cycle batteries for quite a while now, and never had a lick of trouble. I've got a 300w Xantrex MSW inverter which I use for powering a small acoustic-guitar rig (AER Compact 60/2 combo-amp and Soundcraft EFX-8 mixer, and a couple of LED wash-lights). I also have a 1500w Xantrex MSW inverter, which handles a pair of Yorkville NX55P's (no subs) for FOH and the AER Compact 60/2 as a floor-monitor, plus either the EFX-8 or MFXi-8 for a mixer, and a few 4-bar and individual wash-lights. I use the same battery for either rig. The battery is a 12v/115 amp-hour deep-cycle battery, which allows me to run beyond 8 hours with the larger rig. We're generally using these rigs for private parties,,, back-yard events,,, camp-fire/bon-fire parties, with 80-100 people. Instruments are acoustic-electric guitars only, and we're generally running 3-4 vocal mics. Works great. I haven't tried adding a sub yet (LS-720P), because we generally don't need one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted July 9, 2014 Members Share Posted July 9, 2014 I rent a Honda EU2000I for various functions. At $52.00 for 24 hrs. it makes a lot more sense than buying an inverter and packing batteries etc... I'm sure renting an EU1000I would be cheaper still. You would be shocked how quiet they are on Economy mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 10, 2014 Members Share Posted July 10, 2014 Static losses are similar to quiescent losses, the additional power needed to support the ability to deliver the additional power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cappttenron Posted July 10, 2014 Members Share Posted July 10, 2014 Don't forget to get very heavy gauge wire from the unit to your battery. 4ga is recommended Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 11, 2014 Members Share Posted July 11, 2014 Static losses are really the same as standby losses... losses that are attributable to everything required to make the first watt of useable power. Does not affect the sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.