No necessarily true. I have a top of the line Harbor Freight 1000W
inverter in Mellow Yellow and I've measured the current draw when its
idling without a load and it's in the low hundred milliamps. A 40 Ah
battery could last a week at that rate.

But the OP's point is still accurate: inverters draw power even when not
driving a load, but what do you expect? My radio draws power even with the
volume down. Or between stations. If you want to stop the power loss, turn
the thing off.

--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
Bend, OR
KG6RCR

On 10/27/2009 4:00 PM Michael Sullivan wrote:

> I'd be interested to know the kind of inverters used. I would think cheaper
> ones would drain like a wall wart.
> Michael in San Antonio
> 91GL AT 'Gringo'
> 73 Beetle
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Arkady Mirvis <arkmirvis@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fellow listees,
>>
>> Let me warn you about inverters. I have 2 installed in my Westy: 12 to 120
>> volts (400 watts) and 12 to 220 volts (200 watts). The reason I installed
>> the former one was to use the new type of efficient made by Philips bulb
>> consuming 11 watts and giving off same amount of lite as the old type 100
>> watts bulb. Four weeks ago I left the 12/120 inverter ON without any load.
>> Four days later my two batteries were almost totally discharged! I charged
>> the batteries and for 2 weeks did not drive Westy. The voltage was .7 less
>> than after charging.  Connected the inverter again with no load on it and in
>> 4 four days the batteries were discharged again. Charged the batteries,
>> connected 12/220 inverter and in 5 days the batteries were discharged to the
>> point that the starter hardly acted.
>> Please share with me if anyone had such experience. Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Ark.
>>
>