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Victron Phoenix 12V/1200VA wattage

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GregW4

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Mar 23, 2024
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Location
Salmon Arm, BC
I am testing out a Victron Phoenix 12v/1200VA for installation in my RV. The vendor had labeled the inverter as 1000W as additional information about the product.

The key use case is the Instant Pot Lux Mini. It's documentation say it uses a 700W Heating Element (plus a small amount of electronics). As 700W was much smaller than the vendors stated 1000W and because there is no motor or induction, I was confident it would work.

As part of the test bed, I have installed a Victron Energy VE.Direct Smart Dongle (Bluetooth) for monitoring purposes. I also have a Victron Shunt as part of the circuit and a clamp meter on the AC output side.

The good news is that it works. However, the system status information during my trial run worries me.
- Shunt shows current flow from battery: -65.36 Amps at 12.40V for a power of 811W
- VE.Direct (from the inverter) shows power delivered to the InstaPot: 1124VA and AC Output 120V with battery voltage of 12.28V.
- Clamp Meter shows 5.9 Amps between the Inverter and the Instapot

I understand there is no direct correlation between the VA output of the Inverter (1124VA) and the Inverter input power in DC Watts (811W). However, I am concerned that I may have been confused by the vendor describing it as 1000W Inverter.
- Instapot called out a 700W load.
- AC watt arithmetic of AMPS x Volts = 5.9*120 ~=700W.
My concern is that it would seem the inverter is barely able to handle a 700W resistive load. Interested if my concerns are my misunderstanding or if others have had similar experiences. Perhaps mine is misbehaving?
 
The Victron AC current sensors/power output loads are not horribly accurate.

The DC side is pretty accurate.

The inverter will meet its claimed max efficiency at about 30% of rated VA, so the efficiency will be less than peak since you're at about 68% rated.

111/700 = 15.9% loss, which is about right.
 
Yep, remember most inverters lose 15% or so efficiency. Almost all the tested power stations I see also, the AC inverter is 85 to 87% efficient only.
 
GregW4 said:
I am testing out a Victron Phoenix 12v/1200VA for installation in my RV. The vendor had labeled the inverter as 1000W as additional information about the product.

The key use case is the Instant Pot Lux Mini. It's documentation say it uses a 700W Heating Element (plus a small amount of electronics). As 700W was much smaller than the vendors stated 1000W and because there is no motor or induction, I was confident it would work.

As part of the test bed, I have installed a Victron Energy VE.Direct Smart Dongle (Bluetooth) for monitoring purposes. I also have a Victron Shunt as part of the circuit and a clamp meter on the AC output side.

The good news is that it works. However, the system status information during my trial run worries me.
- Shunt shows current flow from battery: -65.36 Amps at 12.40V for a power of 811W
- VE.Direct (from the inverter) shows power delivered to the InstaPot: 1124VA and AC Output 120V with battery voltage of 12.28V.
- Clamp Meter shows 5.9 Amps between the Inverter and the Instapot

I understand there is no direct correlation between the VA output of the Inverter (1124VA) and the Inverter input power in DC Watts (811W). However, I am concerned that I may have been confused by the vendor describing it as 1000W Inverter.
- Instapot called out a 700W load.
- AC watt arithmetic of AMPS x Volts = 5.9*120 ~=700W.
My concern is that it would seem the inverter is barely able to handle a 700W resistive load. Interested if my concerns are my misunderstanding or if others have had similar experiences. Perhaps mine is misbehaving?
Click to expand...
While it's rated for 1200VA they can deliver significantly more than that for a short time assuming the battery system is robust enough to deliver.
 
GregW4 said:
My concern is that it would seem the inverter is barely able to handle a 700W resistive load. Interested if my concerns are my misunderstanding or if others have had similar experiences. Perhaps mine is misbehaving?
Click to expand...
The maths seem to indicate that it is not a purely resistive load.

Only when power factor is 1 does real power (watts) = apparent power (VA).

This is the oft talked about beer and the foam example.

Inverters, breakers and wiring must all sized for VA regardless of how many watts we are getting from them.

In other words.... you have to pay for the entire glass regardless of how much beer is in there.

1712799248409.png
 
OzSolar said:
The maths seem to indicate that it is not a purely resistive load.

Only when power factor is 1 does real power (watts) = apparent power (VA).

This is the oft talked about beer and the foam example.

Inverters, breakers and wiring must all sized for VA regardless of how many watts we are getting from them.

In other words.... you have to pay for the entire glass regardless of how much beer is in there.

View attachment 208501
Click to expand...
This is great! Now I understand. All it took was 2 beers!
 
Victron app is coded in a dumb way and I complained to them about it. They take real power reading and multiply by 1.2 to display fake VA number and limit inverter output by that. So if you are driving 1000 W load with PF of 1 the app shows 1200 VA which is totally false because at PF of 1 it should be 1000 VA. This is what you are seeing with your case. It seems like their engineering is ran by IT guys without a clue about electrical theory.
 
Last edited:
I helped a buddy with that same inverter in his van over the weekend.

The part that I liked was the DC terminal clamps were pretty solid.

The part that I didn't like was that they are ridiculously close together. Using fine stranded wire, it would just take one small out of place strand and there would be a short - at least briefly.

There is also no cover over the DC side so objects can fall onto the wire terminal, and no wire guides to help prevent over bending the input wires, so make sure to be careful about wire bend radius and similar.

Compared to other inverters with real terminals for ring type connectors and some wire protection, it was kind of a let down mechanically.

I might be spoiled from mostly working on higher end inverters though....
 
Hi, Thanks for the responses. I think I provided so much data on my initial post that my question became really hard to find. So here goes a hopefully more clear attempt.

My shunt shows that the inverter is receiving 811W. My Clamp Meter shows that the Instapot is receiving 700W of apparent power (5.9Amps@120V). This all seems to make sense as one of the responses indicated "111/700 = 15.9% loss, which is about right"

However, the Inverter is reporting the 700W of apparent power as 1124 VA. One of the other responses indicated that Victron "take real power reading and multiply by 1.2 to display fake VA number and limit inverter output by that.". The datasheet for the inverter indicates that Cont.power at 25°C is 1200VA or 1000W, which could support the simplistic algorithm model.

Finally, I reran the test again today and the max VA was now below 1000 (versus 1124 yesterday) while the Shunt and Clamp Meter readings remained consistent.

My only thought at this point is that perhaps the Victron Inverter has a sensing error on its output?
 
GregW4 said:
However, the Inverter is reporting the 700W of apparent power as 1124 VA.
Click to expand...
Hmm that should be 847 VA if they were to multiply by 1.2
I used to have 24V 1200VA Phoenix that did that.
Maybe these inverters are this badly inaccurate.
 
Thanks for reading about my experience. Did another test setup yesterday with a 900w kettle (simpler device). It overloaded the Inverter showing a VA of 1354. DC shunt showed 1032W which at 85% efficiency would provide under 900W. AC Output amps 7.15, again under 900W.

Talked with the distributor and they will take the warranty case to Victron next week. They believe Victron will replace the inverter. I will post the resolution later.
 
If you ever have a chance to plug a 120 vac - battery charger into your inverter, I am very curious how it works.

Some combinations will cause the inverter to "buzz" and I am wondering if that will happen with this unit or not. Thanks
 
HarryN said:
If you ever have a chance to plug a 120 vac - battery charger into your inverter, I am very curious how it works.

Some combinations will cause the inverter to "buzz" and I am wondering if that will happen with this unit or not. Thanks
Click to expand...
I have a couple of IP22 chargers I can try a 12V 30A one in the next day or two.
 
Brucey said:
I have a couple of IP22 chargers I can try a 12V 30A one in the next day or two.
Click to expand...

That would be wonderful if it works out.

I sometimes use the ( starter battery ) - ( breaker ) -- ( inverter ) - ( 120 vac charger ) -- (house battery pack ) method of charging.

Roughly 600 watts.

On another forum, there are some people experimenting with using the adjustable input voltage cut off of this inverter to turn it on and off.

Basically make it as high as possible so that it turns on / off with the alternator operation.

On some vehicles, it is easy to tap into a real engine run signal, on others it is more challenging.
 
GregW4 said:
Thanks for reading about my experience. Did another test setup yesterday with a 900w kettle (simpler device). It overloaded the Inverter showing a VA of 1354. DC shunt showed 1032W which at 85% efficiency would provide under 900W. AC Output amps 7.15, again under 900W.

Talked with the distributor and they will take the warranty case to Victron next week. They believe Victron will replace the inverter. I will post the resolution later.
Click to expand...
Victron honoured their warranty and I received a new Victron Phoenix 12V/1200VA Inverter today.

Tested it with the 900W Kettle - same result as before: it went into Overload and halted. The measurements from the shunt, inverter and clamp meter were all quite similar. The only additional datapoint I gathered was from a watt meter I installed before the kettle. Unsurprisingly it showed 892W (again confirming the load was 900W as specified).

Fortunately for me, my real use case is a 700W Instapot, which it was able to handle with an Inverter load of 1124VA. I'll test it a few times cooking dinner to be sure its reliable as 1124VA is very close to the 1200VA limit.

As a final note, my installation meets Victron recommendations: battery is 150AH 12V CanBat Lithium, with the wiring to the battery of Ancor AWG2.
 
GregW4 said:
Victron honoured their warranty and I received a new Victron Phoenix 12V/1200VA Inverter today.

Tested it with the 900W Kettle - same result as before: it went into Overload and halted. The measurements from the shunt, inverter and clamp meter were all quite similar. The only additional datapoint I gathered was from a watt meter I installed before the kettle. Unsurprisingly it showed 892W (again confirming the load was 900W as specified).

Fortunately for me, my real use case is a 700W Instapot, which it was able to handle with an Inverter load of 1124VA. I'll test it a few times cooking dinner to be sure its reliable as 1124VA is very close to the 1200VA limit.

As a final note, my installation meets Victron recommendations: battery is 150AH 12V CanBat Lithium, with the wiring to the battery of Ancor AWG2.
Click to expand...
The power factor of the load is clearly pushing it beyond its 1200VA limit. What was the inverter load showing with the 892W kettle?
 
I have the 24/1200 Phoenix .. it was bought to service approximately a 6-800 watt continuous load as an alternate inverter seperate than the multi+ ( it’s a stand alone unit not connected to the
main …it only has the one 120 volt outlet , not the ground fault outlet…it purposly has a bit of head room for my needs .

I have only seen it trip when having a few little things on and turn on the 5000 btu window unit…it will not trip unless it hits 2400 watts for more than 5 seconds… it will surge upwards and crank the A/C fine unless I have overloaded it by accident ..

Other than that it has been nothing but excellent in running things I don’t want on the multi…it has great surge ability and does it’s job.…..no problems in any way.

At such time as they ever build a simple USA 120v model inverter only , of 1600- 2000 watt ,,I will add that to my blue collection..

J.
 
Been very pleased with my 48/1200, it can start my propane dryer which varies between 800 and 500W but has a startup surge that trips up my 2400W rated Delta 2 max.
 
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Brucey said:
Been very pleased with my 48/1200, it can start my propane dryer which varies between 800 and 500W but has a startup surge that trips up my 2400W rated Delta 2 max.
Click to expand...
Sounds about right …. I find it’s always best to buy a device that’s has more ability than one ever needs , if possible..very few things in life like being maxed out all the time…

It’s just victro doesn’t have a 1600 /2000 watt inverter for the USA market ( that I’m aware of) and I don’t want to buy a 2000 watt multi+ to never use it as a charger…lots more money….

Meh… eventually they will get to that size unit…
 
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