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What kind of running time can i expect on the 12 volt aux. (house) battery,fully charged,engine off. t.v. lites,frige,etc.do the small inverters rob much current?? thanks.
It all depends on the capacity of the battery. A single 24 series battery with loads you listed wont last the night. 2 six volts might get you 2 nights.
A good inverter will only require a few hundred milliamps at idle and draw current proportional to the load on it as a function of heat dissipation. These ratings are on the inverter or in the documentation.
Batteries are rated in amp hours (AH) and the rating will include a depth of discharge (12 volts drawn down to 9.6 volts would be an 80% depth of discharge). A 96AH battery can provide 96 amps for 1 hour until the battery hits the specified depth of discharge.
Add up all the amperage load on the battery, including the inverter, and look at the AH rating of the battery. Divide the AH rating by Amps load and that's the hours the battery will provide before it drops below a specified voltage. Your Inverter may shut down when voltage drops below 10 or 11 volts, so factor that in.
It's a good idea not to deep cycle batteries below 80% depth of discharge (DOD) on a regular basis. Each battery has it's own preferance: Flooded batteries like to be used heavily and charged fully and will survive occasional overcharging, AGM likes to be used medium duty, regularly, and left fully charged. AGM batteries will be damaged from overcharging. Batteries in series increase voltage and do not increase AH rating. Batteries in parallel increase the AH rating and do not increase voltage. Batteries in series and in parallel need to be matched or the smaller battery will be destroyed by the larger one.
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