Calculating current consumption is a simple matter if you have clarified the relevant units of measurement, it is often confused when it comes to Amps, Volts, Watts, KiloWatts. In this article, we start with the basics, without getting too technical, until you understand how to independently calculate the power consumption of your motorhome.
First of all, we will explain to you what the basic units of measurement are.
CURRENT: AMPER (A)
Ampere is one of the basic units and all other electromagnetic quantities are derived from it. You can think of the ampere as the unit that measures the intensity of electric current. For a simple comparison, imagine a pipe through which water flows, the density in Amperes can be compared to the amount of water flowing into the pipe.
VOLTAGE: VOLT(V)
Volt is the unit of measurement of voltage or electrical potential difference, to put it more technically. To take an example, returning to the concept of a tube with water, Volts equals pressure, or to simplify it even more, you can compare it to the inflation pressure of a tyre.
POWER: WATT (W)
Watt power is not strictly an electrical quantity, but is more equivalent to the expression of labor (both thermal and mechanical). In this case, what you need to understand is that the hotter an object (blender, electric stove, boiler, etc.) gets, the more current it consumes and therefore power (Watts) it produces.
Yes, since power (Watt) is closely related to current and voltage, power is actually calculated by multiplying current by voltage.
W = A x V
Note: To keep things simple, we can say that the above formula is always correct. So, to figure out how many Watts an object consumes, you just need to multiply the current by the voltage, even if this only applies to purely resistive loads, but since our calculations are based on approximate models, we can do the following. Simplify as much as possible.
In order not to throw too much meat on the fire, we did not voluntarily mention the concept of resistance. We underline these concepts so that those who violate them do not turn their noses.
KILOWATT (KW)
KiloWatts corresponds to 1000 Watts. Simple. When we talk about 3 Kw we are talking about 3000 W.
KILOWATT HOUR (KWH)
We need this unit of measure to estimate the total power a device uses, ie how many KiloWatts per hour my object consumes. So, for example, if we keep our boiler on, which consumes 300 W for 6 hours, we will consume a well-defined KiloWatt Hour.
HOW TO KNOW HOW MANY KILOWATT HOURS AN OBJECT CONSUMED?
We talked about Amps (current) and Volts (voltage) but you won't actually need them to do complex calculations, we mentioned them for information, by the way, to understand what we're talking about.
This is because to understand how many Watts an object consumes, it is sufficient to read the special plate on all electrically powered objects.