Power Usage

Just how much power did each item use.  It was a question that had been on my mind lately.  The number one power pig on any boat (and in most homes) is the refrigerator.  Risa was equipped  with an Alder Barbour Super Cold Machine.  It rings the meter at 70 watts and runs about half of the time (depending on the ambient temperature).  It needs around 75-80 amp hours a day!

The electronics came in much lower than originally predicted.  The webcams (with illumination turned off) drew about a quarter amp each. The Engenius network bridge drew a tenth of an amp. Risa-router: .3 amps. The Raspberry Pi another .3 amps, once booted, an additional .1 amp while booting and presumably anytime the load  gets high.

The whole kit-and-kaboodle pulls under 1.25 amps, or about 30 amp hours a day.  One additional note: the cameras drew the same wireless or wired.  I would have thought that wireless would use more power.  Dang-didn’t have to run those wires!

update: In the spring of 2022, I added third (bow view) camera. Updated network: Now running Netgear Nighthawk 4-stream, AX4, WiFi 6, 4G, LTE router. Supports WAN ethernet with LTE fallback. Current needs around 1.7aH.