SIMPLE ANDROID APPLICATION TO SELECT INVERTER FOR YOUR HOME

By
Baskar . k,
The purpose of this android application to select correct inverter for your home based on some
common parameters.
Capacity estimations:
Let us assume,you have three tube lights (40W each), three ceiling fans (70W each), one TV
that consumes 120W and a laptop that consumes 100W. The total power required would
be (340 + 370 + 1120 + 1100) = 550 watts.
Calculating inverter capacity:
Normally, the inverters are available with VA (voltage x ampere) ratings. To know the VA rating
of an inverter, you also need to know the power factor of the inverter. Assuming, the power
factor is 0.7, which is true in most cases, the required VA of your inverter can be obtained by
dividing the total power by power factor as follows:
VA = Total power/Power factor = 550W/0.7 = 785.7VA But 785.7VA is not a standard rating for
any inverter available in the market. So you should select an inverter having a rating of next
higher available value, such as 800V
Calculating battery capacity:
The next step is to decide which battery to buy. The type and capacity of battery would depend
on the back-up time you require. A domestic inverter normally uses a 12V battery, but the
batteries have different ampere-hour(ah)ratings. If you want an inverter battery that gives threehour back-up time, you can calculate the battery capacity requirement as follows.
In this case, Battery capacity = (550x3)/12 = 137.5ah
Here Ah stands for ampere-hours.But again, 137.5Ah is not a standard rating for the batteries
available in the market. So, again, you should buy a standard battery with ratings slightly
higher than this value, such as battery with 12V, 140Ah rating.

Android application screen shots:

Fig 1. Common parameters

Fig 2. Input loads

Fig 1 shows the common parameters like backup time, power factor battery voltage and fig 2
shows input loads for which inverter to be selected. Fig 3 shows the output parameters of the
inverter. From these parameters inverter will be chosen. And also load reference table is shown
in fig 4.

Fig 3. Output

Fig 4. Load reference table

Software Requirements:
Android operating system above froyo.
Note: i would like to improve this application, if you have any idea, please share with me, i will
try to implement.