Many of our customers start their adventure with BLUETTI by asking one of the most important questions: What can I charge with my new power station? And, quickly, as they start reviewing their main devices, they come to the next most important question: How do I convert from amps to watts?.
And we will talk about this second question in this article with the aim of familiarizing you with these two concepts and being able to know what energy capacity you can demand and expect from your BLUETTI power station.
Why is it important to know how to convert Amps to Watts?
If you own a power station or are thinking of getting one, the first things you need to know about are these two units of measurement: amps and watts. And it is very important because it is the only way to accurately control and manage the amount of energy that is being generated, consumed and stored in any electrical device.
Many times, people who use a power station do so in situations where there is no other source of energy, such as: on excursions to the mountains, in cabins in the middle of the woods, in blackouts etc. For this reason, it is crucial that whenever energy is used, it is in a conscious way to manage it as we want. Consuming more than you planned or running out of resources is a consequence of not knowing the most basic concepts, including amps and watts.
So arm yourself with patience because if you are not familiar with these topics, the explanation can be a bit dense, but we assure you that later you will understand everything much better. You will be able to plan your excursions, vacations or moments of emergency well knowing and calculating the different rates of consumption of household appliances and electrical devices.
What are amps and watts?
Both amps and watts are units of measurement used in the field of electricity. On the one hand, amps (A) are used to measure the intensity of electrical current in a circuit. Put more simply, amps are something like the force that electricity has to move, the more amps the stronger the electric current. On the other hand, watts (W) are used to measure electrical power that can be interpreted as the energy that an appliance consumes or produces. Going back to the simple explanations, we said that the amps are the “force”, since the watts are the “amount” of energy that an electrical device consumes or produces.
For example: a hair dryer can have a power between 800 and 2. 000 watts and an electrical current that can vary between 3 and 10 amps.
NOTE TO THE READER: If you want more information on the internet, you should know that many portals refer to watts as "Watts". This should not worry you and do not try to find how to go from watts to watts because they are exactly the same. No calculation or conversion is necessary if you want to convert from watts to watts. You can simply use the unit of measurement "watts" instead of "watts".
Some examples to better understand the two concepts
As we said, amperes (A) are used to measure the amount of electricity that moves per second in an electrical circuit. For example, knowing the amps of an electrical device can be very useful:
- If we want to charge a car battery (or any other battery) we must first know the capacity of the battery, let's say that our car battery has a capacity of 80 amps per hour (Ah ). It is recommended to use a charging current that is approximately 10% of the nominal battery capacity. In this case, 10% of 80 Ah equals 8 amps (A). Therefore, it would be highly recommended to charge the battery at a current of 8 amps. BLUETTI stations can provide up to 17 amps in their different charging ports. Therefore, we could charge the 80Ah car battery.
Watts (W) measure electrical power, that is, the amount of electrical energy that is consumed or produced per unit of time. For example, this unit is used when:
- We want to measure the power of an appliance such as a washing machine, refrigerator, television or computer. If we have a vacuum cleaner that consumes 1. 200 watts, we need a power station that has a capacity rating equal to or greater than 1. 200W In this case, it will be very important to know this value since if the power station has a nominal capacity less than 1. 200 W, when we connect the vacuum cleaner, the station could overheat and be damaged.
How to convert from Amps to Watts formula
Before we get into the conversion, we should briefly go into understanding volts (V). Another unit of measure with which we can calculate electrical voltage. And this measurement is important because the ratio of amps to watts is determined by Ohm's law, a law that also includes volts.
This law states that the electrical power consumed by a device (watts) is equal to the product of the electrical current flowing through the device (A) and the electrical potential difference (volts) applied to the device .
So, to convert from amps to watts, you need to know the electrical current in amps that flows through the device and the electrical voltage in volts that is applied to the device. From there, you can use the formula P = I * V to calculate the electrical power in watts consumed by the device.
- P is the electrical power in watts
- I is the electric current in amperes
- V is the electrical voltage in volts.
To understand it better, let's take for example an electrical device that consumes a electrical current of 5 amps and is connected to an electrical outlet with an electrical voltage of 120 volts
P = 5A * 120V
P = 600W
The power of that device is then 600 watts.
And how to convert from Watts to amps?
For opposite cases, that is, from watts to amps (A) the formula should be done like this: I = P / V
For example, if you have a lamp that consumes 60 watts and is connected to an electrical outlet with an electrical voltage of 120 volts. To calculate the electrical current in amps that flows through the lamp, you can use the formula I = P / V:
I = 60W / 120V
I = 0.5A (amps)
Situations in which it will be useful to convert from amps to watts
In general when we use electrical devices, it is always important to know these two units of measurement. For example, most appliances, power tools, and electronic equipment have a wattage rating that indicates the amount of electrical energy they consume (W). But knowing the amps is also important to know the electrical load it can support.
It could also be useful when we want to analyze and evaluate energy efficiency, this is the relationship between the electrical energy consumed and the electrical energy used to perform a specific task. Knowing these two values can help you assess your energy efficiency and take steps to reduce electrical power consumption.
In this case, we have talked about a very specific situation: customers who have a BLUETTI power station . So knowing the amps and watts of your main devices will help you choose the most suitable power station to power the devices you want.
To choose a good power station, what should you take into account?
As you can already imagine, you must take into account both concepts and it is that these will give you a complete vision of the capacity that you will have with the power station. To do this, you can organize a list of the main appliances that you want to power with the power station and write down the amps and watts of each one . Once you have a general idea of what you need electrically, you can look at the different power stations and write down the amps, watts and volts you can get from each one and choose the most suitable one.
