woolfgo Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 looking into buying a inverter porbably around 500w anyone have any suggestions on ones they use that work well for them? thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustrmrk Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 Generally, I would advise looking for a "pure sine wave" model. I've had great luck with Xantrex, but there are several other less expensive options out there - however, less expensive can also mean increased RFI noise. Also try to mount it as close to the battery as you can and use adequately sized conductors to minimize voltage drop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolfgo Posted December 10, 2015 Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 could you explain to me about how they work a little because the ones i see are hookups through the cigarette lighter and then other have ability to clamp to battery. would i want to clamp to battery under the hood or would i want to clamp to deep cycle battery or neither? Generally, I would advise looking for a "pure sine wave" model. I've had great luck with Xantrex, but there are several other less expensive options out there - however, less expensive can also mean increased RFI noise. Also try to mount it as close to the battery as you can and use adequately sized conductors to minimize voltage drop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustrmrk Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 I guess it depends on how you plan to use it and what you use it for. At 12 volts, 500 watts translates to just over 40 amps - that's an awful lot to expect from a cigarette lighter socket. If you think you may be drawing near the full load I'd seriously consider hard wiring it in with appropriately sized fuse and conductors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 looking into buying a inverter porbably around 500w anyone have any suggestions on ones they use that work well for them? thanks!! I've got experience with over 40 brands and type of inverters. Out of that 40 - I've only had legitimate issue with one. It was a big 5000 watt Vector sold by Black & Decker. It would work as advertised. Not even close. A few things to consider. #1 Modified wave versus so-called "true sine wave." NONE make a true sine wave at the consumer price level. They all (mod and sine-wave) have right-angle "steps" in their waves and both attempt to mimic a real 60 cycle sine-wave that has curves, not steps. That being said, the inverters sold as "sine wave" usually do a better job at certain things when compared to cheaper mod-waves. They start high start-load motors better. They will also run conventional battery chargers better. They will also run GFCIs with no "humming." They will also power AC powered smoke and CO alarms whereas mod-wave inverters will not. Other then that - modified wave inverters work fine and will power computers, TVs, DVD players, refrigerators, etc. just fine. Also the cheaper modified-wave inverters often have more surge power then similar sized "sine-wave" models. #2 Deceptive advertising. Watch out. Inverters have real-world continuous ratings and momentary "surge" ratings. Some companies sell their inverters by "surge" and other companies by "continuous." So sometimes an inverter sold by one company as 750 watt is exactly the same as one sold by another company as "1500 watts." #3 Cooling fans. The better inverters have cooling fans that only come on when needed which is virtually never. The cheaper ones have fans that run all the time when "on" and can drive you nuts if inside the camper. When I installed inverters at my house they were legally required to be REAL sine-wave. Two 5000 watt inverters that cost over $2000 each. I can buy a 5000 watt inverter to use in an RV for $400. That shows you the price difference. I've done real well with AIMs inverters. One of the best "bangs for the buck." A few examples. AIMs 1250 watt mod-wave with fan that runs all the time $99 rated 1250/3100 surge watts AIMs 1250 watt mod-wave with thermal-activated fan $130 rated 1250/surge 3500 watts AIMs 1200 watt sine-wave with thermal-activated fan $170 rated 1200/surge 2400 watts One added note. Harbor Freight has been selling low price inverters for years. All of mine have been very rugged but one complaint. My first - now over 12 years old - is a 2000/4000 watt mod-wave inverter that I paid $89 for. It has a thermal-fan. The new ones they sell now for around $130 have a fan that runs all the time (at least the last one I got did). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 I guess it depends on how you plan to use it and what you use it for. At 12 volts, 500 watts translates to just over 40 amps - that's an awful lot to expect from a cigarette lighter socket. If you think you may be drawing near the full load I'd seriously consider hard wiring it in with appropriately sized fuse and conductors. In normal inverter "speak", a 500 watt inverter draws up to 1000 or 1200 watts. Thus up to an 83 amp draw @ 12 volts. 20 amps is the usual limit for any 12 volt power port or cigarette lighter although there are a few 30 amp models around. Few plugs will fit well enough to use the 30 amps even if available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
payaso del mar Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 IMHO, trying to run even 30 amps through a 12V outlet is asking for trouble. we used a nominal-1000-continuous-watt Statpower when rebuilding our off-grid cabin and found that many power tools would trip the breaker when we had it connected to battery with just clamps and 8 gauge cable. changed things to 2 gauge welding cable with crimped copper eye terminals, and the same inverter would run the same tools w/o ever tripping breaker. I've had the same experience as JD with the AIMS units...cheap, and reliable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanAatTheCape Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 I have had one of these for years. I do not care how "clean" the power is (sine or otherwise) as I am charging batteries - laptop, phone and camera. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Cobra-400-Watt-Power-Inverter/11020914 I wired it directly to the house battery. A cigarette adapter invertor will generate a lot of heat - I melted a wire for my sig-adapter once. A small invertor (say 100 amps) would be alright to charge a cell phone or camera battery, maybe a laptop that is not operating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 I have had one of these for years. I do not care how "clean" the power is (sine or otherwise) as I am charging batteries - laptop, phone and camera. The most frequent complaints with modified-wave inverters and the AC power they made - back in the 70s-90s - was how poorly they worked with battery chargers. Not a matter of being "clean" - at least not by my use of the word "clean." But maybe you mean it in a different way then I do. When I've heard complaints about power not being "clean" it was about the AC power causing appliances to do weird things, or make noise in TV or radio sound, or make outlets "humm." It was, and still is a well known fact in the off-grid solar-power industry that mod-wave inverters work/worked terrible with most conventional battery chargers. Same problem with many fuel-powered portable electric generators. Companies like Trace/Xantrex wrote about the problem quite a bit. This led to a few changes. One was an improvement in the type of wave the mod-wave inverters make along with a higher voltage. Also - a big change was made in the battery chargers themselves. More sophisticated electronic battery chargers would work fine on nearly any AC power source, unlike the conventional chargers. Today if I buy a new mod-wave inverter and then plug in a conventional 10-30 amp battery charger - it will still only charge at about 1/2 of what it is rated for (or less). Easy to test. Just do it and then try it on "shore power" to compare. It will still do the job though, just much slower. A conventional battery charger made for 120 volts house-current must have voltage peaks and dives that are 150-170 volts. The mod-wave inverters often run 130-150 volts and thus the problem. And to anybody that tries to check general voltage output on a mod-wave inverter -you will find out a standard voltmeter will NOT work. It will likely only show around 85 -100 volts instead of 120 volts. This because a cheap voltmeter can read "shore power" type AC just fine but cannot read power made by a mod-wave inverter. You need a RMS type voltmeter for that which you cannot buy for $4 from Harbor Freight. I tested many different battery chargers plugged into many types of inverters. None could make a conventional charger work like it does on "shore power." Oddly though - some of the cheap mod-wave inverters worked better then some "true sine-wave" that cost a lot more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maineah Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Most laptops and phone chargers etc. don't care what they have for power because they are switching supplies and usually are rated in the 100 to 200 volt range the computers power is after the magic in the supply and is plenty clean enough of it's use. Any thing ferroresonant does not do as well with dirty line voltage because of the noise on the wave form. Modern switching RV chargers work fine with generators as do most modern TV etc because of their own internal power supply systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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