What are your Inverter recommendations?
- Thread starter Gene50
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
SLOweather
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2018
- Posts
- 341
What inverters have you had success with?
Xantrex Freedom XC 2kW Pure Sine inverter charger, Trace 800 watt MSW, TrippLite 100 watt square wave (40 years old by now and still works), Xantrex 1000 watt MSW, a couple of random pocket inteverters
What inverters have given you problems?
None that weren't self induced.
Were they pure sine or modified sine?
See above.
What wattage were they? 100-2,000
What have you learned about inverter selection, installation, and use?
Match the inverter output to the battery bank. For instance, a 2kW inverter is too much draw for a single 100AH Battle Born LiFePO, but 2 BBs are fine. Pure sine wave inverters have come down in price. I never considered a MSW for this motorhome. Consider an inverter charger, especially if you have LiFePO batteries. Our Xantrex inverter charger can dump 100 amps into the BBs, making generator run times a LOT less for charging when dry camping.
I studied the construction of our Sunstar a lot before finding the perfect place to mount the inverter, behind the back of a cabinet adjacent to the battery bay.
Buy all the bells and whistles. The Xantrex remote panel is great for controlling and monitoring the inverter, and a battery monitor like a Victron makes monitoring the state of charge of your battery bank easy, which is important for inverter use.
Xantrex Freedom XC 2kW Pure Sine inverter charger, Trace 800 watt MSW, TrippLite 100 watt square wave (40 years old by now and still works), Xantrex 1000 watt MSW, a couple of random pocket inteverters
What inverters have given you problems?
None that weren't self induced.
Were they pure sine or modified sine?
See above.
What wattage were they? 100-2,000
What have you learned about inverter selection, installation, and use?
Match the inverter output to the battery bank. For instance, a 2kW inverter is too much draw for a single 100AH Battle Born LiFePO, but 2 BBs are fine. Pure sine wave inverters have come down in price. I never considered a MSW for this motorhome. Consider an inverter charger, especially if you have LiFePO batteries. Our Xantrex inverter charger can dump 100 amps into the BBs, making generator run times a LOT less for charging when dry camping.
I studied the construction of our Sunstar a lot before finding the perfect place to mount the inverter, behind the back of a cabinet adjacent to the battery bay.
Buy all the bells and whistles. The Xantrex remote panel is great for controlling and monitoring the inverter, and a battery monitor like a Victron makes monitoring the state of charge of your battery bank easy, which is important for inverter use.
Gene50,
What SLOWeather wrote is accurate, but it may be much more than you need or can afford.
Please fill in for us:
What is the house battery bank?
What is it that you hope to power with the inverter/house bank set? (Please find read the labels on the devices.)
How long would you like to run these things on the inverter alone?
Do you have a generator at all?
If yes, what is its rating?
Then we can get you a better answer.
We have just a pair of GC2s (T105s actually) but I have used a 50$ Hazard Fright 750/1500 inverter for years to power our refrigeration, wife's hair dryer and my computers and printers.
Matt
What SLOWeather wrote is accurate, but it may be much more than you need or can afford.
Please fill in for us:
What is the house battery bank?
What is it that you hope to power with the inverter/house bank set? (Please find read the labels on the devices.)
How long would you like to run these things on the inverter alone?
Do you have a generator at all?
If yes, what is its rating?
Then we can get you a better answer.
We have just a pair of GC2s (T105s actually) but I have used a 50$ Hazard Fright 750/1500 inverter for years to power our refrigeration, wife's hair dryer and my computers and printers.
Matt
Gary RV_Wizard
Site Team
Inverters are pretty much a commodity these days and the brand X models seem to perform as well as the well-known brands (Xantrex, Magnum, Dimensions). Nor is there enough price difference to settle for MSW instead of PSW. I'd focus my energy on figuring out what wattage I need for my power consumption and how many battery amp-hours are needed to support that.
Gizmo
Well-known member
When looking at inverters, pay attention to the rated efficiency as inverters are not 100% efficient, so getting an inverter with higher efficiency is a worthwhile investment. Also if you have a solar system and set your charge controller where it should be 14 plus volts, check at what voltage point the inverter shuts down, you will want it to be higher than where you set the charge controller. The two units I have had good service from; In my previous rig, a truck camper we had a 2000watt Samlex pure sine wave. It was a good solid well performing inverter and reliable. In our current rig, we have a 3000 watt Victron Multiplex Hybrid inverter, also a pure sine wave. We are getting incredibly good reliable service from the Victron. Whatever you decide on, a pure sine wave is worth it, unless you know you will not be operating sensitive electronics.
Isaac-1
Well-known member
I will say that some of the cheaper generic ones are very optimistic in their output rating, to the point that it should be called false advertising, also a lot of the lower end ones are rated at "peak output", meaning they will pull that load for 2-3 seconds, not continuously.
Gary RV_Wizard
Site Team
Isaac makes a very good point. Make sure you know whether a quoted watt rating is sustained or peak. If peak, make sure you know how long the peak can be employed before it shuts down. It could be anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.
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