Fuse & cables for a 1KW inverter

True. My first inverter failed when my little grinder jammed while cutting off a bolt, there were several pops from inside before I could release the trigger. The components that blew could not be traced for replacement.

Just have to wait and see I guess.

Tim

Indeed, which is why I won't be doing that routinely.

Tim

each step.

Not a problem. I have a battery charger plugged into the inverter. ;-)

Tim

Some time ago, 'they' were selling broken SkyTronic 300w ones by the pallet load on Ebay - all complete and boxed. I'd guess they didn't accept returns under warranty unless complete and boxed. So possibly a fraction of the true failures.

The snag is the figure given on a mains appliance in watts is likely to be an average rather than absolute peak. For example a heater element (or even a bulb) will take much more current when cold than when starting up, as will a heavily loaded motor. And these inverters seem to be rated at absolute with a complete lie for peak. With the sort of output devices which fail immediately their peak current is exceeded. I'd recommend never exceeding 1/2 of the rated continuous output of these 'cheap' inverters if you wish it to last.

Just get your wife to have a skinhead

You have discovered perpetual power!

Some electrionic devices dont like being fed through inverters stepping up from 12 volt dc to 230volt ac, stepped down again to xxx volts ac then rectified.

There's at least 4 different inverter designs out there, the cheapest just gives you 325DC, then 230V square wave, modified square wave & if you pay for it sine wave.

Hence my comment

DC??

Tim

Drives Laptop inverters (or any other switchmode)

Your 100 isn't a bad guess but go a bit more. I've had to resort to 1kW inverter more than once when winds and ice took out the power lines around here. Simply hooked it up to the battery on the Tranny, and fed the output via a dist box I'd made up in advance, which fed a couple of dedicated circuits feeding TV, PC (via UPS) and lights. It was grand, it ran happily for hours, but I wasn't loading it more than halfway or so. The TV didn't like it much and failed a couple of months later. After another power cut it failed within a couple of months again - not the same fault, but made me suspicious of the ability of it to handle the output. It was only an old thing, and I wouldn't put anything modern /worth more anywhere near the inverter. The UPS/PC coped fine, not a problem, as did the lights.

There you go - some direct experience of them, not just wind and piss like so many of the armchair experts around here.

The switchmodes are generally happy, it's triac speed controls & things with transformers in them that get upset.

had one scramble the charger unit for a rather expensive tool

I've been there, done that although it was a different situation - providing power at a remote farmhouse with no electricity.

A 12V inverter is a bit of a pointless object for power much above 600W. The higher the battery voltage the better. Many off-grid system use 60V or

My system had ten 150AH 12V batteries and was just about good enough for lighting and occasional use of the hair dryer by SWMBO. The big problem was recharging the batteries. They needed more current than could be supplied by the 750W solar array that I could afford to buy and keeping batteries topped up involved lots of manual labour.

In the end a 2500kVA "silent" petrol generator worked out better value and later a 5000kVA diesel generator replaced that. Shopping around you can find remote start generators that weigh less than inverter + battery bank and are much less hassle to operate.

If you expect to use the inverter budget for two deep cycle 150AH batteries and for the charging circuits, an updated alternator and consider covering the roof of the van with solar panels.

My inverter was relegated to the boat with the same charging setup (solar). It worked OK there but the boat sat on a mooring and was used at weekends. If I used it for holidays the engine would be run for several hours per day to get the boat out to sea and back again so there was additional charge from the 150W alternator.

Lighting, computer and navigation kit all ran from 12V. It's really best to standardise on 12V where you can.

But the fuel that would be really convenient for caravan generators is LPG.

Won't be long before we all need NG generators to supply the power for gas central heating pumps and boiler control circuits - you can bet they may not be too happy with inverters.

There's plenty of LPG generators out there.

There are many conversion kits to turn petrol generators into LPG generators. A 5 kVA Kipor petrol generator is cheaper than a firstly generator and simple to convert to LPG.