Inverter advice

[cody c]

As said above, the 2KW inverter is probably overkill, but they can be helpful...

When I was on the tools as an industrial electrician, a couple guys had 2KW inverters in their work trucks, they used them on rare occasions where they needed to cut something where we didnt have a gen set. And actually a few guys in the club have inverters this size and have used them with a grinder or drill for trail repair, or actually tow hook cutting brackets off of steel I beams we used for a bridge building project, should be in the toyota trails mag sometime soon I think.

2nd point, most of them are pretty reliable these days and most cheap ones should be fine for what you plan to do, though quality and cost are directly proportional in that respect.

3rd point, they dont like water, I would suggest mounting it in a place that will be very unlikely to see moisture.

 

[KLF]

OK, so we did some testing with my clamp meter this afternoon, checking draws. Running both the laptop and the scanner, we did see one spike up to about 5.1 amps, but for only a few seconds. Mostly things were drawing a little over 1 amp, even when the laser was scanning.

Based on Ernie's advice, this is the inverter I'm gonna order:

http://www.amazon.com/Xantrex-Prowa...TF8&colid=3IW8HDV1KUYO8&coliid=I1POIIC0J1G64R

I'll rig it up by hacking one end off a pair of jumper cables. No need for mounting or worries about water proofing. This is "fair weather" gear only, the scanner is not meant to be used in poor weather anyway.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[fieldsken1]

I use a 2000 w inverter in the truck yo power a microwave , refrigerator , satellite TV, and a laptop and other things and it works fine. Mines a cobra.

 

[waterweber]

We run a fair amount of survey equipment from a few different vehicles and boats. I would be really leery of plugging a $30K laser scanner into anything other than a pure sine wave inverter. We typically use Xantrex ones and they seem to work pretty well. You might want to consider running everything through a surge protecting APU setup regardless of what you use. That way you get protected from surges and if you lose power somehow (generator out of gas) you dont lose data. You can get them pretty cheap online. Search UPS Power Supply and a bunch will come up.

 

[JCruse]

FWIW this newb is going the dual battery route and one of these:


http://www.amazon.com/Thor-THPS-600-12-Power-Inverter-Surge/dp/B009CBA8AU/ref=sr_sp-btf_title_1_16?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1365314049&sr=1-16&keywords=thor++inverter



I figure it should be plenty for stuff like a light or two, fan, small TV and laptop. Not all at once though.

 

[SWCruiser]

not sure if you purchased the inverter already but i did a lot of research at one point trying to determine which inverter to buy myself. From what i have read Xantrex seems to have declined in quality over the last few years. Many boaters will not use them. I have other xantrex stuff and haven't really had issues. I believed they were acquired recently and their quality seemed to suffer. Anyway, I found the best information about inverters on marine sites and secondly on rv sites. These groups seem to run them the most often (daily). I haven't purchased one yet but the ones I narrowed it down to were:

samlex
Victron
Magnum

IMHO, If your using this item frequently i think its better to spend the dollars once.

 

[KLF]

Thanks for your feedback. I actually did order one, I went with a Xantrex Prowatt 1000 from Amazon. Then I picked up a really nice set of 2ga jumper cables, I cut the clamps off of one end and crimped on some nice ring terminals, with heatshrink. These attach to the studs on the back of the inverter.



We've tested the setup twice now in the field and it has worked perfectly both times, no issues.

I'll post up if anything changes.

 

[Cali100LC98]

I know this is an older thread, but curious as to what you ended up with. Has anyone looked at or used this brand? Stanley FatMax Professional 1000 Peak Amp Power Station w/ 500W Inverter.....reliable?

 

[JCruse]

Did some searching here, didn't really see anything recent that leads me to a clear answer.

We need to power some surveying gear out in the field that only runs on 120V AC, and we need to also run a couple of laptops for post-processing of large amounts of data. We don't do this often, so I'm not in favor of getting a generator that needs to be maintained with fresh gas and oil. Current thinking is to just get an inverter and run it off the battery of a vehicle, since we'll always be able to have a vehicle near where we're working. We want something that will go up to 2000W.

Is there a brand in particular that you expo folks prefer? These things are available from many sources, but I'm betting that a lot of them are all the same guts inside, just a different sticker on the front. Anything made in the US? Preferred vendor?

We don't need mission-critical mil-spec stuff, but we do want it reliable.

Don't know if you found what you wanted yet but back in the spring I was looking for what inverter to buy and I came across a thread somewhere where a guy worked someplace that sold and serviced inverters of many different brands with many fleet contracts, from corporate fleets to limo companies, and he said the one manufacturer that had the fewest returns was a newish company called 'Thor Manufacturing'. He said they were in the process of converting all their accounts to Thor inverters, and that this brand was overbuilt, producing 10 or 20% more power than their rating. Perhaps this was one reason for the few number of failures.

So based on this and the fact that I knew little about power inverters I bought a Thor 750 Watt modified sine wave inverter ($50 on sale) for the modest needs of my cruiser, and it powered my phones, electronics, lights, drill, boom-box and a shop-vac all summer and fall with no issues at all.

They also make a new line of pure sine wave inverters for a lot more money but I've since seen these being highly rated also.












Mine:

 

[fireball]

BUMP!!!

Researching inverters and looking for more info.

A few folks over at EXPO seem to be happy with the Whistler Pro 1200.

Anyone else care to share what inverter they are using, are you happy with it, and what all you can/do use it for?

Thanks!

 

[Fast Eddy]

The Thor 1000w pure sine wave inverter is made by Samlex, and is identical to the SA-1000K-112. These can be had for about $350 online.

 

[KLF]

The Xantrax unit is working well for us, although admittedly not a lot of usage since I bought it. I haven't put a scope on the output to see how pure it is, but so far the laptop and laser scanner are not complaining.

 

[Fast Eddy]

The laptop has a transformer, so it doesn't care. They work on a cheapo inverter just fine.

 

[rusty_tlc]

The laptop has a transformer, so it doesn't care. They work on a cheapo inverter just fine.

Minor point, the laptop power supply / charger has a transformer, the laptop runs on DC.

Sent via the ether from my candy bar running ginger bread

 

[JCruse]

The Thor 1000w pure sine wave inverter is made by Samlex, and is identical to the SA-1000K-112. These can be had for about $350 online.

I didn't know that. They sure do look alike.

I know Samlex is one of the better names in the business. If they make my Thor inverter too I'd be thrilled!

 

[nakman]

I have been really happy with Tripp Lite inverters.. the 1000w or 1500w can often be had off Ebay for $150 or so, refurbished. Have had two of them- one of them left with my 80 a few years back (and still kickin', per my last report) the other is in my current 100 series. Also know of a few other guys in the club here, we all use the heck out of them and can't seem to kill them. Hair dryers, angle grinders, coffee grinders, laptops, camera battery chargers, Xmas lights.. my only complaint is I get a little static over the ham radio when it's on, but that's a filter issue on the radio power cable most likely.

Edit: installed on the rear panel, 4ga wiring.