Power inverters
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KraftyPg
Guest
That really depends on what you want to do with it. There are heaps of different ones on the market ranging from 12 to 240 volt inverters that can be used in fridges (like whats sitting on the shelf here that we brought to replace the one in our car fridge) up to the big bastards with petrol motors. You need to be a little bit more specific of your needs and wants.
There are still questions to ask.
What kind of load are you placing on it? You generally can't weld with one. Most household refrigerators (now there's an interesting word, re frig erator ... and you put your food in it, willingly) have compressors with high stall current motors - they suck a lot of amps to kick the compressor over. Inverters look at the input voltage and shut themselves down if it's too low, so trying to start a household fridge - that draws high amps and lowers the battery's voltage accordingly - generally won't work.
300W is also 25A on a 12V system. You'll need to use 6mm cable so that it doesn't overheat. 600W is 50A and that 6mm cable will get hot - you have to go to 8mm.
Make sure you mount the inverter where it can vent its heat to the larger space above it (don't box it in). Heat is not the inverter's best friend and unfortunately their cooling fans are generally the worst crap you could imagine. If you must box it in, a fan extracting air is vital.
What kind of load are you placing on it? You generally can't weld with one. Most household refrigerators (now there's an interesting word, re frig erator ... and you put your food in it, willingly) have compressors with high stall current motors - they suck a lot of amps to kick the compressor over. Inverters look at the input voltage and shut themselves down if it's too low, so trying to start a household fridge - that draws high amps and lowers the battery's voltage accordingly - generally won't work.
300W is also 25A on a 12V system. You'll need to use 6mm cable so that it doesn't overheat. 600W is 50A and that 6mm cable will get hot - you have to go to 8mm.
Make sure you mount the inverter where it can vent its heat to the larger space above it (don't box it in). Heat is not the inverter's best friend and unfortunately their cooling fans are generally the worst crap you could imagine. If you must box it in, a fan extracting air is vital.
K
KraftyPg
Guest
Chances are half the internals are the same no matter which brand you choose anyway so brand may not make a difference. We've got a 600W 12 - 240 V inverter I think came from Jaycar sitting on the shelf. It was brought as a replacement for the one already in the fridge which we suspected was faulty. After installation and testing we proved that the one in the fridge wasn't faulty and put it back in because it was a better fit.
Didn't get heaps of testing but it worked fine for what we wanted it to at the time and proved the original was still fine, if it's not the Jaycar one (from their website) it's a fair copy of it. The one in the fridge is slightly smaller in size and while it's working will stay in the fridge but we dont ask much of it these days as most of our ute stuff is 12V.
It has however been handy for charging things like phones or drill batteries etc when you're not near power and we have used it to run power drills when we were desperate out on the farm.
Didn't get heaps of testing but it worked fine for what we wanted it to at the time and proved the original was still fine, if it's not the Jaycar one (from their website) it's a fair copy of it. The one in the fridge is slightly smaller in size and while it's working will stay in the fridge but we dont ask much of it these days as most of our ute stuff is 12V.
It has however been handy for charging things like phones or drill batteries etc when you're not near power and we have used it to run power drills when we were desperate out on the farm.
Matt - VNET Pro
Member
Check these ones out, pretty cheap and have had no problems with them at all,
https://www.legendmemory.com/shop/partdetail.asp?code=PI600&ab=1
https://www.legendmemory.com/shop/partdetail.asp?code=PI600&ab=1
With that sort of load you won't have a problem with any of them.
Generally the better quality the inverter is, the better quality sine wave form the output is. Inverters work by converting DC wave voltage into AV modified sine wave voltage, and then tranforming it up to the require voltage. Basically it uses electronic components to try and emulate an AC sine wave, which will never be a perfect sinewave, but will vary in quality compared (generally) to the price of the unit. Some equipment may not perform well if the sinewave is not of a good representation of an actual AC sine wave.
Same as anything really, you get what you pay for. If you're only using it for small loads like chargers & lights then pretty much anything will do the job, just make sure it's got the right australian standards approvals.
Same as anything really, you get what you pay for. If you're only using it for small loads like chargers & lights then pretty much anything will do the job, just make sure it's got the right australian standards approvals.
K
Krankin
Guest
there is a thread about this topic here already that has heaps of info about inverters and wiring.
