300w vs 500w inverter question

Hi,

If the smaller one works well I'd use it. Are they both pure sine wave?

BobnKris wrote:
The television in our TT is a 32" Jenson that runs on 110v only. I have both 300w and 500w inverters, and both have proven to power the tv on battery power alone.

Other than the obvious (the 500w provides more juice), is there an advantage to using a higher or lower watt inverter, given both provide the required power?

Thanks, and I hope everyone is having a great camping season!

Get the 300W.

shooted wrote:
Measure the standby power draw of both. Perhaps one uses less power in standby mode.

Very possible, but I am willing to bet at those sizes they will probably be within a few milliamps of each other. If we were talking a 300w vs a 1500w, the difference would be greater and the choice would be much easier :)

My new 60" Samsung PLASMA at home is less than 275 watts full bright (confirmed with my kill-a-watt), and my OLD (2003 vintage) 37" LCD I had prior was below 200 watts.

The only concern in choosing an inverter is to be sure you are not overloading it or running it at capacity for extended periods, either can shorten its life, but you should have plenty of margin for safety in either one of your two. Use whichever you prefer

I wouldn't worry about either one, UNLESS one is PURE-Sine and the other is Modified-Sine or Square-wave, then I would go with PURE-sine, it's better for sensitive electronics.

Many people will say NOT to use Modified-Sine or Square-wave inverters AT ALL for sensitive electronics, but in my experience it hasn't made a bit of difference, I have run Square-wave inverters with laptop chargers, TVs (CRT and LCD), and other electronics off them since the 90's with no failures of the devices yet, one exception, motors like fans and Air-Conditioners, drills, saws, etc.. do NOT like square-wave, they do best on PURE-Sine.

The TV SET will only draw what it needs from either the 300W or 500W INVERTER. If one was a PURE SINE WAVE INVERTER I would use it for any electronic devices - Then you will not have to worry about burning any thing up.

My so called duty INVERTER is a PURE SINE WAVE 600WATT model and I have it installed right at the battery main switch terminals. I run a heavy duty 120VAC extension cord from one side of the INVERTER 120VAC Receptacle to the Home Entertainment Electronics location and then a second HD Extension Cord to the bed nite-stand location. The extension cords with multi-tap outlets are concealed from view with only the 120VAC multi-tap head visible mounted on the back of the cabinet top.

This is "ON" 24/7 when we are camping either at electric sites or off the power grid. This keeps my basic necessary electronic items always ON power when we are camping.

We usually only draw around 250-300WATTS from the 600W PSW Inverter when using it from 4PM to 11PM each night. My other parasitic drain from the battery is around 1-2AMPS DC current 24/7.

My Battery bank setup for my INVERTER operations is around 255AHs capacity using three each 12VDC standard issue GP 24 Interstate batteries wired in Parallel.

Our game plan is to use all the the electronic things and lights we want to have ON when camping off the power grid for the one day/night camping run off our battery bank and then re-charge our battery bank the next morning starting at 8AM when allowed to run our 2KW Honda Generator. We connect our trailer 30AMP Shore Power cable to the the generator 120VAC Receptacle which allows the on-board smart mode converter/charger unit to re-charge our three batteries back up to their 90% charge state in a quick three hour generator run time. Once the battery is back up to its 90% charge state we can do all of this all over again for the next day/night run off the batteries.

We can do this for a good 12-14 cycles of 50% charge state to 90% charge state then we have to re-charge the batteries to a full 100% charge state to keep the battery performance near full performance. This is usually when we head for the house as most camp grounds where we camp at here on the EAST SIDE of the US doesn't allow us to run the generator for that long of run time due to generator run time restrictions in place.

This is our normal setup for using our 600WATT PSW Inverter from our battery bank and running off the batteries when camping off the power grid...

This works very well for us over the past 5-6 years with our somewhat high use of the batteries but I am sure others do it differently...

Adding SOLAR PANELS is our next project to keep from having to run the generator so much.

Roy Ken

Measure the standby power draw of both. Perhaps one uses less power in standby mode.

no