Advice on inverter size

2oldman wrote:

wopachop wrote:
So besides price and having to run thicker wires, is there a negative to installing a 2000w inverter that will mostly supply 200w of power?

No, and you don't even need thicker wire UNTIL you ask it for a thousand watts or so.

It's very nice to make coffee or toast with batteries instead of having to fire up a generator. Yes, I know there are another million ways to make coffee.

We aren't cavemen and not everything has to be cooked over a flame. I'm your boat hit the switch on the coffeemaker or microwave and use batteries and solar. ;)

I think you will be fine with a 400 watt inverter but if you go bigger find a place inside but close to the batteries to place it.

We run a 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter to watch TV and power the laptop, but we also use it to power the microwave once in a awhile and the wife uses her hair drier in the morning.

BTW it's not hard to mount four batteries end to end on the trailer tongue.

Change nothing. Use the 400 watt inverter. Yes larger inverters have a higher idle draw and are less efficient when underutilized.

If you are really going 2000 watts you may need more battery too.

Just lead the girls over to my place and you will be welcome to stay and party.

Also you never know. What if 10 swimsuit models walk by with their blender hoping for margaritas. Need to be prepared and i freakin hate tequilla. But willing to suffer :)

wopachop wrote:
So besides price and having to run thicker wires, is there a negative to installing a 2000w inverter that will mostly supply 200w of power?

No, and you don't even need thicker wire UNTIL you ask it for a thousand watts or so.

It's very nice to make coffee or toast with batteries instead of having to fire up a generator. Yes, I know there are another million ways to make coffee.

So besides price and having to run thicker wires, is there a negative to installing a 2000w inverter that will mostly supply 200w of power?

Trying to be realistic if i would ever want to run a kitchen appliance without firing up the generator.

Costs me 5 battery amp hours to run my 28 inch TV, signal booster and inverter for an hour.

Won't the 400w do all that? If it does not because it is limited by being plugged into a 12v socket like on a Winegard TV panel, then just switch to the clamps set of wires for the inverter instead of the 12v plug set, and clamp to the battery lugs on the DC fuse panel.

That gets you the power, but now you trip over it going to the fridge, so now add some #8 wire to the lugs and clamp to those and keep it all off the floor.

time2roll managed to get his inverter behind the converter and out of sight entirely doing it that way.

Use a power bar with its own on/off switch plugged into the inverter to plug the TV into. Turning off the TV still leaves it drawing some power in standby mode.

Yes, smaller inverters are more efficient if they're decent quality and the fans don't run all the time. Seriously, the amount of current they use to do their jobs is so small that it's really not worth worrying about, unless you leave it on 24/7 for a couple weeks without charging your batteries.

400w should be fine, but the bottom line is to obtain the wattages of those devices first. And it should be pure sine.

How many watts each? Have you investigated Bluetooth battery speakers?