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tavisg's avatar
tavisg
Explorer
Mar 10, 2016

Curling iron compatible inverter

I've never been able to get my girlfriends curling iron to work off the inverter. The load isn't too much for my inverter (only about 200 watts), the light on the iron goes on but it just never heats up. Could this be because of the modified sine wave some inverters produce or possibly undervoltage or underfrequency ?

Again, this is NOT having enough amperage output from the iinverter as the iron never even attempts to draw any current.

Thanks for reading,
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    I would definitely plug your heating curling iron in a regular shore power 120VAC receptacle to see if it still works... MSW type Inverters are known to wipe out electronic circuits.

    I plugged a Electric heating pad one into a MSW INVERTER and the controller circuit failed as soon as I plugged it in.

    Roy Ken
  • A resistive load should be about the easiest thing an MSW inverter could ever do. It's a pure, non-phase changing carbon pile.

    Having said that its likely that cheap 200W iron has heat management electronics in it that don't like square wave
  • Are you sure that this is a 200 watt curling iron? That does not seem to be enough to heat anything.

    p.s. Inverter questions should probably be in the "Tech Issues" forum, for better coverage.
  • Yes, MSW inverters do not work well with a number of loads, especially resistive loads like a hot pot, curling iron, or electric blanket.
  • tavisg wrote:
    Could this be because of the modified sine wave some inverters produce or possibly undervoltage or underfrequency ?
    Yes!
  • I take it this works on house power? How many batteries ? Does the inverter make any noise or shutdown?

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