Inverter and TV

I second the idea of putting the inverter closer to the battery, and running a small 16 gauge extension cord. With less than 3/4 amp on the cord, the voltage drop is insignificant.

I have not noticed a signal strength problem with either of my inverters, but might check it out next time I am dry camping.

I have a booster, and it seems to get in the weak signals much better.

I use the G3 booster found at this website. http://antennadeals.com/HD2605.html

Fred.

smkettner wrote:
I recommend GoPower 150w or 300w sine wave. $150 - $180
http://www.boatandrvaccessories.com/gopoin.html

I have and use the 300w. Low idle draw, provision for remote switch, temperature controlled fan that never comes on with my 19" tv/dvd. You can wire it into the 120v circuit with a small transfer switch if you get bored with the connection logistics.

X2, I have a 300W Go Power hard wired to the batteries in a basement compartment. Yellow box is my inverter.

I recommend GoPower 150w or 300w sine wave. $150 - $180
http://www.boatandrvaccessories.com/gopoin.html

I have and use the 300w. Low idle draw, provision for remote switch, temperature controlled fan that never comes on with my 19" tv/dvd. You can wire it into the 120v circuit with a small transfer switch if you get bored with the connection logistics.

brholt wrote:

- Are some msw inverters better than others? How do you know?

You don't. Now that most items are made in China, even with a well known brand there is a risk to get poor MSW, with RF noise or poorly filtered wave.

brholt wrote:
I suppose I could get a pure sine wave inverter but most of these seem to be overkill as the whole TV unit only draws 65 watts. I was hoping for something small, quiet, and inexpensive.

Samlex 120W PSW costs $100 on Amazon. Not sure about "quiet", very few inverters in that range are fan-less and those cost more. Place it closer to battery, ex. in through-storage, then you won't hear the noise. Inverter actually has to be close to battery. You can add a remote switch in the room somewhere, though small inverter can idle 24/7, its idle draw is low.

I would not use the modified sine inverters on electronic items... Too much of a risk. The pure sine wave inverters don't cost as much as they used to. With the PSW type you don't have to worry at all what you plug into them.

The PSW type inverter also don't produce as much RFI signals which is probably why the TV didnt work as well as it should have when being operated from the MSW Inverters....

I started out with just a 150WATT PSW Inverter and things worked so well I kept adding 120vAC units to the inverter and purchased a 300/400Watt PSW Inverter and finally ended up with a 600WATT PSW Inverter.

Of course Inverters like to eat up a bunch of battery power so expect to add enough battery capacity to operate your Inverter for the time period you are going to use it.

We do alot of camping off the power grid and the 600WATT PSW Inverter works very well for the things we like to do. My battery bank is a 255AH setup and I have planned it all out to have all of the 120VAC items we want to have running form our 600WATT Inverter and all of the 12VDC items we want to run direct connected to the battery bank.

The game plan for us is to run all of these items in a one day/night camping run off the batteries and then recharge the batteries the next morning with the trailer connected to my 2KW Honda Generator using a RV30A-15A long adapter. Using the trailer smart mode technology converter/charger I can re-charge my battery bank to its 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run time. Once charged back up to the 90% charge state I can run it down to it's 50% charge for 10-12 cycles before doing any harm to the batteries. I have to recharge my battery bank to a full 100% charge state after 10-12 cycles otherwise it will do harm to the batteries.

this makes it pretty successful for us to camp off the power grid for many days.

Here is typical trailer layout I have followed in my use of PSW Inverter.



just my thoughts
Roy Ken

Put the inverter closer to the batteries, where you can't hear the fan, and run an extension cord to the TV. With a little planning you can make it look good.