Pure sine or standard inverter
How big of a deal is a pure sine over a standard inverter? I now use a standard 400w to run the TV and direct box it dose fine. I am thinking of a 1500w to power the whole 5er, coffee pot, microwave, ...
Forum Discussion
Golden_HVAC wrote:
For most loads, the MSW is lower cost, and will work well.
The two exceptions are a laser printer that will not work from MSW power, and the microwave that can not work from MSW without damage to the microwave. I had to replace my microwave after running it from my Trace M1512 inverter for perhaps 10 minutes (a couple of minutes at a time). I would have been much better off using my built in Onan generator, it needs a little exercise every once in a while anyway, and the microwave is a great way to load it up.
So I would recommend staying with the 400 watt energy efficient MSW inverter. Larger loads should be run by the generator, unless you have a huge solar system, and 'want to'.
I am thinking about getting a 2 KW pure sine wave inverter, but really can not justify the cost. My Trace M1512 works great, is a 1996 model, and can run every receptacle in the RV. However it is not nearly as energy efficient as my portable 300 watt inverter. While watching TV, I can shut off the larger inverter, and start the smaller one. I will see total amperage drop from 7 amps to only about 5 amps, because the smaller one has much smaller capacitors to charge, and generally uses less power for say a 150 watt load.
Good luck,
Fred.
This is exactly what I did. Bigger inverter for big stuff. Smaller inverter for little stuff. I cut off the cig lighter plug and hard wired it. It's not much of a difference in amps but the smaller unit is quieter.
On msw vs psw, I bought a used psw inverter and it was broken china junk. I took the money and bought a quality brand msw next and to my suprise, it powers everything I have needed it to so far. They say on the msw, its not so much the type of wave but that distortion of that wave is what causes problems from cheap inverters. I saw where a guy had run different inverters at different loads on an o-scope and you could see where the wave would dip and distort. Even the shape would distort some. That led me to believe in buying a quality inverter regardless of which type. It is hard to ignore the cheap cheap price of a good msw inverter.
