brulaz wrote:
And so, after sleeping on it, I've decided to go the simple and cheap route. It's only a coffee grinder and a 220Ah battery bank. The 1000W PSW inverter is overkill for that and only purchased because it was so cheap and readily available.
I already have 10' of 6ga wire, MRBF 60A fuses and holder, and lugs. The 60A fuse will protect the 6ga wire and should be good for ~700W before blowing, enough for the coffee grinder and other low watt stuff. It will also protect the 1000W inverter which I think BFL claims is really only good for 900W continuous. Unlike BFL, I don't intend to find out. :)
I've been following this thread as I thought there was something familiar about this Crappy Tire inverter and it's now finally come to me - I bought one myself in Mar of last year when it was on sale! :S Frankly, I had forgotten about it because after extensive testing I returned it, deciding it just wasn't going to help me avoid buying another EU2000i which among other tasks will easily power my wife's hair dryer each morning which this inverter would just not do. ;) It
would run my toaster which my Kill-a-Watt meter indicated was pulling 672 watts ... well, sort of, because at times it would shut down anyway before toasting was completed ... I suspect, after following this thread, that the doubled up 8 gauge cable I was using to feed it was the reason.
Now it's another year later, I did buy that EU2000i in the meantime so recharging a depleted battery has become a non-issue, but I think I'm going to invest in this Crappy Tire inverter once again anyway so I can power our 120 vac fans overnight when dry camping. I've got an inexpensive 300 watt MSW inverter that runs them OK but the squeal from the motors drives me nuts and this sine wave inverter will solve that nicely. For this a 1000 watt PSW is really overkill but considering there's not really much out there, even used, that's significantly cheaper I might as well go with this puppy now that it's on sale. JMO, but I'd forget the hair dryer, forget the toaster, or anything else that draws anywhere near as much power, as I suspect you too would find this inverter won't perform to your expectations
unless you
do use the heaviest gauge cable practical to feed it and to keep those cables as short as possible.