Quality Question about Small Inverters

Many things:

a) wattage rating. Cheaper ones are highly over-rated and won't provide spec'd ratings for very long. Surge ratings too.

b) cooling fans that are always on vs. thermostat controlled. And they are loud

c) weight. It simply takes more mass in certain components to hold up long term. I'm sure someone else knows more specifics on that.

d) sine wave... it is really a 'true' sine wave?

Spend the money. Cry once.

I’ve been happy with the Bestex brand but I don’t push their rated limits.

I can recommend the Go Power 300w pure sine wave

If shopping online
Amazon shows the weight of items,
Also demensions etc
More weight like the go power, means more Mass ... copper in the transformer coils, better Alu heat sink, better housing case

MrWizard wrote:
I can recommend the Go Power 300w pure sine wave

If shopping online
Amazon shows the weight of items,
Also demensions etc
More weight like the go power, means more Mass ... copper in the transformer coils, better Alu heat sink, better housing case

Go Power makes good inverters.

But here's the deal on inverters; The cheapest have dirty power and are not thermo-controlled, and have noisy fans that run all the time.

The better ones are pure sine wave, clean power, that have thermo- controlled fans that run only when needed.

The top tier (expensive) inverters (like Morningstar) don't have fans at all.

I have a Samlex 300 watt PST series inverter that I bought from Best Converter about 5 years ago and am very satisfied. Very quiet thermo-controlled fan, when it comes on at all. They go for about $145 now.

In the old days in that power range they Recommended Samulex
As others have said GO Power is good too

Any good technician or an AM Radio can tell if it's really TSW v/s the MSW.

Plug in a small (Say 100 watt) lamp and hold the radio near the cord.
Not 100% but.. Well most MSW.. if you are between stations. YOu will know it.

We have a 150 Watt from Stanley, in our motto home, that keeps our two Apple laptop computers charged and our home phone base charged. It uses the cell phone signal.

Dusty

MSW Lifkespan Harbor fright 4months

PSW LIFESPAN Samlex 9 years and counting

Fiat vs Mercedes syndrome

Ron3rd wrote:


But here's the deal on inverters; The cheapest have dirty power and are not thermo-controlled, and have noisy fans that run all the time.

The better ones are pure sine wave, clean power, that have thermo- controlled fans that run only when needed.

The top tier (expensive) inverters (like Morningstar) don't have fans at all.

I have a Samlex 300 watt PST series inverter that I bought from Best Converter about 5 years ago and am very satisfied. Very quiet thermo-controlled fan, when it comes on at all. They go for about $145 now.

I'm looking ONLY at pure sine wave inverters. And the one that I'm looking at in the <$50 range also says it has a thermostatically-controlled fan.

-Speak

One other consideration is the power the inverter will consume to do its job. Some are more efficient at doing their job than others.

nd, this is common:

“Efficiency: With 14 VDC input and a 100 Watt load the efficiency of the inverter measured 88.4%. That is very good for an inverter with true sine wave output. Efficiency at full load drops slightly and measured 86.4% with a 285 Watt load and 13.1 VDC input.”