power inverter

[Boss Hogg]

Hey RV Wizard, can you tell me how well a Pure Sine Inverter would work to operate small appliances in a motorhome, without having the generator running?

Thanks

[Boss Hogg]

Hey RV Wizard, can you tell me how well a Pure Sine Inverter would work to operate small appliances in a motorhome, without having the generator running?

Thanks

[RV Wizard]

An inverter of sufficient size will do the same as being plugged into shore power or having the generator running up to the point the battery voltage drops to below 12 volts. A common size inverter is 2000-3000 watts and a battery bank of 440 amp hours minumum. It is not feasible to run the roof air conditioners but microwaves, toasters, coffee pots, TV, VCR, DVD, hair dryers, computers and the like will do just fine.

[ajbjrvers]

To; Boss Hogg;

Re; pure sine wave inverterters.

I'm on my 4th Pro-sine pure sine wave inverter made by Xantrex, the company that makes or owns most of the companies.

The pro-sine is old technology and is very sensitive and tempermental. Xantrex now makes an inverter just for RV's, it's bigger and heavier but it is made for rv's.

Pure sine wave is the way to go because you have basically no restrictions as what to use with it.

Happy shopping and good luck.

By the way, I have a 3,000 watt pro-sine, 3 120 solar panels and 8 interstate U2500HC batteries . the more of a battery bank the more you can operate w/o gen set

Thanks===== AJBJRVERS

[E Z Livin]

Boss Hog, you did not ask me but! I am in the process of installing an inverter. Fist I bought a cheap 400 amp from Sams, installed switches so I could flip from shore power to inverter to avoid unplugging and plugging. Ran welding cable to hard wire in.
The inverter is OK, but I was not pleased with its quality. After reading on the internet. I went on ebay and bought a new Xantex RS400 that sells for $400+ for $200. To my surprise, it has a built in relay that will go from inverter power to shore power on its on. It is pure sine power that should give cleared TV pictures and is supposed to run two 27" TV's. All I want is to run the satellite receiver and the TV.
After futher reading, I saw you need a 80 amp in line fuse which I bought yesterday.
Wish I had went this way day one and I am looking forward to finishing this up. Running the cable was a little time comsuming but I wanted it installed proffesionaly. My 2 cents worth.

[Boss Hogg]

Thanks folks....I appreciate your input....

I inherited a Pure Sine Inverter with a truck cap which I acquired recently, and there is no info plate attached to it...Don't even know what size it is, but the battery box looks like it would hold two regular car or pickup batteries....

How Do I determine what size it is?

Maybe I should remove it and look underneath for a plate...

[RV Wizard]

A fuse or circuit breaker would give you an idea as to it's capacity. I will try to stay up on this thread but am leaving in a few hours to go to the races here. I only get on the website in early morning or nights and weekends due to free minutes on my verizon cell phone. Let me know what you find out.

[Boss Hogg]

There is a 20 amp and a 30 amp breaker....

[Gary RVRoamer]

Two breakers? That's unusual. Can you tell if they is on the input side or output side? 30 amps of DC input yields about 3 amps of AC output or 350 watts of power. 30 Amps of AC output is around 3600 watts of power. Or maybe one is imput and the other output?

A 2000-3000 watt inverter will be quite heavy and probably 9-10 inches wide by 14-16 inches long. A 350 watt inverter will be maybe 5-6 inches wide and several inches long and weigh maybe a pound or so. A 300-350 watt inverter usually plugs into a cigaratte lighter while a big one must be hardwired to the batteries with major cables.

Hope this gives you some clues.