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Jason

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Those of you that run an inverter, what size do you have?

I need one for basic recharging of phones/laptop/kids RC toy, and maybe running a small flouro leadlight or two at night. Thinking 400-500W would be fine.
 
400 to 500 watt is ample, I have one that is rated at 1000w but given it's size I'd be very surprised if it could do any more than 500w continuous, in saying that though it's worked fine for charging/powering a 17" laptop, charging phones, and other things.

One thing to watch out for is the advertised wattage, seeing more and more inverters advertising their peak wattage and not their continuous wattage, so you might be buying a 500 watt inverter until you read the fine print and see its only good for 300 watts continuous.
 
i bought a 300w with 600w peak and i've ran my laptop, phone charger, engel (i didnt have the lighter plug, DO'H!) i've also ran an electric drill off it and the drill has some nice grunt, but i found if you're stressing the drill a lil alarm will go off saying your using too much current.

40 bucks off ebay, LOL
 
Just bought a Human Power iC500 500w continuous 1000w peak power from ABR Sidewinder for around $150. Modified square waveform but it should do the trick for me. No sexy stuff to run off it just the vacuum packer for the meat and veges, and the chargers for the video etc etc. Haven't installed it yet but will do so this weekend.
 
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i bought a $80 one from harvey norman, charges and runs the laptop fine. only use it for that and charging the camera.
 
Recomended for running a laptop you use a true signwave inverter.

I got a 800W unit which I am yet to use, a old work mate bought it and didn't need it so he gave it to me.

Dave.
 
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I wish someone could explain to me why a pure sine inverter is needed for a laptop, I know a bit about electronics and all the chargers for laptops are switch mode supplies and they are dirty as far as power output goes anyway, feeding dirty power into a switch mode supply is not an issue, they are made to run on crappy power.

Switch mode supplies take the input voltage whatever it may be, generally anywhere from 100volts through to 260 volts AC and turn it into DC using a bridge rectifier and some capacitors, then they chop up the DC and feed it back into a transformer at a high frequency (typically 20khz or more), out of the transformer you get an AC power supply, this is then rectified again to turn it back to DC and is smoothed with some caps and sent off to whatever device its powering.

Now if anyone understands anything about electronics, all the above stages will pretty much kill any noise or voltage fluctuations coming into the supply in the first place, with very little evidence seen on the output.

Well thats my 2c anyway, believe what you wish. :big_smile:
 
I have a projecta 1000W peak, runs everything i need it to, old fridge (dont know what make it is)shed compressor (when i cant be bothered running out a lead) lamp etc etc
 
Shonky I see what your saying and a old work mate has said the same who is an electronics freak, hasn't got the certificate's but I have seen what he can do.

I have never looked that much into it, I have heard it many times though. Must be a salesman pitch.

Dave.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if its a salesmens pitch, given that a pure sine wave inverter for a given wattage is about 8-10x the price of a modified sine.
 
I've got a 300w ebay jobby which i use for chargers, a fluoro light, laptop and any other random stuff. It does this job with ease and even has a low battery alarm. As for laptops requiring pure sine wave input thats a load of rubbish. While I was on deployment in Afghanistan part of my job as an elec tech is power generation. The amount of laptops that were running off generators was pretty large. Nobody had any problems whatsoever. The sensitive equipment had UPS (uninterruptable power supply) to filter out but every man and his dog had a laptop and nothing special was required.
 
i have been on the hunt for a good inverter, especially seeing we are doing the simpson desert next week.
knowing my usual way(not shy with $)
my missus took it upon herself to buy one from Aldi this week. for $60 mind you. After my initial dissapointment, i decided to test the bad boy out. To my supprise, its actualy quiet good. and runs everything we need it to. It only a 300w with 600w peak(i think). but yea, seems no worries at all.
and with warranty.
just thought i'd let you guys know because for $60, you can really buy a few and your still in front.

josh
 

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