Inverters, any recommendations?

[justdrinkbeer]

Doing the dual battery setup in my car at the moment, thinking of putting an inverter in there just for the sake of it.

Any recommendations on brands, or where to buy etc?

Are the cheapo ebay ones as bad as they look?

 

[Krankin]

If i was to buy another...I'd be happy with some on egay.

 

[KraftyPg]

I'd avoid ebay purely because there is too many scummy sellers not selling exactly what they say and cheap prices often aren't cheap in the long run especially if you don't understand the specs they are using to advertise the product. You may be lucky and get a decent one but for the cost Jaycar can give you what you need and atleast if you have problems with it it's easy to get fixed or replaced.

As to which one you need that's a very open ended question especially if it's just going in for the hell of it. Like most things inverters come in many varieties and without a specific use in mind any recommendation could be way off.

Atleast throw up some ideas of what you want an inverter to do, if you can't think of anything specific then just get the biggest one you can find and go for bragging rights.

 

[Jason]

I bought this 300w one from Jaycar, it's been great.

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MI5104

 

[Krankin]

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Sine-Wav...AU_Boat_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3f1081fb19

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Pure-Sin...AU_Boat_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3cbeeb9c88

 

[Old.Tony]

Go for an electrically isolated one. Anything else is just dangerous.

EVERY inverter sold by Jaycar is electrically isolated. That's the Powertech brand - and Rays Outdoors now sells them as well.

Size the inverter to give some capacity above your requirements. If you want to run a 200W device, get a 300 or 400W inverter. If you're thinking of running a microwave, be aware that they suck about 1000W equating to over 80A drawn off your battery. You can get an inverter big enough, but that sort of load requires really heavy cabling and a battery that can stand an 80A constant load - generally only starter batteries (which are bad for deep cycle applications) and AGM batteries can withstand this sort of punishment. Gel and flooded cell deep cycle batteries can't deliver that much current without damage.

Don't fret too much about modified sine wave/pure sine wave. Modifieds will create some radio noise on AM but most things shouldn't suffer too much from their use. Pure sine wave is better, more expensive and designed to operate computers - but since laptops generally run a switchmode power supply, they're generally okay on modifieds.

 

[justdrinkbeer]

Dual battery is well & truly wired for a decent one, way over the top actually (50mm Weld flex, just as I had some left over).
Its just for charging laptop & camera etc the odd time i need to, think if I go for ebay cheapie i'll upsize it more than a "brand" one.
Jaycar ones are ok then, i've always been put off jaycar stuff as the shops are always full of nerds!

 

[KraftyPg]

Know what you want, how it works and what it's worth before you enter a Jaycar shop and it's not so bad. My local is filled with a bunch of nufti's that have no idea about components but they love to talk about big speakers, they wont match the website price unless there is more than one item but they price themselves just under the online shop with postage and they take back online purchases if there is any problems.

In the absence of a real electronic shop Jaycar are bearable.