DC to AC power inverters for pickup truck

[TACC]

Need 2000 or 3000 watt suggestions to run power tools

1000 is not workkng

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[BerettaRacer]

3000W @ 12V is a serious 250 Amps!! Your alternator is maybe putting out 100 A for short duration, more like 50 A continuous. You start pulling 250 A on a regular basis and your going to have some equipment, as in battery, alternator & wiring doing some complaining, and failures! System is just not designed to more that kind of amps on regular basis.

[NorincoKid]

I was going to ask what kind of battery your'e running and alt output as well.

Pretty sure you can run a small/mid-size motorhome on a 3KW inverter.

You'd probably need a few big ass deep cycle batteries to feed a 3,000 watt inverter for anything longer than a few minutes.

[Synaptic Misfire]

Beretta is right.

Buy an inverter generator, by the time you upgrade you alternator, add some expensive batteries and wiring, it's way cheaper.

[TC6969]

I bought one from Harbor Freight that's held up for 3 years so far.

I have two 100w panels charging two big ass deep cycles.

I run fans, drill, vacuums, my TV and other stuff and it hasn't choked yet.

Its 2000 continuous, 4000 peak.

[NorincoKid]

\I have two 100w panels charging two big ass deep cycles.\

Just curious, what the AH total of the batteries your'e using?

I'm looking into getting a small camper (or old Class C motorhome project) and planned on doing about 200W PV also, mostly running 12v specific loads (already have LED TV, a slow cooker, electric kettle, mostly stuff designed for truckers).

Just wondered how 200W keeps up with your drain.

[TC6969]

1380 (690X2)

[NorincoKid]

1380 (690X2)

Holy crap. Unless your'e confusing CCA with AH...that must have cost thousands of dollars

[TC6969]

I must be.

Its raining and I just popped the cover and took a quick look.

I got them from Walmart.

Group 27.

They were about $120 a piece but I cant find the specs on that exact one.

[Iosef]

Inverters come in a variety of flavors, most of which are NOT suitable for running electrical motors or transformers.

The cheapest is the square wave inverter. Half of the AC output power is wasted as heat in the motor or transformer. A big enough square wave inverter to run a motor will also cause it to overheat fairly quickly.

Next in price are the Stepped Square wave and PWM inverters.

The Stepped Square wave inverters may still waste 40% of the power overheating your motors or may waste as little as 15% of the power as extra heat in your motor.

PWM inverters are sometimes called RF (Radio Frequency) inverters. The cheapest ones generate a LOT of electrical interference for radios and may still waste 15% of the power as extra heat in your motor. The better ones will be shielded to contain most of the electrical noise and will only waste about 5% of the power as extra heat in your motor.

Sine Wave inverters provide the cleanest power for electrical motors and transformers, but they are also the most expensive. Even a poorly designed Sine Wave inverter will waste less than 5% of the power as extra heat in your motor.

Say you have a 1/2 HP electrical motor which draws 12 Amps (1500 watts) during startup. A sine wave inverter rated for a 1500 watts peak, will run that motor without any problems. It would take a 3,000 watt square wave inverter to run the same motor.

Another reason to use a Sine Wave inverter is, Schmidt Trigger motor speed controllers will work just fine on a Sine Wave inverter.


MODIFIED SINE WAVE is a MARKETING LIE. There is no such thing as a Modified Sine Wave inverter. It's a square wave inverter deliberatly mislabeled to suck in the gullable.