Which power inverter to hardwire?

I recently acquired a few different power inverters as a gift from my grandpa, he just had them laying in his garage.

I want to wire one up but am unsure on which to go with.. hoping you guys can give your advice.

The three are:
-"Power-to-go" 300 watt /600 watt surge
-Chicago electric 700 watt / 1800 watt surge
-Coleman 800 watt / 1600 watt surge

All three of which are 110 V-AC, have 2 outlets and a power switch. I would be running 4 gauge wire directly from the battery and mounting the inverter under my seat. They are all a bit dusty so don't let appearance get in the way.

I would see who makes the Coleman unit and probably go with that one. Coleman seems to be a quality brand.

Out of the three my uncle said go with the Coleman( I asked him, contractor for 25 years now and runs them in his truck for work). He also asked how big the Alternate is and if you are running duel batteries to help off set the drain on the Batteries. Hope it helps.



Blue

Thanks for the replies guys.

Blue, I have a stock alternator and a regular battery, no dual setup. I only plan to use it for charging phones and stuff. No heavy use planned. Its more of a "I have one might as well install the best one" thing

I say go with the Coleman. My dad has one in his X and its great for our uses. ( Air Pumps for balls, or even charging up our phones even a laptop.) That should be suffice for what you are doing.
My .02.

I would say coleman as well rip. These look like theyre old but quality .. which is made in the US?

It depends on what you're using them for man.

If you're just charging phones or laptops, I would go with neither one, but one of those ones that plugs into the cigarrette lighter.

Amazon.com: BESTEK 150w power inverter car dc 12v to 110v ac inverter dc adapter laptop charger notebook adapter dc charger ac adapter usb charger Dual USB 3.1A MRI1511U: Car Electronics

I had one of those in my Taco, and it worked great. Plug the laptop in, hook it into the stero, and have music/movies for the long ass drives I take. You CAN'T, how ever, run more than one thing at a time off that plug. I tried with a small surge and it wouldn't power both the laptop and 2TB external I had.

Now, if you're going to go with something that will possibly power tools, then go with the bigger ones.


I've got a 1500W one that I used while out with STA to power the camper the instructors stayed in. Got it at AutoZone, and it has a remote on it, so that way I can mount it somewhere out of the way, and still be able to surn it on and off.

Made sure my tank was full, and ran the truck all night, had the camper plugged in. Worked great.

I've also used it to run drills and sanders to clean my skid plates when I lived in the barracks.

I plan on testing it out to see if it will handle my 110V welder, and, if it will, My welder will be going on trail rides with me incase SHTF.

Remember, when you use these, they will KILL your battery QUICK. Like, you go take a piss and its dead. Make sure you have the truck running if you're using it to keep the constant charge.

Any of your inverters will pwr your gear if your using small current applications but make darn sure you put heavy enough wire from your battery to the inverter. Also make sure fuse it. We don't want your truck catching fire.

You should probably go 20% over your max rating of your inverter on your wire size to be absolutely safe.

Took a quick look and found the following chart that tells you minimum wire size for the current you want to draw.

AWG gauge Maximum amps for chassis wiring
OOOO - 380
OOO - 328
OO - 283
0 - 245
1 - 211
2 - 181
3 - 158
4 - 135
5 - 118
6 - 101
7 - 89
8 - 73


#4 wire is a little light for pulling max 1600 watts from an engineering standpoint but in reality, as it's just initial surge current that will draw that sort of power (160 amps), your not likely to start any fires with #4 copper.

Again, just make sure your fused properly and you will be ok.

inverter IMPORTANT!!!!

make sure you use one that will fit your desired use. What I mean by this is make sure you don't want a pure or modified sine wave.

If your unfamiliar with what this is here is the quick and dirty:
-for a simple inverter it is rather difficult to produce a nice smooth sine wave like what would come out of an outlet in house. what most have is a non-sinusoidal wave. where it will hold positive then switch to negative (very rapidly mind you) however fine and sensitive electronics (ie laptops and newer smart phones often don't like this and won't work)
- it should say on the inverter what the wave type is
- modified sine wave is better than non-sinusoidal for this but still keep an eye on things. (I would only charge a laptop when it is powered off and just filling the battery. when you want to use it unplug it! the unevenness of the wave can play hell on some voltage regulators).

I currently have a 1000W RMS amp under my passenger seat (don't want to know how I crammed that in there. haha). that is non-sinusoidal. works GREAT for things like tools, compressors, etc. but when I hook my laptop up it just trips the fault and doesn't work. my old flip phone will charge from it but my buddies smart phone wont.

Hope this helps you out a bit. Cheers!

edit: PS - coming from an engineer these things def do matter, also the size wire you use is also based on the distance you bringing it. not just the power draw. don't have the chart right now but if you Google Wire Sizing chart you should find one.

Dang my inverters bring all the electricians to the yard.

Thanks guys

montanaJON said:

make sure you use one that will fit your desired use. What I mean by this is make sure you don't want a pure or modified sine wave.

If your unfamiliar with what this is here is the quick and dirty:
-for a simple inverter it is rather difficult to produce a nice smooth sine wave like what would come out of an outlet in house. what most have is a non-sinusoidal wave. where it will hold positive then switch to negative (very rapidly mind you) however fine and sensitive electronics (ie laptops and newer smart phones often don't like this and won't work)
- it should say on the inverter what the wave type is
- modified sine wave is better than non-sinusoidal for this but still keep an eye on things. (I would only charge a laptop when it is powered off and just filling the battery. when you want to use it unplug it! the unevenness of the wave can play hell on some voltage regulators).

I currently have a 1000W RMS amp under my passenger seat (don't want to know how I crammed that in there. haha). that is non-sinusoidal. works GREAT for things like tools, compressors, etc. but when I hook my laptop up it just trips the fault and doesn't work. my old flip phone will charge from it but my buddies smart phone wont.

Hope this helps you out a bit. Cheers!

edit: PS - coming from an engineer these things def do matter, also the size wire you use is also based on the distance you bringing it. not just the power draw. don't have the chart right now but if you Google Wire Sizing chart you should find one.

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This is a good point. Also, you probably don't want to severely over-rate your actual consumption. No point in the 700 or 800W inverters if you are just charging a cell phone. They will likely draw more while doing that than the 300W will. Going with a small thing like doc recommends is a great idea because it will draw less power period, and probably draws less while not in use. You can even get some smaller capacity ones that don't have a cooling fan, so are totally silent while operating. Those fans draw power any time the unit is on, so if you want to leave it on, you should go with a smaller one without a fan.

One inverter on amazon has a video in the reviews where a guy measures the base power consumption of several different models. it a good quick lesson on how much these things can draw while not in use.

Both excellent posts from montanaJON and Nelsonmd.


I tend to forget the advances that solar pwr has brought to this product in the last decade.

I have an old 1000W inverter that I use time to time but it has 7+amps idle current draw with nothing plugged in just to run itself.
It is pure sine however so no issues with sensitive equipment.

It was actually a UPS for a computer system.

Grenvilleter said:

Both excellent posts from montanaJON and Nelsonmd.


I tend to forget the advances that solar pwr has brought to this product in the last decade.

I have an old 1000W inverter that I use time to time but it has 7+amps idle current draw with nothing plugged in just to run itself.
It is pure sine however so no issues with sensitive equipment.

It was actually a UPS for a computer system.

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I don't think 7 amps is correct, that thing would be on fire... 7 mA maybe?

Go with the Coleman....cause it looks the best!! I read this whole post I wished that much about electricity! Hell I am having a hard time wiring up a dang relay! Boy do I feel stupid!!! I run a small 300watt convertor in mine just for cellphones and laptops it does the job...gf uses it mainly though, I don't know what the girl would do without her flat iron. :lol:

Nelsonmd said:

I don't think 7 amps is correct, that thing would be on fire... 7 mA maybe?

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Nope...definitely 7 amps 12 volts at idle. Well it might be 6.5 A but definitely it's up there. It was a while ago when I measured it.

Like I was saying earlier however, It was designed for instant (ms)switchover in the event of prime, line pwr loss.
It also has to match phase as well to line pwr so not an unreasonable number considering it's design purpose.
It's the extra circuitry that adds up the current draw when at idle plus it has a couple levels of filtering against spikes etc.

It sure don't compare to the milli-amps that proper basic inverters draw at idle.
I have no plans on hard-wiring it into my 4runner however. As another post here suggested, I'd just get a small unit capable of pwring up a laptop or charging a phone and plug it into a pwr socket and perhaps store it in the glove box.

Doc2012 said:

I've got a 1500W one that I used while out with STA to power the camper the instructors stayed in. Got it at AutoZone, and it has a remote on it, so that way I can mount it somewhere out of the way, and still be able to surn it on and off.

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to which Surveillance & Target Acquisition platoon were you attached?

hrt4me said:

to which Surveillance & Target Acquisition platoon were you attached?

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Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to get attached with a STA platoon.

I was doing coverage for 2/8 STA indoc, at an abondoned air field in Holly Ridge, and was transfered to a different regiment, much to my dismay.

The chief I had at the time was a complete douche, and wanted me to take care of his screw up(s), more than he wanted to care for his sailor(s).

And here is my answer because this is my thought process. I say get a dual battery system going and a modified supra alt. the mod supra alt output 85 or 90A at idle and reaches full output of 200A at around 1500 to 2000 rpm mix that with a dual battery system and well there goes your drain issue. Aux battery use a AGM deep cycle. Last way longer for accessories.

I would not be concerned with an initial surge of 1600w on a 4 ga wire. Surge draw for 1600w/12v = 133A. And this is a momentary draw not a constant. Even if you ran the inverter at a full 800w all the time the draw would only be 66.5A. The heating effect of that much current on that size wire is minimal.

As stated before the maximum draw through a 4g wire is 138A. Even with surge you under that. Surge (startup) draw is less than that and only last maybe a few seconds at most. You continuous draw at 800w is less than 50% of max draw. When designing a circuit you want power factor to be roughly 50% or less. Taking into account of the length of wire, which will have a resistance, hence also a voltage drop and more current but for the application I think it is less of a concern. If your using a high quality car audio wire, then you should be good and the distance will not have much effect. We are also talking 9 to 10 feet max.

I run a 750w amp for my stereo. Wired up at a 2ohm resistance on the subs, never had a problem with the 4 gauge wire I am running. Never had a heating issue. This is also running on both a single and double battery setup. On the single when I cranked it I rarely had my lights dim. The capacitor I have did almost jack for my system. On my dual battery system, I never have a dimming problem. EVER. I have ran the single battery/cap at high volumes for cross country trips and never had an issue. Wires never got warm to a point I was worried. Think luke warm water. I only run Rockford Fosgate wires for high draw systems. From every wire I have used in my previous car/trucks. They have by far one of the best out there.

I agree worth the stated before reference of modified sine is better than non-sinosodial. Anytime you take DC and make it fluctuate, it is gonna take an effect in the load on it. If your running a lot of computer type equipment or even cell phones, definitely look for one that output a "clean" sine wave. And constant too. I had a little 300w I would charge my phone on and it wrecked hell on the battery and transformer. Thing got so got the screen would bug out.

Yeah yeah flame away if you want but I have been to school for this stuff too and know it well.

Doc2012 said:

Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to get attached with a STA platoon.

I was doing coverage for 2/8 STA indoc, at an abondoned air field in Holly Ridge, and was transfered to a different regiment, much to my dismay.

The chief I had at the time was a complete douche, and wanted me to take care of his screw up(s), more than he wanted to care for his sailor(s).

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still with 2d MARDIV?

hrt4me said:

still with 2d MARDIV?

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Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune.

Unfortunately. I'm trying to get back to greenside. Have to do my bs shore duty first.