Inverter review

 

This is what I purchased:

 

This is a 180 watt pure sine wave inverter.  Allthough the brand name was not familiar to me, I took a chance and bought it.  Keep in mind that I only use it to power a 55 watt TV.  Judging by what I have read, one wants to purchase at least twice as much capacity as needed - to cover start up surges.  In my case, this meant that I would have needed at least 110 watt inverter.

 

I got the chance to use it for 3 days this past weekend and am happy to report that it performed as it should.....no smoke from the TV.  I intentionally ran it for about 25 hours - just to test it and to see how my batteries would take the load.  I turned it on/off several times to make sure all was well.  I actually fell asleep with the TV on Friday night.

 

Throughout the use, it barely got warm to the touch (it was running at less than 1/3 capacity) and the internal cooling fan never came on.  My batteries = 2 RV/Marine deep cycle (OK Tech, HYBRID batteries ) both having 140 amp/hours for a total of 280 amp/hours.  The batteries stayed on "Full" for about the first 24 hours and then remained on "Good" or 3 lights on the monitor for the remainder of the stay. 

 

All in all, I'd give the product a thumbs up.  I know and respect the "Samlex" brand of equipment - mentioned by Tech in the original post.  I doubt you would go wrong with one of those.  However, at the bargain price of $80, this seems to be a very good deal.  Larger models are available.  I purchased mine from Fry's Electronics but, they are available from a number of sources online.

 

A down side to the Ham Radio and CB radio operators....it is very RF "noisy" (as expectred) from 7mhz to above 50mhz (CB is approx. 27mhz).  It seemed most pronounced around 24mhz.  So, you can't watch TV AND play with your radios at the same time.