Home Depot inverter?

Why shouldn't I purchase a 2500 watt puresine inverter from Home Depot for $549 with 3 year warranty?? My Westerbeke 7.7 kw genset died and I can't afford a replacement. I have a 2200 watt puresine Honda knockoff that works great but isn't enough for my ac fridge. Just looking to power the fridge and maybe an ice maker.. I have a bank of 6 trojan t105s and 390 watts of solar panels.. Living on the mooring ball in Boot Key Harbor.. Gradually restoring my Formosa 42 trawler after a few years of neglect and Hurricane Irma damage.. Not to mention the damage my recent rat caused.. Ate through lots of stuff. Replacing the entire freshwater plumbing at the moment sans tanks which he didn't get to.... Thanks for your thoughts!

I saw for $400 a 3000 pure sine wave inverter 12vdc to 120ac.
I have bought from this company and indeed have their 1200 pure sine wave inverter aboard Seaweed

Website http://theinverterstore.com

Good luck. And pay extra for the remote. You won't be sorry.

Inverter is good idea. It will run down the battery unike the gen and may not start high amp induction motors, that is my experience. I have a working gen, I added 2 inverters, one mostly just for the PC, runs off a modified UPS, other just because I did not want to always run the gen, but eventually I turn on the gen if the house batteries get to 12.2 vdc

I wouldn't say an inverter is a replacement for a generator, especially a 7kW gen, but I'll admit we bought a 3kW sinewave inverter off of ebay for less than $350, remote control included. It does what we want it to do,namely coffee in the AM, microwave warmups, small household & kitchen appliances & occasional TV. If we had a genny ,which we don't, we would still have the same inverter setup we have now, just for the convenience.

An inverter doesn’t create energy tho, it converts it. Won’t you need a source to create the energy to put into batteries for the inverter to convert to 110?

Gmarr said:

An inverter doesn’t create energy tho, it converts it. Won’t you need a source to create the energy to put into batteries for the inverter to convert to 110?

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It converts it at a rather expensive loss IMHO. I have a 2k inverter. It is connected to the AppleTV, TV and coffee maker. I use a percolator for coffee. The coffee maker remains installed until I can find a matching cabinet door to re-install and revert back to a cabinet for storage again.

Streaming Game of Thrones while on the anchor is nice though.

I find that while underway, I just leave the inverter on. The engine alternators charge the batteries. And only thing so far I can not run is the AC, and my pool pump used to pump salt water for rinsing things.

HDTV receiving signals OTA does not work when the boat moves, this is due to how they designed the system, and ATSC overall is poorly designed.

If I start my gen, a relay disconnects the inverter from all the AC wiring. I designed it to do that anytime I turn gen on before it has cranked up and runs. Circuits energize ahead of the gen start sequence in all gens. This way AC power from another source can not ever mix together.

Basically DC power coming on with the run switch in the gen clicks on a small cube relay which disconnects the output power relay for the inverter. Relays are very useful.

AT34. Hmmm, I have one main inverter. It is only 1500watts. With load management, I can use the 1200 watt microwave or make a pot of coffee and the 2 AC outlet on the starboard side of the galley. I have 2 other inverters onboard, a 300 and 400 watt inverters. They support the saloon TV and stateroom TV plus one outlet on the port side of the saloon and one outlet on the starboard stateroom. I have two solar panels on the pilot house roof, 2X130. When away from the boat and the shore power mysteriously becomes disconnected, the solar panels keep the batteries alive supporting the bilge pumps alive (if needed) and the 12 vt fridge cold.

When I leave the boat for an extended period of time I shut dow all the inverters.
I have installed the 3rd 200 amp house battery.

So when choosing an inverter remember size counts. I would recommend a minimum 2000 watt inverter plus a couple extra small inverters to run the TV and a computer or cell phone charging station.

I would consider installing a new soft-start capacitor on the AC to allow your pseudo-Honda to operate the AC. Don't know the particulars of your systems but many find it works with a REAL Honda eu2000i.

If that fails, your plan sounds feasible. With your house bank and solar, plus the generator as a backup, you should do OK.

If you are using an inverter turned on full time for refrigeration or other things, there is one important spec that is often overlooked: idle current. This is the current drawn by the inverter even when it is supplying no power to anything. The figure varies widely among different brands and models. Some of the worst draw 3 amps or more. That's 72 AH just to keep the thing warm (and warm it will be). The best of them will draw a bit over 1/2 an amp. If your refrigerator cycles half the time on, the other half the time a bad inverter will be drawing 3 amps doing nothing. Many inverters have a power saving "search" mode which attempts to determine if there is a load asking for power, and only begins inverting when it sees that load. Sometimes this can work well, often not.

Sine wave style inverters are needed to operate big draw electric motors.

Microwaves , fridges and other items are usually happy with square wave power .

About 1/2 the cost of a sine wave.


2000‑Watt Power Inverter with 4 ...$146.04
Home Depot
25% price drop

sdowney717 said:

HDTV receiving signals OTA does not work when the boat moves, this is due to how they designed the system, and ATSC overall is poorly designed.

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That's an interesting comment. We have an inverter and can power the TV with it... but then I'm usually on the bridge driving... with the TV in the saloon off.

It'd be easy for us to be moving out of range of a broadcast station, and of course that would mean the signal would disappear... but within range, I'd have thought the OTA signal would be fine...

-Chris

ranger42c said:

That's an interesting comment. We have an inverter and can power the TV with it... but then I'm usually on the bridge driving... with the TV in the saloon off.

It'd be easy for us to be moving out of range of a broadcast station, and of course that would mean the signal would disappear... but within range, I'd have thought the OTA signal would be fine...

-Chris

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I agree. Not sure what was meant by that comment either. Not that we watch TV a lot while underway & not that we're going all that fast when we do but we've never experienced a loss of reception while underway if we're in an area where there is a decent signal. I know the commercial fishing fleet here on the bay watch OTA television while underway @ 12knots or so & they don't have an issue.
But I digress. That.s for another discussion. This one is about inverters!

ranger42c said:

That's an interesting comment. We have an inverter and can power the TV with it... but then I'm usually on the bridge driving... with the TV in the saloon off.

It'd be easy for us to be moving out of range of a broadcast station, and of course that would mean the signal would disappear... but within range, I'd have thought the OTA signal would be fine...

-Chris

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It is as far as I know.....we often have on air TV for everything from weather to favorite shows all the way from NJ to FL.

Not sure all channels are HDTV.....but my guess all thebig stations are???

Some places are thin, but places like the Chesapeake, near Charleston/Savannah, and much of Florida have good signals underway till out of reach of the station.

Most TVs have the "auto tune" feature so, if you run out of stations in your travels, just do the auto tune and you have all new stations without any hassle.

Weren't we talking about inverters?

OldDan1943 said:

Most TVs have the "auto tune" feature so, if you run out of stations in your travels, just do the auto tune and you have all new stations without any hassle.

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Only if stations are in range...not so much if in Southern Georgia or distant from stations and blocked by terrain... althoght with a decent amplifier I am suprised how many places you can get over the air TV.

Bigfish.....are you talking tabletop icemaker or built in? My tabletop icemaker ran fine on a non-sinewave inverter...but hard to tell if your fridge will like one.

Home Depot stuff isnt usually either the better or least expensive.....lots of stuff coming out of the web based discount solar places....

FF said:

Sine wave style inverters are needed to operate big draw electric motors.

Microwaves , fridges and other items are usually happy with square wave power .

About 1/2 the cost of a sine wave.

Click to expand...

Motors are usually pretty happy on square wave. Universal motors are happy on no wave at all. Microwaves can be pretty unhappy on square wave, putting out about half the power and heating the power supply and magnetron with the difference. Also anything with a switching power supply (like most modern electronics) can be pretty unhappy - it will work, but the power supply will heat significantly more, while producing significantly less power.

We just moved the boat 20 miles today, had rock solid HD OTA reception all the way.

Sorry for digression... what was the topic again?

-Chris

The original topic was inverters.

ranger42c said:

That's an interesting comment. We have an inverter and can power the TV with it... but then I'm usually on the bridge driving... with the TV in the saloon off.

It'd be easy for us to be moving out of range of a broadcast station, and of course that would mean the signal would disappear... but within range, I'd have thought the OTA signal would be fine...

-Chris

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https://blog.solidsignal.com/tutorials/hope-watching-tv-moving-car/

In my boat going 6 to 8 knots, the signal was dropping out and choppy.
It is just the way ATSC OTA TV works. May I ask how anyone gets a signal to work in a moving vehicle, cause when I had the problem, I looked it up and found it does not work, which is my experience.

Shakespear round for $75 or RCA at Walmart $29....amplified antenna...

Get solid signals from major cities when 30 or less miles from the antenna ( not necessarily near city). Maybe 50% of the signals do drop in and out, but some are rock solid for many miles. Terrain and obstructions can be an issue.

Works bettter than I thought it would on our annual trip.

Obviously large areas are either devpid or thin on signals, but again suprising there os TV as much as tthete is along most of the ACIW.

sdowney717 said:

In my boat going 6 to 8 knots, the signal was dropping out and choppy.
It is just the way ATSC OTA TV works. May I ask how anyone gets a signal to work in a moving vehicle, cause when I had the problem, I looked it up and found it does not work, which is my experience.

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psneeld said:

Shakespear round for $75 or RCA at Walmart $29....amplified antenna...

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Yep. Our antenna is Glomex, but usually that's all it takes... if you're in range at all.

-Chris

ranger42c said:

Yep. Our antenna is Glomex, but usually that's all it takes... if you're in range at all.

-Chris

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https://www.atsc.org/newsletter/celebrating-mobile-dtv/
Maybe you are watching a mobile ATSC A/153 Tv station, supposedly 130 are now broadcasting a mobile version of ATSC. Because regular ATSC broadcasts otherwise fails to be watchable in a moving vehicle, that is a proven fact. I am not going to argue with what is a well known limitation of ATSC, something ATSC version 3.0 fixes, but that is not around at all anywhere. Maybe your not giving me all the details of why you can watch mobile ATSC broadcast or maybe you don't even know, sorry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC-M/H
" The ATSC transmission method is not robust enough against doppler shift and multipath radio interference in mobile environments, and is designed for highly directional fixed antennas. To overcome these issues, additional channel coding mechanisms are introduced in ATSC-M/H to protect the signal."

Exactly MY experience and a proven problem with ATSC. But not going to belabor this known proven limitation with any further posts, it works for you but mostly it does not work for almost everyone which is why they are working on a mobile version that does work.

Works for every boater I know.

You are correct that I have no clue and no intetest in the tech details.

We plug in an antenna, turn on the TV, scan for channels and watch.

Getting local weather and news in many places is nice while underway.

It wouldnt be the end of the world if it didnt work as long as it works at anchor and at a dock.

It is annoying that sometimes it does work better underway as we are in open water where docks and anchorages might have too many obstacles.

DDW said:

Motors are usually pretty happy on square wave. Universal motors are happy on no wave at all. Microwaves can be pretty unhappy on square wave, putting out about half the power and heating the power supply and magnetron with the difference. Also anything with a switching power supply (like most modern electronics) can be pretty unhappy - it will work, but the power supply will heat significantly more, while producing significantly less power.

Click to expand...

+1

If you guys want, we can split the TV discussion to its own thread.

Bigfish said:

Why shouldn't I purchase a 2500 watt puresine inverter from Home Depot for $549 with 3 year warranty?? My Westerbeke 7.7 kw genset died and I can't afford a replacement. I have a 2200 watt puresine Honda knockoff that works great but isn't enough for my ac fridge. Just looking to power the fridge and maybe an ice maker.. I have a bank of 6 trojan t105s and 390 watts of solar panels.. Living on the mooring ball in Boot Key Harbor.. Gradually restoring my Formosa 42 trawler after a few years of neglect and Hurricane Irma damage.. Not to mention the damage my recent rat caused.. Ate through lots of stuff. Replacing the entire freshwater plumbing at the moment sans tanks which he didn't get to.... Thanks for your thoughts!

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What kind of fridge requires that kind of wattage?

FlyWright said:

If you guys want, we can split the TV discussion to its own thread.

Click to expand...

Just killing time till he comments or answers.......

Psneeld, we are still talking about inverters, types and size and things that might use the inverter. And yes, a little side venture on antenna, to support the TV.

I don't think we have every stayed on subject.... but we always seem to come back to the original subject.