List of “good” inverters please

Nomad Willy said:

119 posts and no “good” inverter yet?
Must be very interesting though.

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You have read a number of 'personal experiences' with various brands.
Pick out the one you like or matches your drapes.

foggysail said:

I don’t know Dave, not familiar with those devices.

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Ah; no shore power connector.

OldDan1943 said:

You have read a number of 'personal experiences' with various brands.
Pick out the one you like or matches your drapes.

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HaHa ... Dan I have no interest in converters and have read only snippets of this thread. I just find it amazing how much interest there seems to be.

I have an inverter but am only vaguely aware of where it is. As far as I know I have no need for it. But the next guy w the boat may want it.

BACK TO THE OP’S QUESTION!

I just joined the chorus in search of a good inverter! A week or so ago I did some boat work and at the same time turned the power on for our fridge. No issues running the fridge without dock power because my solar is more than adequate along with the battery bank to power the fridge and then some. So while at the boat yesterday for the spring launch I found the fridge OFF! Sure enough what I thought to be reliable, my EDECOA 3.5KW true sine wave inverter showed the battery voltage and NO AC. Nothing burned inside just no AC. And no resets.

Sure, it’s trash but before it gets to the barrels I’m going to take it home, power it and poke around with a scope. Without a schematic I doubt I will find what happened. Gees.... these circuits are not that complicated! Now I’ll hold off on may thoughts about their design that makes them so fragile

Does it show a fault code. Disconnecting from the battery should reset it. I believe these units have fuses as well.

gsholz said:

Does it show a fault code. Disconnecting from the battery should reset it. I believe these units have fuses as well.

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No codes, no fault lights, screen lite showing the battery voltage, no fuses that I can find outside nor inside the cover. So far a Xantrex 1000 pooped the bed with a 1000 watt load, a pseudo sine wave smoked (2KW) running our microwave oven and finally this dog stopped barking and I don’t know why. My fridge load should never be high enough for an overload failure and no remnants of smoke or fire inside. I am beginning to think the Chinese hire anybody who can say the words ‘me are an engineer’ to do inverter design. These things should NOT fail even when overloaded. Their circuits should be designed for those occurrences. Unfortunately the market for these things is not large enough for companies to invest in whatever a good design will cost.

Xantrex; ETL listed to CSA Standard
C22.2 No. 107.1 and
UL 458

EDECOA via specs: Output Wave Form Pure Sine Wave.
Xantrex shows only safety marks, therefore, no reliability testing was mandated.

EDECOA claims a "pure sine wave". I'm dying here laughing. Not at the unfortunate buyers, but this industry is currently plagued by bad corporate behavior.

Vote with your wallets, folks.

Ask for type test results from a 3rd party. Believe me, China, India, etc ask in very stern terms for this data from US suppliers. If the manuf. specs a temperature range of operation, ask for the test report. Don't be shy; Ask for surge test results; Ask for a CISPR11/FCC Part 15 report. If none are sent within a week; go to the next vendor. I keep a large server file at the ready, filled with internal and external test reports. Shoot, I had a buyer two weeks ago want test reports that were no older than 5 years.

foggysail said:

Unfortunately the market for these things is not large enough for companies to invest in whatever a good design will cost.

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The market for inverter are huge in Europe. They are sold to people living off the grid.

Companies like Victron sell a complete line of alternative energy equipment.

Here in the US, the market for inverters have been primarily marine and RV.

Things are turning here in the US with tax breaks for clean energy. A lot of inverters sold in the non recreation market.

A lot of kids are living off the grid. They are buying land without utilities and investing money towards energy independence. I sell all the used Trace, Freedom and Xantrex modified sine inverter/chargers that I get as trade in on new inverters to those kids. They are for the most part pretty sharp and buy the older inverters to get the most bang out of a buck.

Hopefully, other electronic manufacturers take notice and jump into the market.

syjos said:

The market for inverter are huge in Europe. They are sold to people living off the grid.

Companies like Victron sell a complete line of alternative energy equipment.

Here in the US, the market for inverters have been primarily marine and RV.


Hopefully, other electronic manufacturers take notice and jump into the market.

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The inverter requirements to operate on European power might prevent those same inverters from usage here. The 220 or what ever their voltage standard is would not inhibit my using those higher voltage. MY new transformer could easily make that adjustment.

A possible problem is with the 50Hz line frequency. Europeans should have no problems using 60Hz power, the other way around though can cause problems related to the volt time product in magnetics. The operating flux density of the magnetic cores will certainly be higher forcing them to run hotter. Any piece of equipment using magnetics including motors should be rated to operate at the lower frequency by their manufacturers for best results.

diver dave said:

Xantrex; ETL listed to CSA Standard
C22.2 No. 107.1 and
UL 458

EDECOA via specs: Output Wave Form Pure Sine Wave.
Xantrex shows only safety marks, therefore, no reliability testing was mandated.

EDECOA claims a "pure sine wave". I'm dying here laughing. Not at the unfortunate buyers, but this industry is currently plagued by bad corporate behavior.

Vote with your wallets, folks.

Ask for type test results from a 3rd party. Believe me, China, India, etc ask in very stern terms for this data from US suppliers. If the manuf. specs a temperature range of operation, ask for the test report. Don't be shy; Ask for surge test results; Ask for a CISPR11/FCC Part 15 report. If none are sent within a week; go to the next vendor. I keep a large server file at the ready, filled with internal and external test reports. Shoot, I had a buyer two weeks ago want test reports that were no older than 5 years.

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Thanks for your suggestion Dave! I have a pseudo sinewave inverter (spare I kept for backup) in the circuit now which worked OK in the past for my needs. I do prefer a pure sinewave inverter and I do intend to follow your advice above. If I cannot find what I want for a reasonable price, I will go without.