2500 Watt Inverter Wiring Install

i have a 2000w and i use "2" sets of 1/0 right off the batteries and each set has twin side by side 50a fuess...

 

i have always had inverters. and over the years i have bought about 2 dozen. one for each truck when i had 7 trucks running about another 6 or 7 for cars and a few upgrades and 2 replacements. i use 2500 watt inverters to power my tv laptop fridage microwave cell phone heater when its really cold out. never had battery issues. and a hell of alot cheaper than an APU that requires fuel still pluse additional maitance and cost a hell of alot more......i think most of these guys that say to just get an APU are company drivers with no idea of cost and maintance..... and i know someone will be along soon to say oh well idling is a gallon and hour....well i have tested that many others have tested it. its a wise tale.

 

your right... i've checked the numbers......

my truck uses .5-.8 gph.... now the apu makes say they only use .2 gph BIG LIE... check the engine manufacturer (kabota) and they say the same engine uses .2gph at NO LOAD IDLE put a 50% load on it and gee .8-1.1 gph thats more than my big engine... ppl need to remember that running A/C takes 7-10hp so for the big motor thats nothing but for the 18-20hp apu thats a 50% load, add charging the battries running the apu invertor and it's more like 75% load....

 

yep so very very true. i get about .5 gph with it kicked up a hair on the high idle. and its going to get bad for apu users soon since there is prosal of adding emmisons to them as well. they want them to have even stricter laws for apu than for trucks....kinda weird aint it....lol

 

idling main engine for me is also 0.5 to 0.6 gal/hr @ high idle and fan locked on. dunno where others get the figures they toss around (2-3 gph??)

Bad part of the APU; initial costs, install costs and modifications to truck. You're still burning fuel, more than advertised as previous poster mentioned. Then the maintenance costs. I don't mean oil changes, I mean $900 for a generator head rebuild (first one was warranty replacement, second was my buy, cheaper to rebuild than buy @ $1500 from Carrier), $600 for an alternator, $500 for a CCU control board (first one was warranty, second was my buy), $150 for a fuel control solenoid, pending replacement of a glitchy APU control unit ...all this (so far) on a ComfortPro with 4500 hrs; did I get my money's worth out this unit? You decide.

Inverter costs: depends on what you buy, but you could have a decent quality unit bought and professionally installed with oversize wires and fuses for under $1000. Add a couple of service calls for boosting while you get used to the idea of watching your battery gauge.

This Carrier is the second APU i've had on this truck; neither will ever pay for themselves, and i'm beginning to wonder if a good inverter and extra battery pack would've put me farther ahead in the long run. That, or Pablo's suggestion of an aftermarket diesel generator mounted on the frame rail or catwalk.

 

At Bison we started putting apu's in trucks about 6 yrs ago and abandoned that idea about 4 yrs later because of maintence costs.We now have electric apu's with an extra 4 batteries and our 2000 watt inverters are wired to the 4 extra batteries.I have a 2013 Cascadia with the Parksmart system.Works really well with lots of power for inverter and starter batteries are separate.

 

petend have then add a ESM Engine Start Module the size of one battery that way ALL the batteries can be used to run the shorepower and the ESM will start the truck

 

I just bought a Cobra CPI-2575 inverter, for my Peterbilt, it has 3 battery system was thinking of adding a 4th when i install the inverter, its a 2500 watt continuous 5000 watt peak, would a 4 battery make any difference? It (the inverter) also has 2 Positive and 2 Negative leads on it, I read earlier on here that installing one Pos and one Neg is sufficent, i see the manual suggests using #2 AWG wire if length is longer than 4 ft, it also suggests an 250 ANL fuse close to the battery, my question is if I were to install the 2 POsitives (since i have 3 batterys it wouldnt too hard) would I need to install a fuse in both Positive cables?

 

U can buy 1/0 gauge and put the BIG ANL fuses in between the inverter and battery. That is what we do with car audio when we do use fuses on amplifiers Lol. The electrical on those cascadis is dang tricky its like housE wiring once u cut split or break a wire have to replace the whole wire harness