3000 watt inverter

You have a pic of that? Where did you find it?

 

OReilys auto parts. Same place I bought my batteries. I dont have any pics. I'm home in Fla. My truck is in a shop in Louisiana. I pick it up Thursday. I'll get some pics.

It looks like a large relay with large copper terminals on each end to connect the battery cables. I have it on the hot side coming off my battery box with a zip tie to keep it from chaffing on the frame.

EDIT:

I did a quick search online.

These are not exactly what I have. These are manual reset breakers. Mine is auto-reset. Paid $10 or $15 for mine.





Hurst

 

I had one like the bottom one pictured and it would not trip. I didn't feel comfortable with the quality at all. I switched to a heavy duty fuse like pictured above. Mine is a 2500 watt and I'm using a 300 amp fuse.

 

Powerdrive 3000 or cobra 3000 which is the most preferred one? As far as longevity reliability?

 

For 3000 watts you need HEAVY cable I ran 4 runs of heavy welding cable and a 300a fuse. Watts law.
EDIT; Found the calculator, it is here Inverter Calculator
12v dc in, 120v ac out 3000watts
10ft cables. =
2 gauge cables, 300amp input draw. (Fuse)

 

Basically the same thing (cheap). I've had two 400W Cobras that run off a lighter socket years ago, one died in a few months, the other had bad fan noise. I wouldn't buy any of their inverters again.

FYI - This is a 5 yr old zombie thread, but a good one to revive since doing it wrong will probably burn a truck down.

Do yourself a favor and buy a good brand sine wave inverter. Xantrex is good. I ran a 2000W in my old KW for 8 trouble free years. It's also the brand inverter that Thermo King packages with a Tripac APU. More recently I've installed two Giandel 2200W inverters the past year. The first one was in another truck I traded off, and the inverter is now about 4 years old trouble free. That brand (from Amazon) is unknown in the US, but seemed to be more popular with good reviews in Europe and Australia.

Mine are on an 8 foot run of 2/0 wire with a 250A ANL (lug style) fuse someone posted earlier. Cooking appliances hit the batteries pretty hard. Especially things with an electric heating element like a coffee maker or hot plate. Be sure to check the watt rating on anything you plug in, bearing in mind most truck alternators are less than 150A max output, APU's usually 1/3 of that. In other words, enough load will easily out run your alternator and still discharge your batteries even with the engine idling or APU running if you have one.

By the way, the good inverters also have a low voltage safety cut off, usually around 11.5V. They should shut down before they discharge the batteries too much to start the engine, or spike the amperage due to excessively low input voltage.

 

Here’s a chart.

 

3000w with 1/0 at 4ft and 300amp breaker is what I used. Make sure it’s real OFC and not CCA wire.

 

I’m having a problem with inverters smoking out. Ive been running 2 inverters. Both properly wired and fused separately. First 2 models were a 1500w and a 1000w they were both 10 yr old old models, though new. Each lasted about 20 hrs running time. I now have a 2000w bought from Pilot. I also bought a 1500w from eBay seller at about half the Truckstop price. Both were working good. 2000w used for coffee pot. 1500w running small refrigerator. Recently the 1500w smoked out, while running a small fridge.The idea was to always have a back up, so I can always have my coffee. Good thing, since I’ve blown 3 so far, Lol. Apparently the Roadpro Powerdrives are known for smoking out, blowing the internal fuse. New one needs to be soldered in. Now I see my voltage is running at about 15 or more. Systems charging too much. May have a shorted battery, or bad voltage regulator/ alternator. I doubt it’s my alternator. Never had that problem with an alternator, they usually just quit working. Must be a shorted battery. I’ll know tomorrow. The only thing I didn’t do is run a back up ground wire from inverters to chassis. Didn’t think it was needed. I’m wondering if the shorted battery or bad regulator caused the last one to smoke out. What started as a low buck 2 inverter system is getting expensive. May just stick with the one 2000w, it’s all I really need. Just liked the idea of a back up, already being mounted when needed. Any thoughts or experiences, suggestions? Am I missing something?