Hey there,
Looking to get a true sine inveter on the high side, maybe around 5000 watts. I know I need to have a fuse between the battery and inverter, right guage of cable. What I need help understanding is, if I hook this bad boy up to one battery, is that all it needs?
I run a TriPak Evolution to keep the batteries charged.
Inverter experts needed
Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by ThatTallGuy, Jul 24, 2019.
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At full load it would draw almost twice the current of your starter. Most trucks have four batteries for starting.
Not saying you need eight batteries, but certainly more than one.
If you are just tying into your full battery bank off of one batteries terminals, that would be fine. But one battery isolated isn't enough.rabbiporkchop, x1Heavy and 86scotty Thank this. -
Ok, I just wanted to make sure that it would work off all the batteries if I only hooked up to one.
I'm no electrical expert, in fact me and electricity don't get along very well, more of a hydraulics guy =P -
All your batteries are connected together in parallel. Youre drawing off all of them.
stuckinthemud and 86scotty Thank this. -
Correct, to balance things better I'd do the positive off one end of the positive bus bar and the negative off the other end of the negative bus bar, so when inverter is on you're sucking from all batteries more easily. It probably matters very little but that's how I do it.
You DEFINITELY need at least 4 batteries for a big inverter. I have a pure sine 2500 watt and I think my 4 batteries are barely enough.
As for brand I'm really happy with my Aimes Power PSW 2500. It also has a multi stage charger so you can just plug in the truck at home/parking. I'm not even sure they make a 5k inverter you could make work. I can't imagine what kind of cables and fuses you'd need.
Go to DonRowe.com and read up on inverters.mp4694330, stuckinthemud and x1Heavy Thank this. -
What about multiple inverters?
My company has one installed now that came with the truck when I bought it, I think it's 1500 watt. I was going to install a pure 2500 on top of that but now that you say that I think I'm just going to detach the company installed one and replace it with the pure sine as long as it's 0 guage wire. Hopefully they have a big enough fuse installed already too.
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How do you determine what size fuse to put on it?
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There are charts online for that. Here's one:
Redirect Notice
Also, this:
How To Size A Fuse For Your Inverter Application
I run a 250 I think on my 2500 inverter. I'll look later and report back.
As for running multiple inverters it depends on what you're running on them and when. You can't turn everything on at once on two inverters and expect good things to happen.
Replacing company one with yours may get you in hot water if you're worried about that but it is a good, simple way to do it.
You need to learn to figure watts and amps and then think about what you'll be running on the inverter. I run a 1000 watt microwave, a laser printer, a Keurig, an old school coffee pot, a bunch of chargers and an AC fridge on mine but I don't turn all this stuff on at once. My coffee pot or microwave is plenty of work for my inverter one at a time.
Sorry to write you a book here but if you have a 1000 watt inverter it's not going to run a 1000 watt microwave for long. It's all about maintaining a lot of cushion in the system. My coffee pot probably pulls 1500 watts. That's plenty for my 2500 watt inverter to not get it too hot or shorten it's life IMO.ThatTallGuy Thanks this. -
5000 on a inverter is big.
4 of your batteries will feed this ok. For a while.
One battery definitely is NOT enough.
We had about 3000 watts on ours, Freightliner installed that inverter tied to two special cables to the batteries opposite ends. The cabling they used were stranded and about 1/2 inch thick. I don't know what gauge they were that big. I usually work anywhere from 24 gauge down to about 8 at the most and understand those, but they are tiny babies when you toss this much wattage. Burn them up. So you break out the big cables to feed Inverter.
You also will need to understand that your inverter wants a place it can cool off. Otherwise it will cook itself and burn out slowly by degrees. Literally.
With inverter in truck we ran a 1000 watt Mr Coffee for a hour or so at most. That's a pretty good workout with engine at high idle 1500.
When you get to 5K and up, you are dealing with power questions I barely understand. We would have to think about big stuff like say 200 amp mains to the side of the house served by two wires to a pole which is capable of up to 7000 volts and god only knows what amps and so on.
Big stuff. When you close the fuse and connect that pole... sometimes it refuses it.
ThatTallGuy Thanks this. -
Dont be sorry, you're doing a great job of explaining this. I understand what you mean and it sounds good. The truck is mine now so replacing is no big deal. I just want to make sure the cable size and length are right as well as the fuse. This is my first time doing this and don't want to set my cab on fire

x1Heavy Thanks this.
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