Power Inverters

They sell inverters at truck stops and appliance stores. I would go in and ask then what would be the best to buy.

 

130w works just fine, tell you what get a 300w just in case you can never wrong with a 300w

 

Yep 300 watt will do all of that and a TV also.

 

I run a 400watt cobra. I have a 24" TV, my laptop, Bluetooth, Cellphone. Sometimes It give the warning squeal when the battery lvl gets low due to having so much drawing at once.

 

Hello.
Company driver here with APU and a 2000watt inverter. Want to run a microwave and a fridge. What maximum size micro can/should i get. I have been looking at 700w at wally world and mom in law found a 1000w also. with a 2000w inverter can i still run a 1000w micro and a fridge also? i can unplug other things like alarm clock, laptop, cell charger when using micro and could probally unplug fridge also. Dont want to spend alot of extra money on truck stop food and well its just not that great either. and with the job i do, i do not have that much time to stop and eat anyway. i run out my 14 before i run out my 11
Thanks

 

Check the specs on your inverter, is it 2000 continous, or is that the peak and limited power. For the microwave to make 1000 watts of actual cooking power, it will pull significantly more than 1000 watts.
If you are microwaving and refrig compressor kicks on that would give you a heck of a peak load.

 

It will handle it. I would go with the 700 watt one at WallyWorld. GE $37???
I've been using mine for 2 years now. All kinds of abuse and still works good.

A fridge at temperature will only use 70 watts or so, 105 watts start up. At least that's what mine uses. It only comes on every 30 minutes or so for a couple minutes.
A microwave will operate at stated wattage, but requires alot more for initial start up like a electric motor.

I made the mistake and bought a 800 watt invertor for the above microwave. I have a 2500 watt now. I can run everything at the same time. You should be able to too.
TV's, DVD players's, fridge all use little wattage.

Inverter 101, try to keep feed cables as short as possible, 4'-6' and use extension cords on the output side if neccessary. Use rubber gromments for the holes and/or silicone where the cables penetrate the truck body. This is how truck fires start when vibration wears a hole in the hot wire insulation and it shorts. You can't overload an invertor as they have safety shutdowns. Make sure you ground invertor chassis to truck chassis ground.

 

Just my opinion...

My experience with 12V "appliances" is that they are mostly junk. There are a few things that work well, but the number of things I deposited in the dumpster after a short period got me off of a 12V fix fairly quickly. I've heard the Coleman coolers work fairly well, as do Burton ovens. The coolers only drop the temp from what is surrounding it - don't expect it to keep stuff frozen in the summer!

A 1500 to 1800 watt inverter will power most things. You may not necessarily be able to run everything at once, but it certainly isn't going to destroy your batteries. Nor will an inverter be drawing its maximum power continuously - it only supplies enough to power what you've plugged into it and is turned on. Microwaves, George Formans, etc., are usually the highest power loads. When you purchase something like that, pay attention to the power it will draw. You can get a 700W microwave - the ones with the dial timers tend to draw the least amount of power. Fridges tend to draw very low power levels.

My carrier installs APUs on all company trucks - up to the independants whether they want one or not. Now that isn't practical in many cases, but it sure beats idling 100% of the time. If you get ambitious and get a larger inverter, be careful of the power wiring from the battery. Many truck fires are caused by inverter power leads shorting out.

 

Using a wiring kit for a high power car stereo amplifier with the inline fuse blocks to hook up the inverter strikes me as a good idea.

 

The fuse needs to be right at the battery connection. The power connection to the inverter should be really heavy gage wire. Make sure its enclosed in some kind of wire loom to prevent it from chaffing.