Anyone have this Inverter?

We are with out power,but do have generators. 10k watt plugs into the house and the small harbor freight genny.

Big genny is to cool fridge, freezer and for hot water.



We use the harbor freight for everything else. But at night we found out the the tv doesn't like the modifid sine wave  inverter I have and the transformer buzzs.



Started looking for a pure sine wave inverter and found this one from amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Sunforce-11240-Inverter-Remote-Control/dp/B000WGNNUQ



Is there any good or bad things about it.



or recommend anything else?

You can always get a computer battery back up. let the generator charge it while running, and let it "condition" the line to the TV, computer or whatever you want to put it on. Not expensive, and works well. You can get larger "line Conditioners" but the are expensive.

You can use a huge marine or even 4D battery with say a UPS1000 and it will run electronics. Charge large battery via Genny have two batteries rotation is easy. The small built in charger would not cut it.

Forgot to put the inverter is connected to 2 deep cycle batteries already.

Would that clean up the power from a modified sine wave inverter?


 

computer battery back up - Not many of these put out a clean sine wave. Most are modified sine wave AKA a bunch of square waves stacked together.

See if I understand charge deep cycle batteries. Plug ups into inverter plug electronics into ups. Then

when deep cycle batteries drain recharge the deep cycle batteries

If you go with APC Marine UPS it is a pure sine wave output.

Xantrex also has a good pure sine wave inverter in both 1000W and 2000W varieties. Some computer UPSs have pure sine waves, most don't. The ones that do are cheaper than the Xantrex but can't handle the power drain. A 1500VA battery backup unit is usually only good for about 800W of draw before it starts having problems, which is usually more than sufficient for a computer + monitor.

Weird...all my APC devices are not pure sine wave (it's pretty obvious based on the price) and I have no devices that have a problem with them.

Problem I am having is my led/lcd tv buzzes when plug into my xantrex xpower inverter 1000 and a road pro 500 watt inverter.
Tv runs find on the 10000 duramax generator and the small harbor freight generator,



But my propane wall heater fans won't run at speed of the Harbor freight generator.



The computers are find since most of them are either laptops or tablets.

We are accessing the internet with foxfi app on our phones.




We are not using the desktop since it isn't wireless.

 

Can you try a boring, midelevel APC with the TV just to see?




I think there are a lot of TVs running on APCs just for surge/spike protection alone.
 

I don't have a sunforce inverter, but I have used a sunforce solar charge controller.  It worked fine until I sold it to upgrade.  It will probably work fine, but I also look at bigger brand (including Xantrex's pure sine).  They may only be a little more expensive.

An alternative - search craigslist for a pure sine UPS.  Many go up for sale (with just dead batteries).  If you can get one for cheap - have the owner toss the battery if you must ship... might be a good deal.  I've picked up a SmartUPS.  In my area, CL shows a APC SmartUPS1500 for $100, and a 1000 for $70, and 750 for $10 (no battery).  You can jury rig higher capacity batteries (such as your existing) to provide power and have long run time.  Unless your existing batteries are AGMs, if you choose to use a UPS as your inverter, you can't use it to charge the batteries.  And even if you have AGMs, if you up the capacity too much, you won't achieve enough charging current.

UPSs use AGMs, which require different charge voltages and maintenance than standard wet cell (like golf cart, car batteries, or traditional boat batteries).  You want the shortest cables for the external battery jury rig (to manage voltage loss).  If you're lucky enough to find a UPS which is a true line-battery-line UPS (for APC, the part number with be SURTA), and you use internal batteries, those will give you the best output (little to no EMI).  Otherwise, most UPS are line interactive - so will pass some noise from the input source, even though they filter, except when they're running off battery.

ill have to go buy one. walmart had a apc bn600g in stock



 

no.  typical "Best Buy" or "Staples" or "Newegg" UPS backup boxes do not work that way.

under normal line operation, they just pass through the supplied AC.  there may be some filtering, but it's certainly not going to recreate a sine wave.

ar-jedi

You want an online UPS

Reading thru the reviews that it is 500 watts from each out let.





Sounds like the UPS wont work,



But anyone know anything about the Sunforce line of inverters from the original post?


Quality any good?



http://www.amazon.com/Sunforce-11240-Inverter-Remote-Control/dp/B000WGNNUQ




Guess I will go with the Xantrex Prowatt SW1000 1000W True Sinewave Inverter,

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002I04A74/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2X8N6V4HT8DJJ




 

The user reviews are just so-so.

You might also take a look at the Xantrex ProWatt SW series. Xantrex isn't the same great company it used to be, but they're still a much more well-established company than the "Sunforce" brand.

Using a UPS is a gamble. Many of them have the same "modified sine wave" output as the cheap inverters - and thus will cause the same problems with buzz and hum.

I used to think that too until I started using 80+ gold active PFC power supplies.  They don't function on my apc back-ups 1200 or back ups pro 1500 lcd unless the power is on.  They only work on my Smart-UPS 2200, a significant increase in cost and size.

If you go to the apc website, none of their consumer models are true sine...all are "stepped approximation to a sine wave".  

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR1500G&total_watts=200

The smart-ups 750 is the cheapest true sine output at $350, but only drops 500w.  Cheaper to buy a xantrex pro 1800 inverter.

I do recommend having one for anything sensitive to negate transients, especially from an alternator.  For electric motors, as long as they don't brown out, you are gtg without one...but pure sine is a must.

I got a Go Power 300W sinewave specifically for electronics (obviously your wattage needs might be higher, depending on the TV etc.)

I've been very happy with it, and haven't had any issues.

Finally some good information in this thread.

That's a nice inverter and they are even better prices on ebay.

I've got one running in the container 24/7 for a couple years now. Works great!

Also one in the stealth trailer. As well as a spare just in case.

Can't go wrong for the $$$.

I guess I have been lucky and haven't had anything hooked up to my APCs that requires pure sine wave.  I have several size UPS devices but a 1500 is the biggest and fanciest and I'm pretty sure it is not pure sine wave.



My Goal Zero Yeti 1250 is my only device with a pure sine wave inverter.



When I'm ready to get a little more serious with my hobby/backup solar stuff I'll be thinking about an Outback charging inverter (with pure sine wave) but that's a few bucks.  I plan on getting a good charging inverter and a good charge controller at some point.
 

All APC SmartUPS produce pure sine wave off battery.  The lower end products are known as line interactive when they have AC coming in.  That means they monitor the input V/A and cutover when necessary, but your devices are running off line AC (minus what the EMI and surge filter takes out).  The BackUPs APC products are square wave (modified).  so if you have any SmartUPs, you have pure sine output (and can do the jury rig that I mention).  

Solar is good stuff.  You can tinker like a mad scientist.    And if you tinker, you can save big bucks.

That's awesome!  I have several SmartUPS devices.  I guess they're more valuable than I realized.  It also shows I need to research and learn this stuff better.



I have been getting a handle on amps vs cable size, serial and parallel panel configurations, 12/24/48V systems and thinking about charge controllers and charging inverters.  I have a lot more to learn on that and the UPS thing.



For me the best path has been very small scale messing around for fun.  I could probably spend less money (long run) and have a more powerful, robust system if I went bigger but I feel like my mistakes will be less serious this way and the gradual learning will probably do me good.
 

The smartups start at ~$350.

They're not cheap.  My 1500s were a bit more than that...
 

I have this inverter in a vehicle I have setup for work/expedition stuff and it has worked well. I've only had it for eight months but am pleased with it. I have dual batteries mounted in the land cruiser and I run a fridge, computers and charge all kinds of electronics off of it. At a LC gathering in the San Juan's this summer I had a friend in a pinch run a heat gun off of it. It did it barely but as you can imagine a heat gun pulls some pretty serious juice.