Posted: 9/4/2011 6:34:06 PM EDT
| I'm looking at a 1,000 watt or so inverter to permanently mount in my truck. I was leaning toward a Xantrex, but I'm now reading some bad reviews. Anybody have any input or guidance? |
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Check your local Big Lots to see if they have any of the 1000w (2000w) peak B&D ones left... those are re-branded Xantrex Vector. Black & Decker purchased Vector Electronics a few years ago, and now puts their own name on inverters and battery chargers manufactured by Vector. |
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Xantrex does some very decent stuff. Do you need a true sine wave output, or can you live with a cheaper "modified sine wave" model? Modified sine should be fine. It will mainly be high end laptops. You would likely be far better served to just get an adapter for this purpose rather than an inverter. They are readily available, usually for under $25. It makes little difference whether it is a high end laptop or the cheapest laptop you can find. The power supplies for them are pretty much the same. |
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Invertors have other uses, like running stuff other than your laptops so an invertor is not a bad thing. However, you are using a lot of power to charge a laptop using an invertor in your vehicle. I have a toughbook laptop from panasonic. I can buy a charger for it to use the 12 volts from a car or whatever to charge it. That is one conversion, the 12 volts from the car to whatever the toughbook likes to charge from. With an invertor you are taking the 12 volts from the car and creating 110 volts ac so you can use the cord from the house to charge the laptop. Every laptop I have seen has something in the cord that steps the power down to what the laptop likes, so you are having the house cord for the laptop step that power back to something else. Each time there is a change in how you do the power you lose some to heat so the invertor is not the most efficient way to go about charging laptops in your vehicle. I want the car cord for my laptop because it would be more efficient and therefore if the power was out I would make the most of whatever power I have stored in my vehicle's battery if I don't want to run the vehicle while charging the laptop. And some invertors have a fan that runs all the time regardless of how much power is being used, if it is running a fan it is sucking down more power. I have several invertors of many sizes. I never considered what size my laptop would need but I expect a 1k watt unit is overkill for it. The old xantrex stuff was very nice stuff. I have heard the newer stuff is not so nice but I don't know if they were bought out or just started selling chinese knockoff stuff or if something else happened. Most of my invertors are made by vector. They vary by what brand they are but they all say vector, I have cobra and black and decker and some other brand as well I think. Vector does well for my needs but I would probably research the commercial versions if you have a need to use it for a business and will use it that much. Just some rambling thoughts on the subject, the black and decker ones mentioned are nice. I got one since that is all that was at big lots when I got there. IF it was me I would put an invertor in just to have an invertor and if you will be charging the same laptops all the time I would consider the car cords to make things more efficient. |