Pure Sine Wave ----- Size

[Vegas Teacher]

Just curious, what size of inverters do you all have? Flyer put in my Jackalopee last weekend and I am going to go to his house again this weekend. So what size of unit are you all running? 1500 - 3000 seem to be popular at the truck stops.

Later,

Cory O

[Quickthrotl]

I have a 2000 in mine

[Darryl&Rita]

PSW is 1KW, also run a MSW 1.5KW. The smaller runs the fridge, plus cell phones via the USB ports. The bigger one feeds back to the converter in the trailer. 

[Chad Heiser]

I have a Magnum 2012 PSW inverter in my HDT.  I'm just a fan of Magnum's stuff.  It is probably overkill for the HDT, but it is the way I went.  It powers the fridge, microwave, TV and a few outlets in the sleeper.  I also have a separate battery bank dedicated to the Magnum.  It was originally just hooked up to my three starting batteries, but it drew too much power on those batteries to be of any use for the loads I wanted to run.  I also have a battery separator in line that allows me to temporarily combine the two battery banks at the push of a button.  It is handy if the starting batteries get run down for any reason.  Here is a link to a basic wiring diagram of what I have in my HDT.

[RickS]

I have 1-Magnum MS2012 in the RV and 1- Magnum MS2012 in the truck.  

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Xantrex 3500 PSW in the truck, and a Xantrex Freedom line 1000PSW in the RV.  Not a fan of Xantrex, it was already installed.

[GeorgiaHybrid]

I am running two 1800 watt inverters on our truck. One for shore power on the truck and the other for shore power for the Carrier heat and air. Both of them provide shore power for the truck and keep the batteries charged.

[Stan Wright]

2000W.

[ALLOY]

600w and 3000w

 

 

[jenandjon]

I just have a little 1500 watt. I would have gone bigger but I found this one in the shop not getting used anymore. I am only running a fridge and microwave and a couple outlets for phone/tablet chargers. I will have outlets in the cab connected to the generator. So if I need more juice I can fire that up.

[RandyA]

Pure sine wave is nice and the price of import units producing over 1,000 watts is dropping.  But, you should be fine with a modified sine wave for most all appliances except an analog clock, fan or other purely synchronous motors.  What you are seeing at a truck stop is most likely modified sine wave equipment.  Size depends on what you want to power.  In the truck, a small dorm size fridge should start and run nicely with a MSW unit at 1500 watts with power to spare.  Some get by with 1,000 watts.  For cell phone chargers best to go with dedicated USB that converts 12-volt circuits to 5V rather than plug-in 110VAC chargers.  For your computer safest way to go is a low wattage small pure sine wave inverter that plugs into your cig lighter socket.  This Bestek is a suggestion (what I use) to power my computer PS.   It can also power many small TV sets.  A small MSW unit should be OK here too as the computer PS is a filtered switching unit.  When I run the truck aux air conditioner or microwave I use the 3,000 watt inverter generator installed below the passenger compartment with remote start and a transfer switch.  Bigger Battery inverters waste battery power, need larger supply cables and take up valuable needed space.  No advantage in over-kill.

In the camper I only have a 1,000 watt MSW unit for the entertainment system connected to a single stand-alone battery not connected to the camper 12V system.  I charge it separately.   No need to connect it to any appliance outlets - that is what the Onan generator is for.