Homebrewed Electricity > Solar

Quality "high wattage" 12v sine wave inverters?

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FlyFishn:
All,

I am looking at options for a 12v inverter. At some point I want a higher wattage unit - like the Singineer 6kw, 15kw, 18kw type units (though I have questions with their harmonic distortion - I think that was discussed in another thread). However, they require 24v (in the case of the 6kw) or 48v (in the case of the 15kw and 18kw units). That will have to be a consideration much later down the road.

At the moment I have a Xantrex ProWatt SW1000. It is an older one about 12 years old maybe. It works great. However, it doesn't have enough power to run my circular saw or any other decent motor load. It will run a drill and a mini refrigerator - which is a huge help.

I'd like to pair an inverter with a battery I have for my bigger solar system - it is a 50Ah Bioenno lithium 12v battery. We've run the ProWatt SW1000 off of it and it works great. That combination may take out about 80-90% of the use cases I have for my small generator (Honda EU2200i). If I can get a larger inverter that will handle bigger start up loads that would take out even more. Run time would be an issue, but a lot of times I don't need much run time. For longer run times on lower loads like the mini fridge on a road trip the SW1000 has been able to run it no problem for several hours.

The SW2000 inverter catches my attention. That is an 1800w continuous, 3000w surge, inverter. Are there any others maybe a bit bigger than that which are worthy of consideration = decent quality sine wave that is affordable?

OperaHouse:
I am not making any recommendations.  This is just an interesting video which demonstrates how different inverters with the same specification react differently to surge loads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5rBVGSszBY&t=232s
A 50AH battery can't do squat. That wouldn't start my 100W refrigerator.

Mary B:
Samlex PST series inverters have been very reliable for me!

dnix71:
It doesn't make sense to go "high wattage" unless you also go "higher input voltage." It takes at least 10 amps/volt at 12vdc to make 120vac.
18,000 watts at 12vdc is "only" 1500 amps. Boost your input to 48vdc and it's only 375 amps. Resistance losses all other things being equal go with the square of the current. 1/4 the current equals 1/16 internal R losses all other things being equal.

XeonPony:
I'll Second the going to higher voltage, for years I ran 12 volts then due to inverter failure pulled the trigger to go to 48v, it made a world of difference.

Basically after 2k watts it is just terrible trying to keep going with a 12v system, the added bonus is most solar controllers can collect far more watts at the higher voltage as well.

For your legacy 12v loads you can just get a DC-DC buck converter to supply them off the 48v bank.

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