Low Prive 1000watt inverter at Costco

[Neil P]

I saw a 1000 watt cont, inverter by Xantrex (sp?) at Costco for 69.99,
don't have a model #. Its hard wired and has a built in fan. Thinking
of using this with 2 6 volt cart deep cycle batteries in series with all
the necessary fusses and chargers and cables. Does anyone know much
about this inverter?

Thanks,
Neil

 

[Q]

Yes, I have 2 of them that I use as spares in my off grid house. They have
enough umph to power my standard Kenmore washer with no problem. I've also
used them to power refrigerators, computers, lights, power tools, etc.. No
problems with either of them.

Q

 

[[email protected]]

I saw a 1000 watt cont, inverter by Xantrex (sp?) at Costco for 69.99,
don't have a model #. Its hard wired and has a built in fan. Thinking
of using this with 2 6 volt cart deep cycle batteries in series with all
the necessary fusses and chargers and cables. Does anyone know much
about this inverter?

I bought one just for fun. It works well enough. It's rated 1500W peak.
The output (on a scope) is a modified square wave. Sadly, the specs
call for NOT mounting it under the hood of a vehicle.

It will use over 100 amps at 12V, so heavy cables are called for.
I made temporary cables from a pair of cheap booster cables.

I'll be using it in my Prius during power failures, with an extension
cord into the house to run critical loads. The neat thing about the
Prius is that it will only run the engine when needed, supplying 12v
from the 300 volt battery pack when it can. I should be able to leave
it that way all night.


Daniel

 

[Bob Adkins]

during a longer outage. Then, I just plug in a utility fed "car
battery" charger to put back what the 20W PV would obviously not be
able to put back in a month. Purely a standby, never-really-need-it

Don't underestimate the 20 watter. Unless you drain your batteries severely,
it should top them off in a week or so.

Bob

 

[Neil P]

I was the original poster regarding the inverter and some more info i found
out. I went to costco A and a co-worker of mine went to costco B. Mine was
made in July and his in March. The July date: with a load, the output sq
wave is always clean and at 59.9 Hz. The fan comes on after the first min
of being powered and stays on, pulls an extra 100 mA avg. The March built
unit: signal is clean, hangs at 57.9 Hz, and with any load the line becomes
noisy according to the scope readout. The fan never comes on and every time
you turn the unit on it beeps. On the inside, diff layout and a path for
the fan is allocated to cool the unit much more efficiently (for the July
build date unit).

I ran the units with DC power supplies (at 300, 500 and 900 watt AC loads
and the units all ran cool and without any downtime. AC out is consistently
117 V from unit to unit. The cooling fan does not cause any problems with
TV or monitors.

All in all for 70 bucks, I will use with 2 deep cycle marine batteries rated
at 120 AH each to power approx.. 400 watts. From my calculations and bench
tested current draw: I should get about 3 hrs of run time to pull the
batteries to 50% drain. Next for me is to locate a nice low cost automatic
charger from Sears/Pepboys or any auto store. Connections are made with 1
awg cables.

Neil

 

[Michael Baugh]

http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/technology/minivan.html

 

[[email protected]]

For those following this thread:

One poster asked about the supply from the 300volt traction battery:
1) the inverter will supply 100amps continously to the 12 volt system.

As noted, the engine will not carge the traction battery, and the traction
battery will not charge the 12 volt unless the key in in the on position.
2) I do plan to leave the key in the ignition and the doors locked.
I live in a fairly safe neighborhood.

Dale mentioned problems with the power steering.
3) I hope Dale wasn't too put off. The power steering in some of
the models has been identified as a problem and the affected units were
recalled under warranty. It really is a great little car.

 

[Stephen J. Rush]

"The steering failed and the car had to be rebooted..."

Oh Jeezus....

The steering _boost_ failed. AFAIK, there are no drive-by-wire cars.
Of course, there probably have been cases where a belt broke or the
engine failed, and the driver just put both hands over her eyes and
waited for the crash because "I couldn't steer!", instead of pulling
harder on the wheel.

Still, I wonder who wrote the software in the Prius. Could it be
based on Windows CE?

 

[[email protected]]

"The steering failed and the car had to be rebooted..."

The steering _boost_ failed. AFAIK, there are no drive-by-wire cars. [ SNIP]
Still, I wonder who wrote the software in the Prius. Could it be
based on Windows CE?

No, the Toyota engineers aren't stupid. It's not based on CE. CE is
not designed for realtime processing. The computer wizzes among us know
what I mean.

The steering is remarkably light while still providing good road feel.
It's power assist is electronic, almost drive-by-wire though you can
still drive with the power assist disabled. I rented a Taurus SES last
weekend and felt like I was driving a tank. Even my wife's Camry's
steering requires significantly more effort compared to the Prius.


Daniel