12v DC invertors for vans. Any one got one?

I am tempted to get an invertor for my van to power things like battery chargers lights etc, and maybe even a small kettle/microwave!

Does anyone else have one? eBay have some which are rated at 4kw peak or 2kw continuous for reasonable money, but they are cheap Chinese imports. Would you trust such a thing? How long can you run on peak power for, or is it only for an initial surge? Would consider fitting a second battery etc so as not to risk killing the main van battery.

Any input from others with any set ups? Cheers

flyingsparks said:

I am tempted to get an invertor for my van to power things like battery chargers lights etc, and maybe even a small kettle/microwave!

Does anyone else have one? eBay have some which are rated at 4kw peak or 2kw continuous for reasonable money, but they are cheap Chinese imports. Would you trust such a thing? How long can you run on peak power for, or is it only for an initial surge? Would consider fitting a second battery etc so as not to risk killing the main van battery.

Any input from others with any set ups? Cheers

Click to expand...

You cannot take 2KW from a van battery for long, approx 150A. Definatly not 4KW. So forget about running a microwave. Even a small kettle say 600W is going to thrash your battery at around 50amps.

An invertor is useful. I have an 800w continuous one in my camper van off the auxiliary leisure battery but never use anywhere near that. If running anything with a surge starting current you need to get a larger inverter otherwise it will trip out when starting.

I also have a 150W one in the car to run phone chargers, a laptop etc. That is adequate.

Most are made in China by the way, I got mine in Maplins.

I got my son a 3kW with 6kW peak for his narrow boat running off three 160AH traction batteries and for a short time it worked but the FET's have an array of car type blade fuses and if the FET's don't load share then a fuse will blow putting more load onto the remaining FET's and very quickly we got expensive blue smoke.

It costed half the price of the inverter to send it back to China and we also got charged import duty sending it back. On return it started to do same again but at that point my son sold the boat.

Needed twin 35mm feed cables and really the isolator was overloaded. Yes it ran kettle and washing machine but not for long and the only washing machine which will run on a modified sin wave (cycles pos off neg off pos etc) was an LG and the same applies to other equipment.

We also had twin 120A alternators fitted to the engine to recharge batteries with special stage charging regulators.

We found a problem with stage charging when using batteries at the same time as if foxed the regulator into thinking batteries were not charged when they were and they needed topping up with water on a regular basis.

In all there were 4 x 160AH batteries on the boat one was engine start only. So there was around 150kg of battery for the inverter i.e. far more weight than carrying a generator with boat just removed concrete ballast to match. With a van it would cost a lot of fuel to carry that weight of batteries.

We both use 150W inverters to run PC or charge radio batteries very successfully but the 3KW inverter was really a flop. Since you can buy 12 volt kettles and most other items have 12 volt version my camera battery charger has 100 - 250 volt ac/dc or 12 volt input and many more items have the option same way so just not worth it.

That's my dream of a Nespresso machine fixed to the bulkhead out of the window then! Useful info.

I had one in my last van, never got around to fitting it in my current van. Don't miss it TBH.

I found you need one of the more expensive TRUE RMS types if you want to charge your power tools with their electronic chargers. Some chargers do not like the modified sine waves.

Have a 1Kw inverter and works well, but, as said, the battery soon dies if used for powering tools. Also have a tiny one which will power a charger; thus plugs into cigarette lighter (16A) and can be used on the move. Not often used, but can get you out of a fix.

flyingsparks said:

I am tempted to get an invertor for my van to power things like battery chargers lights etc,

Click to expand...

Lights - you can get 12V ones.

Tool battery chargers - you can get 12V ones.

A small camping gas cylinder with burner is the fastest way of boiling a kettle.

I have done up a narrow boat and fitted inverters. What you want is another bigger battery bank in the back of your van.

I fitted one of these in the boat its a inverter + fast charger so you can plug it into the mains and charge the bank up quite fast.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BNIB-Ster...ssories_SM&hash=item4ac91dd41a#ht_3009wt_1124

And if you wanted to spend a little more cash and have the alternator charge the van battery and a bigger bank up you could buy one of these that I just bought. I don't think it would be too hard to fit in a van.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sterling-...ssories_SM&hash=item19bba0060b#ht_1228wt_1161

I have good power on the boat and anything you can do on a boat you will do better in a van.

Not "anything"....

ban-all-sheds said:

Not "anything"....

Click to expand...

Maybe not that.