12vdc/ 120vac inverter from Harbor Freight

Date 12-31-2011 17:43

You get what you pay for when it comes to HF. Some of their basic stuff I do buy, but if it has lots of electronics I've learned from personal experience they can break easily. On something like that, the last thing I'd want is for it to go out and have no aux power on a job.

I used to have a Cobra inverter that I would run off my truck, seemed to work pretty good. Can be bough on ebay for a decent price.

By 803056

Date 01-02-2012 22:57 Edited 01-03-2012 02:54

I had a 1500 watt inverter from Northern Hydraulics that went "poof" the first time I hooked it to the battery. I had a back-up 750 watt I purchased from Home Depot that carried the day for the five days we were without power on October.

The 750 watt wasn't enough to power the refrigerator or the boiler, but it ran the circulator on my wood boiler and charged the rechargeable batteries for the flashlights. As for the refrigerator, there was plenty of snow to take care of the foods that needed to be kept cold.

Remember that your inverter is converting 12 volts into 120 volts, so if you need 10 amps at 120V to run a piece of equipment, your battery and alternator will have to put out 100 (plus) amps. The battery will take care of the starting surge, but prolonged operation will require a heavy duty alternator.

Best regards - Al

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 01-02-2012 23:55

Look for a name brand Ted, if you get an HF one you will just be paying for a puff of smoke.

By Cactusthewelder (*****)

Date 01-03-2012 00:29

I have a 25000 watt inverter. It's attached to my Vantage 500

By Dualie

Date 01-03-2012 03:11

i gotta go with cactus on this one. My vantage powered my whole house and my neighbors entertainment center for 8 hours a couple weeks ago during an outage

By TRC

Date 01-06-2012 22:27

Still looking at inverters. Now I need to figure out if I need a pure sine wave or a modified. I will mostly be running my 14" dry cut Porter Cable, a Metabo GE900 Plus which is variable speed and a fan in the summer. I'm concerned about the variable speed on the high dollar Metabo running on a modified wave because some of the info I read said variables don't do well on modified wave. Any constructive help would be great- Thanks Ted

I have a Vantage 400 generator but the Red Face does it just a LITTLE bit better especially on the bead. One gas company I weld for has a legend that three repairs in a year and your a ROMF- don't want to find out if that legend is true or not!

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 01-07-2012 04:29

I don't think the modified sine wave will be a problem with the variable speed, but that is based on My experience with a Heart Interface inverter, which works on a different principle.

Before You try to use cordless tool chargers, make sure they will work with the inverter type You choose, some will not, at least not a modified sine wave form.