Where should I mount Power Inverter?

   / Where should I mount Power Inverter? #11  
PBinWA, since I about hijacked your thread, I should try to contribute.

Not sure if I answer you question, but I can offer some things to think about.

I agree with the previous posters on keeping the wires short and big. If you intend to occasionally tap your inverters capacity, your talking some serious current. Just looked, that inverter has a peak of 4000 watts. That may be 300+ amps. Anyway we are talking about wires that start your truck. Where you will see the value in the big wires, is in voltage drop. Because your inverter will have a drop out voltage, you will get a little more capacity if you don't have as much voltage drop.

The problem here is that this would lead you to think about putting the inverter under the hood. This is really a harsh environment. The inverter needs to dissipate a lot of heat at high loads. It is likely to be very hot under your hood and will put the inverter into thermal overload quicker. Ultimately I think you would sacrifice longevity of the inverter.

Also it could probably get pretty wet. I am not familiar with the inverter, but I bet it doesn't want to be wet.

I liked EastTexFank technique also. A refinement of this idea could be to mount very large wires to special battery connectors, and bring a high current receptacle to an available space and mount in the front grill. You could also leave it under the hood until it is ready to use. This would likely assure you have a very good connection (better than battery cables). I am familiar with some nice high current connector that are on aircraft for boosting them(aircraft usually means $$$). There may also be welding connectors that can be used. Lot of folks here on TBN seem to know a lot about connectors, they may have suggestions. If you like this route and want help finding a reasonable connector, Let me know, I will help you look.

Good luck, hope that helped.
 
   / Where should I mount Power Inverter? #12  
Well it wouldn't be the first time I've screwed up this math.....

I was thinking about the current on the low voltage side coming from the battery. Your formula is correct. So if we have 2000W output, we will have 2000W+ input. So I assumed a 12.6 volt battery and was dividing 2000/12.6 to get 159 amps. I know it is high. Maybe I still got it wrong....

On the AC side, I compute about 17 Amps.

An application I have been using in the field is a SDS-Max hammer drill at approx 12 amps.
 
   / Where should I mount Power Inverter?
  • Thread Starter
#13  
Wow! I checked this thread last night and there had been one good reply - come back in the morning and the TBN elves had been hard at work!

It's funny, I had needed a higher wattage inverter for my truck cab and noticed this one on sale at Harbour Frieght for $149 so I bought it without really thinking about the size of it and the other needs. The one I currently have plugs nicely into my cigarette lighter - of course it won't charge my laptop either.

It comes with some 12 inch cables for connecting it to a battery and the manual recommend short lengths of 4 awg wire for anything else. I would prefer to mount this thing in my cab but may have to find a place in my engine compartment and then run a short extension cord from the cab to the inverter. It's pretty dirty in there though. I'll have to look inside and see what I can come up with. I'm thinking I could fabricate a case for it and hook a small computer fan into it to cool it off.

I'm also intrigued by the marine battery idea. That would be very handy to have around the house and property.

Thanks for the good feedback everyone.
 

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