I'm looking for a good quality inverter for my narrowboat.

Power 2000-3000 watts.

Any input and experiece of types and manufacturers would be very
appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Adrian


--
Adrian Smith
www.YourStadium.com
Superb aerial pictures of UK football stadiums.

I recently installed a ProSine 2.0 (2000 watt) unit to replace my
Freedom 20 (2000 watt) unit that fried. One of the really nice things
was that the ProSine was about 50 lbs lighter than the Freedom 20, and I
was glad to get that weight off of the boat, especially since I had to
lay on my back and hold it over my head to secure it...

The ProSine provides a LOT more programming than the Freedom did. Maybe
too much. The display provides a lot more information than was provided
by the basic Freedom remote. I had problems with my initial remote
which required shipping a whole new unit into Honduras, which was very
costly and a major PIA. Once that was swapped out everything has worked
well. Actually it worked well without the remote, I just couldn't see
what was going on. Another issue that I have is that very fast voltage
dips in the incoming voltage switch the unit into invert mode. The
error log doesn't show this, but by adjusting the line voltage at which
the unit switches to inverter mode, the problem disappeared. This made
me think that inverter was bad, but it wasn't. I've had extensive e-
mails with tech support on this, so hopefully this will be resolved in
future software versions.

Despite the above problems I've been very happy with the ProSine 2.0.
It handles all of the same loads that the Freedom did at 50 lbs less
weight and provides a lot more information on the display panel. It
also provides a true sine wave instead of a "modified" sine wave. I can
assure you that some of my appliances sound much happier.

Note that virtually every inverter that you can buy in the US is now
made by Xantrex. This includes ProSine and Freedom.

-- Geoff

"Adrian Smith" wrote in news:rfiRe.39132
:

I'm looking for a good quality inverter for my narrowboat.

Power 2000-3000 watts.

Any input and experiece of types and manufacturers would be very
appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Adrian

"Adrian Smith" wrote in
. uk:

Power 2000-3000 watts.

Hmm....let's see.....I assume you have a 12V system....right?

A little math lesson.

3000W divided by 12V = 250 amps, plus a little loss let's call it 260 amps
just for fun. Hmm...The house battery has a 330AH rating at 20 amps (not
260 amps). At 260 amps, it probably has a rating around 100AH, if it
doesn't explode trying to provide 260 amps for "a while", boiling the
electrolyte. (They're not very efficient at high currents, actually.)

100 AH divided by 260A = .385 hours to DEAD or about 23 minutes. If we run
them DEAD they'll recharge about 20 times, which isn't good. So, we
discharge them to 50% capacity, not 100%, so that drops us to 11.5 minutes
at 3KW.

Not much time, is it? Bigger batteries? 330AH is the rating for huge L-16
batteries, not deep-cycle 130AH "marine batteries". It'd be ok if we had
6,250AH submarine cells, but I doubt you could float that much weight or
have a place to put them and still be able to sit down.

Nope....math lesson over.....sorry. You're in need of a GENERATOR, not an
inverter at this level of usage....It just makes more sense.

Larry

NOTHING is funnier than a captain with a new 4KW inverter, walking down the
dock with his electric heater in his hands, with that big smile on his
face....(c;

Thanks for the maths lesson:-) I'd already done the maths. Still need an
inverter.

Your right though. It's a lot of power to expect from batteries.

--
Adrian Smith
www.YourStadium.com
Superb aerial pictures of UK football stadiums.
"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Adrian Smith" wrote in
. uk:

Power 2000-3000 watts.

Hmm....let's see.....I assume you have a 12V system....right?

A little math lesson.

3000W divided by 12V = 250 amps, plus a little loss let's call it 260 amps
just for fun. Hmm...The house battery has a 330AH rating at 20 amps (not
260 amps). At 260 amps, it probably has a rating around 100AH, if it
doesn't explode trying to provide 260 amps for "a while", boiling the
electrolyte. (They're not very efficient at high currents, actually.)

100 AH divided by 260A = .385 hours to DEAD or about 23 minutes. If we
run
them DEAD they'll recharge about 20 times, which isn't good. So, we
discharge them to 50% capacity, not 100%, so that drops us to 11.5 minutes
at 3KW.

Not much time, is it? Bigger batteries? 330AH is the rating for huge
L-16
batteries, not deep-cycle 130AH "marine batteries". It'd be ok if we had
6,250AH submarine cells, but I doubt you could float that much weight or
have a place to put them and still be able to sit down.

Nope....math lesson over.....sorry. You're in need of a GENERATOR, not an
inverter at this level of usage....It just makes more sense.

Larry

NOTHING is funnier than a captain with a new 4KW inverter, walking down
the
dock with his electric heater in his hands, with that big smile on his
face....(c;

Geoff thanks for your reply.

If it was 50 lbs lighter, what was its weight in total?

--
Adrian Smith
www.YourStadium.com
Superb aerial pictures of UK football stadiums.
"Geoff Schultz" wrote in message
6...
I recently installed a ProSine 2.0 (2000 watt) unit to replace my
Freedom 20 (2000 watt) unit that fried. One of the really nice things
was that the ProSine was about 50 lbs lighter than the Freedom 20, and I
was glad to get that weight off of the boat, especially since I had to
lay on my back and hold it over my head to secure it...

The ProSine provides a LOT more programming than the Freedom did. Maybe
too much. The display provides a lot more information than was provided
by the basic Freedom remote. I had problems with my initial remote
which required shipping a whole new unit into Honduras, which was very
costly and a major PIA. Once that was swapped out everything has worked
well. Actually it worked well without the remote, I just couldn't see
what was going on. Another issue that I have is that very fast voltage
dips in the incoming voltage switch the unit into invert mode. The
error log doesn't show this, but by adjusting the line voltage at which
the unit switches to inverter mode, the problem disappeared. This made
me think that inverter was bad, but it wasn't. I've had extensive e-
mails with tech support on this, so hopefully this will be resolved in
future software versions.

Despite the above problems I've been very happy with the ProSine 2.0.
It handles all of the same loads that the Freedom did at 50 lbs less
weight and provides a lot more information on the display panel. It
also provides a true sine wave instead of a "modified" sine wave. I can
assure you that some of my appliances sound much happier.

Note that virtually every inverter that you can buy in the US is now
made by Xantrex. This includes ProSine and Freedom.

-- Geoff

"Adrian Smith" wrote in news:rfiRe.39132
:

I'm looking for a good quality inverter for my narrowboat.

Power 2000-3000 watts.

Any input and experiece of types and manufacturers would be very
appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Adrian

I believe that the ProSine is 22-24 lbs.

-- Geoff

"Adrian Smith" wrote in news:axrRe.65536$Il.9717
@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

Geoff thanks for your reply.

If it was 50 lbs lighter, what was its weight in total?

Nope....math lesson over.....sorry. You're in need of a GENERATOR, not an
inverter at this level of usage....It just makes more sense.

Larry, you've been beating that same dead horse for over 5 years and
you're still wrong. Yes, 3 KW continuous requires a generator, and
yes, 3 KW from an inverter requires a decent battery bank and heavy
cables. That doesn't mean that it isn't useful however. Lots of things
from microwave ovens, to electric tools, to hair dryers require high
power for relatively short periods of time, and that makes a high
powered inverter very useful to have on board.