Update on the Statpower Pro 1500 Inverter
gigawatt
Well... here is an update on that Statpower Pro 1500
that I received by mail order, yesterday. First of all,
it is a refurbished unit, that I bought directly from the
Statpower people, for $249.95...which includes a new
warrenty...so the price and warrenty was right.
To hook it up, I Bought a #4 battery cable, 6 foot long,
and cut it into two pieces.. so I had ring connectors on
one end and wire on the other ends of the two, 3 foot,
cables... The instructions say to use #2 wire... but
there was no way that a #2 wire could ever fit into the
bolt on connectors on the back of the unit. I even had
trouble working in the #4 wire.
I also bought a small bottle of red dye... and colored
one wire red (for the Positive wire)... then connected
the two bare wire ends to the inverter, and today, at
4 pm, I bolted the ring connector ends, up to the
battery array...
I plugged in my microwave oven, using a long, #12 wire
extention cord (the largest one I could find at the Home
Depot) and proceeded to heat up a cup of tea... only
one and a half minutes... and while the tea was heating,
I observed the inverter. The frontal load lights came on,
a bunch of them... and the voltage light dropped on the
front indicator, from 14.2 volts, where the batteries had
been charging at... to about 12 volts... (that 1450 watt
microwave oven really pulls a load) and after 30 seconds
the inverter's small internal cooling fan came on..
I can say one thing, that using the microwave, even for
a minute or two, you can really see the battery voltage
drop..so I may really need the much bigger L-16 batteries...
I learned a lot in that minute and a half...
The Inverter is absolutely silent, except for the slight
sound of the cooling fan..... so all my expectations on
quietness, was met....I will have to use the new inverter
for awhile, to see how much more the idle power drain
will be on this inverter, vs the small 250 watt inverter.
The specs on the smaller 250 watt unit says that it pulls
70 milliamps or (.07 amp) when it is idle... and the specs
on this larger, 1500 watt unit, pulls 500 milliamps (.5 or
1/2 Amp).... so the idle power usage is much greater than
on the smaller unit.
But, since I have 800 amp hours of power, reserved in
the 8 Golf Cart Batteries, this idle usage may not be a
problem.... but the heavy load problem, may be another
matter.
Anyway.... that is what happened today.
Gig
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Derek Hartzell
the batteries to the Trace SW2512. I replaced with #4/0 as recommended by
Trace and the inverter has a lot better surge capacity for starting motors.
If the batteries are up in voltage, it can start my 2 horse air compressor
with about 80 psi backpressure. This is about the limit.
"gigawatt" <giga...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:96DD7D161782D451.3F784491...@lp.airnews.net...
Elliott,Jason
wholesalers, basically it crimps onto the end of the #2 and physically
reduces the size to fit the inverter. Also put a fuse or breaker in the
positive line.
Vic Barkas
Interesting article for me, since I bought the samr inverter not long
ago for the same price from the same site, I expect. I haven't run
mine yet, as I am still collecting battery cables. Nonetheless, I
feel like I got a good buy on this inverter also. The things we put
ourselves through to run a microwave....
What is your application? I am installing mine in an RV, and I am
going the full nine yards, installing it as an automatic switching
alternatinve to external 120 volt power. I designed a transfer
switching unit which senses the presense of external power, and if
none is detected, the inverter output is switched into the circuit, to
the 120 volt main breaker. Then if I want to actually use 120 volts,
I will have to go push the remote button to turn the inverter on. It
is good having the remote power switch because I am putting the
inverter in a none too accessible spot and I want to be able to turn
it off easily when I am dry camping and do not need the power, so I
don't have the standby current running down my batteries.
I also wired in a relay that automatically removes power from the RV's
air conditioner and it's power converter (a device that charges the
battereis and supplies the DC loads when external 120 power is
available.).
Vic
On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 17:37:27 -0500, in alt.solar.photovoltaic you
wrote:
Remove "NS" (no spam) from my email address to reply to me personally..
Russ
relay did you use and how did you wire it in? I only use my AC when
I'm there, but this would definely be handy if I lost shore power
while I was asleep.....
I'm also interested in you transfer switch. It's easy enough
to find an inverter that does this automatically, or buy a transfer
switch for this, but it adds a bit to the price that way.
Russ
NSv...@yahoo.com (Vic Barkas) wrote in message news:<3bdba24e...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net>...
Vic Barkas
Sorry I am slow in responding, but I don't read the newsgroup daily.
I used a Magnecraft power relay, DPDT, since a transfer relay is
supposed to switch both the hot and neutral leads. I used a part
number W199AX-14. I found it on the Allied Electrinics web site
(www.alliedelec.com). This is on page 133 of their on line catalog.
This relay has a 120VAC operated coil. This makes it really simple to
wire the shore power or the invertter power to the coil and also
parallel it to one of the sets of relay contacts and operate the
relay in the presence of either on of these sources to switch it in
and cut off the other. The problem with this is that the relay does
hum a bit, so were I to do it over again, I might have bought a 12VDC
operated relay and used a small 120 VAC operated relay to sense the AC
power and use this to control the 12VDC application to coil of the
large relay.
The manual for the inverter has a simplified diagram of a trasfer
relay installed at the output of their inverter.
Vic