So I've been running this same inverter for about a month in my work truck to power a 45w laptop and 50 watt, 30 quart compressor fridge (BougeRV). I got tired of buying ice for cold water (I work asphalt paving, need that cold water) and I switched over to AC instead of DC because for some reason the DC barrel plug wasn't letting the fridge work to its potential compared to when it was plugged into AC. The fridge cools down way, way faster and my laptops power supply doesn't get anywhere near as hot as when it was running off a cheaper modified sine wave inverter. Also having 2 higher speed USB charging ports has been handy. Paid $45 on Amazon and assuming it holds up for a year or so I would buy it again.
@Thomas Sounds like your fridge compressor runs faster on 120v than 12v. It probably assumes the 120v power is endless grid power and uses more whereas it may use less watts per hour on 12v on the assumption that 12v is battery powered and limited to what’s available from the battery bank. Sounds like your inverter is meeting your needs. Thanks for watching!
Good to see a inverter test with a decent load and a scope! Btw, you shouldn't have gone easy on it, hold the full load for longer to see if it can actually deliver 300w for more than few minutes! 😉
I'm not sure what the duty cycle is on these inverters. Based on price, I doubt it is 100%, meaning it would likely fail before the warranty is out if it ran flat out indefinitely.
Great video on this! Just because the inverter can handle 240 w doesn't mean that it can handle that load for too long. I'd be willing to bet that cig adapter will heat up adversely and fail over time at that load. They should really advertise it as 180 running watts and 300 Surge Watts. The other issue I found was that the Earth ground on the AC side is not connected to anything. Not good for an audio application so I connected the Earth ground lug to the negative side of the battery without any adverse effects. It grounds out the switching frequency noise that can be heard when running audio equipment. You can also eliminate this noise by installing a conducted emissions filter.
Yeah, there are higher current options but none are as wide spread as the cig port style connector. At the price point, mass market was probably their goal. The OEM inverter on my truck also doesn't have anything in what should be a ground pin on the in-dash receptacle so I too had to run a ground to the battery lug to measure those voltages. Neither of the blades were a functioning neutral in the receptacle. Sometimes these inverters are setup to do some wonky stuff when compared to household grid power.
@@LivingCommonSense hey sorry for the delay response. Agreed its a budget inverter. Since bonding the AC neutral and ground to the negative terminal, this has been great for portable power to run my practice amp where power is unavailable.
Thanks for the thorough review, i was really wanting to see one of these on a scope. I'm planning on installing one of these and a lifepo4 battery into a 50 watt guitar amp so I can play on the street, and i need to have as pure of a sine wave as possible for that to avoid noise. The only thing I wish you would have added was some measure of efficiency, or an idle current.
Yeah I should have done a idle draw measurement. The reviews for the inverter on amazon suggest the idle current is anywhere from 0.6 - 1.0 amps which would put it at about 10-12 watts on the high end. Hope this helps and thanks for watching!
A note to the op, be aware that electric motors often generate local dirty rfi on the circuit, so take that into account of interference to the sine wave.
A lot will depend on the fusing and wiring of the CIGAR/AUX socket and the unit does not have lugs like normal 300w inverters do. A 10 amp fuse isn't going to get you much, while a 20 amp would do pretty good. Next there is an issue with the car's wiring. The inverter kicks out ~10.5v and if you have a 2v drop due to the current, the battery won't enable it run long with the engine off.
Both were starting type batteries and not deep cell. The larger battery was rated a 600CCA and the smaller battery was rated at 275CCA. I wouldn't hold too much against the smaller battery as I think the switch on the battery box was defective. I had to replace it. That being said, its hard to go wrong with a bigger battery. Thanks for watching!
@dwayne - I looked up the EcoFlo that has a 2016wh battery. The specs say it will charge to 80% in 1 hour so the 300 watt inverter will not provide enough power to charge it. Thanks for watching.
what does the back look like, and how would I get a cord to go from the inverter to the battery, since most 12v plugs are only going to be 15A to get more then 180watts out of this thing it would have to get run directly to the battery?
I put one of these on my tractor and cut the 12v power port plug off and put a high current SAE connector on it. I ran a 12 gauge wire to the battery and called it a day. I'm not sure what you mean by "what does the back look like" but relating this to the power wire, it is integrated into the case and soldered inside. It is not removable.
@@LivingCommonSense That is a good idea. I could use that out on the tractor. If you direct connect to the batter (with a fuse of course) you could get a 500-watt or larger inverter as well. Cool idea to put that on the tractor! share some photos... I love that idea.
@tnyberg67 - I did a short video on putting the inverter on my tractor in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ugiOo2e_pik.html Thanks for watching!
I think it needs thicker wires, like 6 gauge/ hard wired with ring terminals to pull enough power from battery. That male plug & wires are insufficient 🤓
Agreed. The 300 continuous watts is 25amps at 12 volts DC and it appears that most 6 gauge can handle 30 amps at lengths up to 20 feet. I believe 6 gauge could make a noticeable improvement.
Yeah, I think it's intentional, that plug is meant not to exceed the rating of your typical 100~150w car accessory port. On Amazon they state you should wire it up to the battery directly to use the full 300W.
This inverter converts 12V DC into 110V AC. For this video, I connected both channels of the oscilloscope to the same "hot" leg mainly because I wasn't sure which color would look better on the camera. Both sine waves represent the same AC output so the "curves" will be identical. Beware though, some cheaper inverters supply power on two 55V AC "hot" legs and the "curves" are sync'd but 180 degrees out of phase as in this video - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g-XnGNrFIdk.html I hope this answers your question and thanks for watching!
@@LivingCommonSense I would like to know if a pure sine wave converter 12v110v has the same signal as that delivered to the house by the energy suppliers?
@salif - This Bestek pure sine wave inverter outputs 110V AC at 60Hz which is the standard frequency in the United States. Utility voltage and frequency varies by Country.
@Michael My experience with laptop computers has been each comes with an external power adapter that converts 110-120v AC grid power to whatever power the laptop computer requires. That power adapter should have input power requirements listed as well as the max power output shown -usually in volts and amps or volts and watts. The power adapter should not exceed any of those specifications listed on it. If the power adapter is original to the laptop then the laptop power requirements should not exceed output rating of the oem power adapter. The short version is if the power adapter is original equipment and is rated at 240w max, then the 300 watt inverter will provide adequate power run it to full capacity and your laptop probably will never know the difference between grid power and this pure sine wave inverter. Thanks for watching!
To be safe, my rule of thumb is 1.5x the wattage for adequate headroom. Electronics heat up when ran at full power, but running at 66% or less of what the inverter is designed for will keep the components cool and be less of a risk for blowing components or fuses. So for a 240W max power supply I would recommend 360W but 350W is close enough type of thing. 240W is 80% of 300W and imo is right on the border line of pushing it. You'll get away with it, but it the inverter won't have as long of a lifetime.
It depends on the start up current of your fridge. I take it as you're saying 110w to mean 110 running watts and not 110 volts. If your 110 volt fridge/freezer uses a compressor and freon, the startup current is likely much more than 110 watts. It may only be an instant but the inverter must supply the startup current demand. You will need to check the start up current or power of the unit and be certain it is less than 2.5 Amps or 300Watts to be on the safe side. On the other hand, if the 110 volt fridge/freezer employs thermoelectric cooling using the Peltier effect, it may not need the large startup current. I hope this helps. Thanks for watching
I am not an expert however is seems this video is of disservice to anyone who watches it, this inverter looks to be of poor quality as it does not produce 120v which is one of the reasons you were not able to get 300w from the light bulb, it seems rather inefficient as it draws 37/40 something watts just being on with no load. It does not look as if though it can hold a stable sinewave under load, this video and your comments gives the impression that this is a good product when it does not appear to be the case you mention it is good for sensitive electronics I do not believe that to be the case here.
The manufacturer states this inverter has an output voltage of "110V-120V". The 300W bulb is likely rated at 120V and we can expect the wattage will be around 252W at 110V. This makes sense because current will also drop as the voltage drops on this resistive load. I was surprised but the math doesn't lie. I have not put an ohm meter on the light bulb to determine if it is exactly 48 ohms which is needed to get a 300W load with 120 volt input. The meter is measuring power going through the meter. It does not measure power input to the inverter. If you watch closely at 4:07, you will see a light bulb on the workbench come on at the same time the scope shows readings which explains the 37W "idle current" you see on the meter. It actually is a 43W light bulb load (again probably rated a 120V) and not idle current. While using the larger battery, I am feeding the inverter with what is at best 12awg wire which means there is about 27-28 12VDC amps running through it. It is likely showing up 10.8-11Volts input into the inverter. The inverter will accept up to 15V input and would produce better numbers near that voltage. The jigsaw is inductive, which we can clearly see by the power factor reading on the right side meter, but it not a steady load. The inverter has to constantly make adjustments to regulate the voltage and inductive loads are not inverter friendly anyway. The rapid change in inductive load and voltage adjustments are of course seen in the scope. I wouldn't attempt to run the jigsaw and a TV/DVD player on any inverter at the same time. In practice, a TV and DVD player work well on this inverter though. For the price, I do think the inverter is pretty good. I have not received any compensation from anyone related to this video or inverter at the time of this comment. Thanks for watching.
@@LivingCommonSense I use these in my CPAP machine backup power units. At less than 150 watt load they are superb. The USB outlets are ALWAYS HOT even with the unit Off. There is about 7 watt draw any time these are plugged in and will drain a battery after a week or less if left plugged in. Here's my hard wired unit in action. The cig lighter plug and wire can also be attached to use in the car. Note the battery kill switch. Edit: to charge eBike battery we needed 166 watts. The cig lighter breaker is now 20 amps, good for 250 watts. The old 10 amp breaker would pop within a few seconds. There is no fuse in the Bestek cig lighter nose. It has 2 fuses inside the unit that are not easily accessible. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UwuC97gpng4.html
@@kimmer6 you really shouldn't run that much wattage through a cig lighter port. You should have someone wire the inverter directly to your vehicle's fuse box for better electric signal and fused protection.
@Muskan - As you can see in this video, the pure sine inverter produces a smooth sine wave where the voltage increases then decreases smoothly as it cycles over time. Most cheap inverter produce a modified sine wave which looks less like a smooth wave and more like steps. This is the result of the on/off nature of this type of inverter. See link:ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-32NRX-6W6TY.html Pure sine wave closely mimics your household electric power supplied by your electric company. Some motorized and electronic devices that work fine on a pure sine wave, may not work as well or long on a modified sine wave. Hope this helps to answer your question.