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Portable Inverter Power Supply
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This project came about as a result of a think tank session at a Brisbane Sunshine Wanderers chapter meeting on the Sunshine Coast. The problem was Peter Anderson had bought his first small inverter and wanted advice on installing it in his motorhome. It was needed to drive all his computer gear including printer and scanner. The group discovered that it was not double insulated so the thinking caps went on to try and find a safer solution. Someone suggested a portable system after about 2 hours discussion! A visiting member had just finished converting a bus and had a spare Odyssey battery that was just a wee bit too small to start his new gen set. For anyone not in the know these are rather good batteries as they are sealed, very small and can run on their sides. Anyway this was for sale at a good discount. |
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The rest as they say is history! Peter found a $20.00 case and Geoff Adcock the CMCA sparkie popped it all in the box and did a superb job on this. Now this unit is not 100% electrically safe but using double insulated devices it is does have a much higher safety factor than if it was bolted into the motorhome as was originally intended. Geoff made up several leads for charging and running other devices. Everything is fused and overall a really nice piece of equipment that works well for Peter's purposes. Geoff popped the inverter on his oscilloscope and found that it was a sine wave type but it did have steps. From our own experience of buying all the wrong inverters (trying to save money!) is that you are better off paying your $500+ and going for Australian brands such as Selectronic, SEA etc. We have never got more than two years out of the cheaper ones so feel that these are a waste of money and they are of course never as safe. Our best advice is to buy from RV specials - usually solar shops such as Solar Panel Express etc. |
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March 30, 2006
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