T&T: seeking advice about battery chargers/inverters

[Ron Nelson]

My personnel feeling is that it is not worth the savings of a couple of
hundred bucks to buy a modified sine wave (MSW) inverter and take the chance
that the devices I plug into it are not going to work or will work at least
than optimum, as in the case of a microwave.  No one can tell you Bruce, if
your microwave or LCD TV or cell phone charger will work on a MSW inverter as
they are all different.  Why take the chance?  Just get a good sine wave
inverter.

In previous boats I have had a Mastervolt, an Outback and I am strongly
considering a Magnum MS2000 with a Magnum ME-RC w/ME-BMK Battery Monitor Kit
for my next boat which is under construction.  Notice I do not list any
Xantrax products.  I refuse to buy anything from them because of their past
business practices.  Maybe they are OK now but they have lost me as a
potential customer.

Of the inverter/chargers I have used, I did not go back to Mastervolt because
of the size of their box and it had an annoying hum all the time.  I think
they have all new models so you could look again.  I really liked the Outback
and the support but the one thing that is turning me off now is that they
offer no easy way to turn off the charging function.  I found many times I
would have liked to do that when it was necessary to cycle the AC input power
on & off.  When this happened the charger would start charging in bulk mode
putting 14.4 volts at full current into the batteries.  It didn't last long
but I did not think this was good on the batteries and it would have been good
to disable charging.

I am leaning towards the Magnum now for a couple of reasons and one is that I
can turn off the charger with a simple button push.  I also like their remote
monitor which not only monitors the inverter/charger functions but also has a
battery monitor for checking on remaining capacity and voltages on up to 3
banks.  Also the electrical guru at Fisheries Supply in Seattle, Tim Dies,
recommends it.

Ron Nelson
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Butch Dalton<mailto:dogdays3_ at msn.com>
  To:
trawlers-and-trawlering<mailto:trawlers-and-trawlering at lists.samurai.com>
  Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 7:40 AM
  Subject: T&T: seeking advice about battery chargers/inverters


  Happy New Year! I'm certain this has been discussed before so I may be
  redirected to the archives (how do I search for a particular topic again?).
I
  am in the market for an inverter. I already have a Xantrex Truecharge 40+
  battery charger and, contrary to some negative comments noted here in the
  past, and this is my second unit, have had good service. My question to the
  group is then - what is the preference as to integrated chargers/inverters
  versus separate units? The inverter would be used to power a LCD TV, a
  microwave, coffeemaker, laptop and cellphone chargers, maybe the stove
  occasionally, the usual. Are any of these of concern as far as possible
harm
  from a modifies sine wave inverter? Space is not an issue but cost of
course,
  is. Thanks in advance for the wisdom of the group.