I am wiring in my PMS 3H power management system which will give me 240v and 12v power when on electrical hook up but when taking power from the leisure battery I will only have 12v supply. I am able to still use all my lights, heater on propane and I am installing a cigarette lighter to charge phones and run sat nav etc. does anybody have any experience of power inverters, is it important to have one or is it just a personal thing. Also is it worth considering the cheaper inverter or should I only be considering the pure sine wave inverters? Opinions please, right now I am thinking I don't need one. I have gas rings so can boil kettles and cook without 240v the only reason for it I think is to use things like hair dryer or a toaster which I probably couldn't use with an inverter anyway as it will drain the batt in seconds! Thank you in advance
I think you've answered your own question really. You can get 12 most things including hair dryers but your camping so do you really need all that "stuff". Gas for cooking, 12 volt for fridge, music and lights, job done.
Toaster ?? Hair dryer ?? Oh dear .... 240v isn`t required - end of. Leisure battery if you think it`ll help but never needed one over here .
Only really any good for charging laptops really. Or anything else that needs charging that wont plug into a USB adaptor!
Enough said, thanks guys just wanted to make sure I wasn't making a fundamental mistake before I cover all the wiring up!
Went to great effort wiring in an expensive inverter and 240v sockets in my last van and never used them, so didn't even think about it as an option this time round!
Agreed. I've got an inverter but hardly ever use it. I keep it hidden in a cupboard and plug it in to one of my 12v sockets when needed. I thought it would be interesting to hard wire it in along with a battery charger etc but in the end there didn't seem much point as most of my camping is on a hook up anyway.
I've hard wired a mahoosive one into Ted but only 'cos it was free and hanging around. It's been handy a couple of times but not as much as you'd think.
I would quite like one but I don't think there is any point getting the cheap ones, can't justify the cost of expensive ones so will get the van on the road and see how I get on!
We use a hardwired Taiwanese 600watt inverter/charger to run a strimmer down the allotment, with a 60 metre extension cable. Apart from that it does not see much use as an inverter, but as a charger regularly keeps the batteries topped up on hookup. Most stuff like laptops do not care about pure sine wave but your average 575 watt power drill will only run properly on pure sine wave as otherwise it buzzes and has low torque.
I'm told electric toothbrush chargers and microwave ovens don't like modified square wave inverters either.
