AC Inverters
The Cliff Notes
Look For:
- Pure sine wave
- 3000W
- Shore power Input
- Charge Battery From Shore
- Auto-switching
AC INVERTER BASICS
You’ve probably noticed we are using 12V DC power to power the van accessories.
Although your vehicle might run on DC, your house and most things you use probably run on AC.
The wall outlets in your home are AC. If you want to use AC devices you need an “inverter” to turn that DC power into AC. This is accomplished thru an AC inverter. If you are in the US you would want a 120V AC inverter.
- Rated power in Watts (W)
- Pure sine wave
Depends on what you plan on using it for. You also need to look at your battery characteristics to see what kind of power can be pulled off from it.
Many batteries only have .5C discharge rates. For a 100ah battery you are only going to be able to pull 50A at 12V at once. W=Volts*Amps=600W.
Our 280Ah batteries can handle 250A of discharge at once. 12V*250A= 2800W of power. I try not to pull more than 2280W (80% of the rated value) at once. We recommend our 3000W inverter so it’s nowhere near it’s rated maximum.
Because I said so and you should trust me. Everything on the Internet is true.
All jokes aside… AC electricity flows as a wave. Using a modified sine wave inverter can cause issues in devices with motors, pumps and fans as well as newer TVs and sensitive electronics and medical devices. It is also less efficient in terms of power consumption. If you can afford it, get a pure sine wave inverter.
Many times you will have access to AC power at a campground or elsewhere. If your inverter has a shore power feature it will allow you to run your inverter directly off of the power supplied by where you are staying rather than draining your battery.
If you are connected to shore power and using AC power, then you disconnect from shore power, an auto transfer switch seemlessly keeps the AC power running while switching between shore power and the inverter power running off your battery.
Many times you will have access to AC power at a campground or elsewhere. If you inverter has shore charging it will allow you to connect up to that power to charge your batteries.
Why Buy VanLE AC Inverters?
Pure Sine Wave
Rest assured, our inverters always output a pure sine wave so you don’t have to worry about sensitive electronics
3000W
Our flagship inverter offers 3000W max CONTINUOUS AC power output with a maximum surge capacity of 6000W .
Shore Power
Connect up to shore power with ease by directly connecting to our inverter’s built in shore power input.
Shore Charging
You asked, we answered! Our inverter includes built-in shore charging– charge your battery bank while plugged into shore power!
