Advice needed on buying a 12v Power Inverter

[PaulC]

Hi,
Can anyone recommend a good reliable 12v power inverter to run a microwave in my camper van.
I’m told it needs to be a pure sign wave.

 

[Neil S]

I recently fitted one of these after speaking to another forum member who also has the same
It runs my 600 watt microwave although it does take a bit out of the battery’s

 

[TheBig1]

the basic rule of thumb is have an inverter capable of at least twice the wattage of the microwave. The startup current of the microwave is the reason

 

[Ninjabob]

800w microwave power consumption is actually going to be around 1000watts at 230v so you are probably going to need a 1500watt inverter. The problems start when you realise how much current at 12v this is going to take out of your habitation battery or batteries. You could be looking at a 100amp current draw.

 

[PaulC]

Thanks For all your advice I will take this into consideration when looking into buying my new inverter.

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[pappajohn]

If you only have a single battery I would be thinking about buying at least one more.
A 1200 watt inverter will draw slightly more than 100amps.... 15 minutes use with a single 100ah battery is 50% of your usable battery reserve gone.

 

[autorouter]

If you only have a single battery I would be thinking about buying at least one more.
A 1200 watt inverter will draw slightly more than 100amps.... 15 minutes use with a single 100ah battery is 50% of your usable battery reserve gone.

That's true, and in addition there's the amps drawn from each battery to consider. For 100 amps into the inverter, ideally you should have 500Ah battery capacity. You could push it and use half of that, 250Ah, but even that means at least two batteries. Most batteries are around 100 to 120Ah.

 

[cmcardle75]

That's true, and in addition there's the amps drawn from each battery to consider. For 100 amps into the inverter, ideally you should have 500Ah battery capacity. You could push it and use half of that, 250Ah, but even that means at least two batteries. Most batteries are around 100 to 120Ah.

As I can't afford LiFePO4, I use 629 truck batteries. These make excellent cheap leisure batteries at around the 170-200Ah mark, as they're not marked up for being "leisure".

 

[StitchesnFluff]

As I can't afford LiFePO4, I use 629 truck batteries. These make excellent cheap leisure batteries at around the 170-200Ah mark, as they're not marked up for being "leisure".

Didn’t realise that!

 

[jongood]

If you only have a single battery I would be thinking about buying at least one more.
A 1200 watt inverter will draw slightly more than 100amps.... 15 minutes use with a single 100ah battery is 50% of your usable battery reserve gone.

Why would you be using a microwave for 15 minutes?

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[chatteris]

they only use full power in short bursts the rest of the time its just turning the turntable so if you are only heating up some frozen veg for 5 minutes you should not pull too much out of batteries

 

[PaulC]

Thanks to everyone for helping me understand about inverters. I have 2 leisure batteries 130ah each giving me 260ah total.