I power my tv, dvd, laptop and charge small items with a Go Power 300w sine wave inverter.
I mounted the inverter behind the fuse-breaker panel. 12v connects to the main battery feed to the panel. 120v is wired into the entertainment area circuit with an automatic transfer switch. The wiring is very straight forward if you have done any home wiring before. The Go Power 300w has a provision for a remote power switch so with the touch of a button I have instant power.
Wiring to your lights are probably not heavy enough to run an inverter of any size at all. One easy (no install) method is to use those alligator clips to connect directly to the battery and transport the power at 120 volts (it travels easily at 120 volts but not well at all at 12 volts. You could probably wire your inverter directly to the positive and negative leads at the converter. If you mount the inverter close to the converter it would simplify things a lot.
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Inverters require heavy, short wires connected directly to the battery. Don't forget a fuse in the positive line. Your RV's light circuits are way too small.
If your TV uses about 150 watts and your laptop about 150 watts you will be pulling over 30 amps from the battery.
This might not be the most efficient way to do it, but I use the 300W inverter that I got for my car cigarette lighter. I plug it into the tt 12V outlet. My tv (vizio led) uses 20W so it is barely a drain on the battery. My laptop can also be run off the inverter, though I don't do it at the same time. It has worked for me for over a year with no problems.
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First of all, for Small Loads, you do not have to directly wire your Inverter to the Battery Bank.
Espically with todays very low power LED TV's. We have about 7 or 8 different sizes of Inverters. And not one of them is hard wired to the Battery Bank.
For heavier loads it is a good idea, so is investing in larger size wire..
We have just been using "Cig Lighter Outlets" and "Power Ports" for many many years now. And not so much as one problem.
And I have never bothered to change any wire sizes either. A good way to find out what your item uses for power, that you want to use, is use a Kill-A-Watt Meter.
Everything that we use with our Inverters is safe with the wire size that we already have. I do have one Larger Inverter, that if I wanted to use, I can hook that one up diredtly to the Battery Bank, and then run an extension cord to power what I want to use.
We just have never found the need to "Hard Wire" in an Inverter in the 45+ years as RV'ers. But that is just us.
Everything that we do run, works perfectly off of any "Cig Lighter Outlet" or a "Power Port"
So it all just breaks down to what you want to run off of an Inverter, and how much power it pulls.
I do it the poor mans way, Finlander engineering it's called around here. Inverter wired to battery, double male cord that plugs into the inverter outlet and the other end to a wall outlet to power up the trailer. What I actually do is unplug the converter and plug my inverter cord into that. You HAVE to shut off power to the converter. The automatic switching is a better way to go though, easy to do and not expensive AFAIK.
First of all, for Small Loads, you do not have to directly wire your Inverter to the Battery Bank.
Espically with todays very low power LED TV's. We have about 7 or 8 different sizes of Inverters. And not one of them is hard wired to the Battery Bank.
For heavier loads it is a good idea, so is investing in larger size wire..
We have just been using "Cig Lighter Outlets" and "Power Ports" for many many years now. And not so much as one problem.
And I have never bothered to change any wire sizes either. A good way to find out what your item uses for power, that you want to use, is use a Kill-A-Watt Meter.
Everything that we use with our Inverters is safe with the wire size that we already have. I do have one Larger Inverter, that if I wanted to use, I can hook that one up diredtly to the Battery Bank, and then run an extension cord to power what I want to use.
We just have never found the need to "Hard Wire" in an Inverter in the 45+ years as RV'ers. But that is just us.
Everything that we do run, works perfectly off of any "Cig Lighter Outlet" or a "Power Port"
So it all just breaks down to what you want to run off of an Inverter, and how much power it pulls.
Good Luck. Happy Travels. Dan & Jill
so Bill, where do you wire your inverters in, if not to the battery bank? this is precisely my question. how and where do I hook up the inverter? just for tv and computers and cameras.
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