Bruce I've had an 1800W Sterling Quasi Inverter for at least 4 years and no problems . Also have a Sterling ARV12D Alternator regulator otherwise known as a battery management system. That has worked ok as well. However an interesting story to note was on the way back from the home mooring MNCC Titchmarsh on the River Nene to the IWA Northampton Boat gathering early May bank holiday the charging system stopped charging ,Normal I can switch it off remotely by a simple power on off to the Sterling .This puts it back onto the standard 75Ah Alternator and it's internal regulator .That didn't work either on further investigation i.e. lifting up the battery covers and looking at the changeover relay (120Amp) I discovered the Alternator to Battery (Load) terminal had gone into meltdown. I did a temporary repair i.e. replacing the crimp connectors with new ones and cleaning the connection,that sorted it until I replaced the relay. I was still scratching my head about why it happened when a pal of mine who works at Alvechurch Marina mentioned a problem he had come across in the past . If you run your engine up and have the inverter on at the same time ,with your batteries in need of charge.putting a load on the inverter like a vacuum cleaner could pull in excess of 100 amps + or more and start pulling power directly from the Alternator .If the connection I had problems with is in anyway dodgy it would go into meltdown. So a lesson learned and to be shared I think. All the best
Bernard NB Lexa -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bruce Napier Sent: 08 June 2009 17:27 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [canals-list] Inverter choices On 8 Jun 2009, at 17:12, rigdent wrote: > We have to replace our 4yr old Sterling 1500W pure sine inverter and > are reluctant to shell out a grand for a new one. So are considering > a cheaper alternative 1000W quasi sine wave units. > I have seen a 1000W unit at Maplin, for £90 another contender is the > Waeco at £162. I wonder if anyone has any experience with them. Or > should I Spend the extra for a proper marine unit? like the Victron if > so why ? > > BTW After my experience I'm VERY reluctant to put more money Sterlings > way > Does Mr Sterling have any satisfied customers? I'm serious, everyone seems only to have bad stories about them, but of course those are the ones that get told. As far as what to get instead, it depends what you want it for. Stuff like vacuum cleaners and hair dryers will be happy with quasi sine, I think, but anything with an electronic controller tends to want a nice smooth curve going up and down at 50 (or perhaps 60) Hertz. In which case the choice seems to be either Victron or Mastervolt for best quality, each have their sterling adherents, ho, ho. All the best Bruce Go steady, but keep going. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links
