FEC Battery/ Inverter ??

Tom,

I have also found a 400/800 inverter at Home Depot that is made by Husky. Has anyone ever used this one?

John

Here is a couple good discussions on inverters and what works with the FEC100.

http://forum.cookshackamerica.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cg...f=24;t=000054#000000

Bob

Tom,
My advice is to think about spending a little more on a good inverter. Even if the controller on the FE doesn't go nuts these cheap ones are hard on motors and electronics. Their own instructions say you my have hook a light bulb up also because a pure inductive draw (motor) may not run.
My setup is a Trip-Lite 1000 W, two deep cycle batteries, and a marine multi-bank charger. Runs the whole trailer including the refrig.

Fred,

Tell me more about your setup. I'm looking at changing inverters, what is the Trip-Lita and what is a marine multibank charger. I already have the two deep cycle bats running on separate inverters, but they're small.

Hey Guys, Not sure of the brand of inverter I have but it is a 2000 watt and it came from Camping World. I installed two golf cart batteries and have them being charged with a car charger that cuts off at 14.2 volts. What I do is always run my two FEC100's off of the inverter at the same time. No problem. This way when the power goes out if it does there is not a problem with having to be there. Hope this helps.

Tripp Lite is an industrial dc/ac inverter that is great.Your going to lay out some $$$ for one ,but well worth it.Have both of my FEC hooked to one inverter,2 deep cell marine batts,and like Fred a multi marine charger,Multi charger is common in the boating crowd.Charge your main battery when you come in and your trolling battery at the same time.Check your boating folks for the charger,.Electrical supply people for the tripp lite,well worth the $$$.
Hope this helps,
Papa Shaka

Here is some feed back I got.
"The TS 400 is a true sine wave inverter with a shore power preferred transfer switch built in .
The model of sine wave inverter chargers we have are the Prosine 2.0 with a 100 amp charger or the brand new RS 2000. with 100 amp charger .

Some possible options :
Purchase the TS 400 and a TrueCharge battery charger
Purchase a Prosine 2.0 with 100 amp battery charger and Transfer switch
Purchase a MS2000 with 100 amp charger and 30 amp transfer switch

Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions
Best regards
Randy Johnson
Technical Service Analyst
Customer Service Operations
Xantrex Technology Inc.
Randy.Johnson@xantrex.com
Website: www.xantrex.com
T:360-435-8826 Ext.2232
F:360-925-5143"
Fast Freddie

Mike covered our setups pretty well. the key is that a normal battery charger will not charge two batteries in parallel. A multi-bank charger is basicly mutiple chargers in one box with some logic curcuits. Like mike said any marine dealer has them.

Thanks guys.

I guess we'll get it sorted out in time.

Biggest problem has been finding what we are looking for on a local shelf,instead of on line.


Tom-Fl

My question, If you get one of the good inverters, how do you hook up the batteries? In parallel? Not having done that, I know what parallel means, but not how to do it (specific wiring)

Battery 2 >>> to Battery 1 >>>>> to Inverter/Charger?

We picked up two 400/800 inverters and two marine batteries to use at Tryon. While it was probably not real necessary at Tryon as they make a real effort to provide proper electrical service, it was a good chance to try it out.

We ran one smoker from 8 PM on Friday night until about 1 PM on Sat. with no problems whatsoever. The other smoker was only run from 7 AM on Sat. until about 2:30 Pm that same day.

Our setup seemed to be fine. BTW, we picked up the inverters at Lowe's and the batteries at Sam's.

John

I purchased the Coleman 400 watt inverter and a series 29 battery at sears for this past weekend and it ran almost 22 hours without any trouble. Also ran a 60 watt light for about 4 hours during that same period.

Will probably pick up a second battery for longer weekends and for a backup

I had a cheapo inverter, and it worked at home fine, but when I needed it, it let out a high pitched alarm type noise (more like a whistle) and wouldn't work (this was last December at the Rose Bowl contest. The power went out for a while and I tried using the batteries. Luckily, the power came back on pretty quick.) It was raining really hard and I'm thinking maybe it got wet?

Anyhow, I'm considering getting an inverter/charger - Probably either a Xantrex RS2000 or a Xantrex Prosine2000.

Does anybody have any experience with either of these that can recommend one over the other?

I'm leaning toward the RS2000 right now.