I was in Elkhart last saturday and someone wanted to sell me a 3000watt tripplite inverter for $800 it was new and with a warranty also had a built in battery charger. What do you all think. good or bad!!!!!
Was it true or modified sine?
dMy first inverter in the bus was a Tripp lite! I had a friend who used them for UPS sytems for rail road crossings he bought them by the pallett so I got a deal. As far as inverting goes it was fine, but and this is a big BUT. The inverter I had was a single stage battery charger. This is fine if you are on a power pole most of the time (but then you do not need an inverter) But if you are going to chargeing with a genset, even a small battery bank like my 4 golf cart batterys can take a long long time with a single stage charger. 6 to 8 hours!!!
I do not know if all Tripplites have a single stage charger. You will have to check this for yourself. But for my money I want a three stage charger. I was able to sell my Tripplite for more than I paid for it. I now have a Zantrex DR3624 with a 3 stage charger for about $850. This is a modified sinewave, which causes me no problems. For between $600 and $1000 there are a lot of choices available. So you do not have to jump on this deal.
Trip Lite = B grade but they work ok. There's better for your money, and if it's a modified sine from any manufacturer, don't bother (just my opinion, and a lot will disagree)
I bought a slightly used 5000 watt inverter (modified sine) for $500.00 or maybe even less, don't remember the exact price off of ebay and it has been great. I will eventually add a small true sine inverter for my sensitive stuff and run a couple dedicated outlets off of it.
The manual that was in the box didnt say anything about the sine wave or the charger it made me wonder if it was worth anything or not. I think I should save my $$ and buy a true sine wave trace?????
TrippLite is modified square wave and not very good at that. I had one and iit broke the first trip on which I used it then took 3 weeks to get replacement. Sure glad I dumped it on Ebay and got my SW2512 which works flawlessly. Save your money and get a Trace SW inverter.
Regards
Jerry 4107 1120