i have used numerous cheap inverters all made in china i am sure
and for the most part they have performed well above expectations,, who knew?
i did however many years ago buy a tripplite pv550,, and what a piece of sh#t!
it died within a week running a desktop puter in the service van, the replacement blew up in less than 5 minutes
and the replacement for that one lasted about a month before someone decided to liberate it from me,,, perhaps it was a good one
but like granny used to say
"maybe so, but i kinda friggin doubt it"
i have heard really good things about outbacks inverters, they seem to work well and the company is second to none in customer support
i have also heard that xantrex has some issues with some of their units, but some folks seem to have excellent luck with them
i can't imagine a 1.5 kwatt pure sine wave at 550 bucks being worth dragging home in my opinion, 550 for a mod square wave (aka mod sine wave)
is probably going to be a fairly good one though.
when it comes to inverters i think i am going with the exeltech ms series rack mounted
the individual inverter module go for about 700 bucks each and are 1 kwatt pure sine wave as well
from what i understand they are an american design built in the good old usa,, the telecom folks seem to like em at least in the 48volt versions that they use.
exeltech makes them in everything from 12volt input to 108volts iirc,, and they will custom configure to whatever voltage one wants to work with i am told.
kind of pricey, time you get the rack , the main processor module and a full load of inverter modules, but they supposedly have a mean time before failure of
21 years.
if one can get that kind of service out of them, maybe they are worth the extra bucks up front
i am kinda thinkin that way
but with my experience with the cheap chinese mod square wave units, i will also have a closet loaded with them as well for backups
and other less than life support uses.
i bought a batch of 1500 watt xantrex mod squarewave units from costco a couple years ago for 89 bucks each,, at that price they don't have to last forever.
i sent my dad one and he got the battery leads crossed and blew it up,, took it apart and fixed it himself
apparently it had a bank of fuses soldered to the board, the just soldered in new ones and it has been working flawlessly since.
and he knows little about electronics, but does understand fuses and the use of a soldering iron.
so i guess the 1500 watt unit ain't bad for the money?
bob g
bob g