That would be my guess


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.112] on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 12:46:45 :

In Reply to: Re: Auto-electric question posted by derek [68.122.10.151] on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 11:17:47 :

The inverter manufacturers have no idea what kind of rig it will be installed on, how good the body/chassis grounds are, or how competent the installer is. The makers of those high-powered ghetto-thumper stereo amps that are usually mounted in the trunk usually advise the same thing.

A good chassis ground, connected at both ends with a good heavy ground strap, will be better than a separate ground cable.

What you have not mentioned is what wattage your inverter is. If it's only a couple hundred watts, the primary wiring won't be critical, but if it's 4000 watts and you intend to use it for running a skil saw or something like that, you're going to need amazingly heavy wire. Most inverters have a low-voltage cut-out at a frustratingly-high voltage level, ostensibly to save your car battery. The trouble is, with any voltage drop at all in the primary wiring, it will trip the cutout while there's still plenty of juice in the battery. I use 4/0 copper, about 4' long on the inverter I use for running power tools out in the field, and still often have to run the engine to keep the inverter from tripping off. I've had this with two different makes of inverters, too. A skil saw can easily draw 20 amps AC at startup, which is at least 200 amps on the DC side, same as a V8 starter motor. Size your wiring, ground straps, and terminal lugs accordingly. If you put crimp lugs on the ends of the primary cables and ground straps, consider soldering them as well (a blow torch, and a small hold drilled through one side of the lug to feed the solder through). Frame rails should be scraped clean and the ground strap bolted on with a substantial bolt. If things aren't very clean, at least use a star lock washer to bite through the paint. If everything is clean and shiny, some "no-ox" paste will help keep corrosion out of the contact area. Then paint over it all.

A few hundred millivolts drop in your primary circuit will make all the difference in usability, and that's only 1 milli-ohm of total resistance, out and back, both sides, with a high-powered inverter.



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