I'd like to be able to power a small 3.5 cuft chest freezer or similar from a Cobra CPI 475 12V 400W inverter connected to a yet-to-be-built ~13V battery bank. The freezer will be connected to AC most of the time and only connected to the inverter during a prolonged power outage.
Small chest freezers draw ~150W while running intermittently. The obvious hurdle is getting past the startup surge and working with a modified sine wave inverter. This inverter claims it has an 800W peak. I'm planning on using beefy and short cabling between the battery and inverter.
Has anyone been able to get any small chest freezer to work with an inverter with similar specs? I just want some battery powered freezing available so all my meat doesn't go bad and so I can still have some cold beer to share with the zombies.
I did see a thread here where someone failed to do something similar with a mini-fridge and a 300W inverter with unspecified max. I believe chest freezers are more efficient than mini fridges (mostly because the air doesn't fall out when you open from the top), but I'm not sure if they require more or less startup current.
DC chest freezers are probably quieter and more efficient but I don't think the price justifies them for my just-in-case scenario.
If it doesn't work, I'll invest in a higher capacity pure sine inverter and maybe just build a 24V or 48V system. But since is this really the only critical load I need to run, I'm trying to make it work with what I have.
Small chest freezers draw ~150W while running intermittently. The obvious hurdle is getting past the startup surge and working with a modified sine wave inverter. This inverter claims it has an 800W peak. I'm planning on using beefy and short cabling between the battery and inverter.
Has anyone been able to get any small chest freezer to work with an inverter with similar specs? I just want some battery powered freezing available so all my meat doesn't go bad and so I can still have some cold beer to share with the zombies.
I did see a thread here where someone failed to do something similar with a mini-fridge and a 300W inverter with unspecified max. I believe chest freezers are more efficient than mini fridges (mostly because the air doesn't fall out when you open from the top), but I'm not sure if they require more or less startup current.
DC chest freezers are probably quieter and more efficient but I don't think the price justifies them for my just-in-case scenario.
If it doesn't work, I'll invest in a higher capacity pure sine inverter and maybe just build a 24V or 48V system. But since is this really the only critical load I need to run, I'm trying to make it work with what I have.