Which inverter should I get?

[chaosdsm]

Looking to buy an inverter to reduce reliance upon gas powered generator when power goes out. Primarily powering up to 2 or 3 lights, 1 or 2 fans, computer, internet, & wiFi. Typically, on the house electric, with 1 fan, 2 lights, computer, monitor, internet, & wifi these use about 1.8 - 2.0 kWh per my Kill-A-Watt, and runs about 14-16 hours when running on my 5550W generator with 7 gallons of gas.

To start with, that's about all I would use on it. The battery I'm starting with is Eco-Worth 12V 300Ah:

Love that it has onboard status indicators!

I hope to add additional batteries once or twice a year for extended run times & hopefully to also run the refrigerator + assorted small appliances as needed without having to rely upon my 22 year old generator & save on gas at the same time.

So I'm looking SHORT TERM at just an inexpensive inverter to get me through at least a year or two. I've kind of got my eye on three "Pure Sine Wave" 12V candidates:

> LiTime 3000W $330
> Vevor 5000W $400
> Zetawale 4000W $360

All 3 have four standard 110V/120V outlets. I had also looked at the Renogy 3000W, but it's $415 and only has 3 outlets.

Eventually, I'll want to switch over to a 48V inverter after I get 4 batteries, but that's too far down the road to even think about right now.

From the reviews that I've checked out, LiTime appears to be the better inverter overall, but also has the lowest continuous output. Vevor seems almost as good, and definitely has a much larger running capacity - I'm heavily leaning towards this one.

While the Zetawale seems like a happy medium in both price & capacity, I'm a little leery due to the lack of quality reviews. I also noticed 1 Amazon review that says the internal fuses are soldered in place? I cannot find a manual for the Zetawale, I'm guessing that one reviewer just didn't know how to remove them, but...

Would any of these 3 be a good option, &/or Is there a similarly powered / priced option out there that I've missed?

 

[robby]

You are way better off starting with 48V equipment then switching later on.

 

[robbob2112]

First - buy nothing without a plan - erasing is cheaper than returning

Second - if the long term goal is 48v, then start there.... with lfp batteries it is ALWAYS better to do the correct voltage verse stringing 12v batteries in series.... Will has recently posted a few new cart power station builds..

If you still decide to do a 12v build look in my answer thread for the UPS or CPAP builds for ideas... they are both working...

Post in thread 'Robbob2112 Answer thread'

Jan 14, 2025

Standard Blurb

Don't spend any money, until you have planned out the entire system. An eraser is cheap, but returns can be costly.

Planning

1. Energy Audit - what do you have to power?
2. Size the inverter for your maximum instantaneous demand (including surges).
3. Size the battery for how long you want power, when the sun isn't shining.
4. Size the PV to cover the loads and recharge the battery, when the sun is shining for your area - most in the US use 4hrs or 5 hours a day of sun
5. Trying to use old equipment you already have usually costs more in design compromises than just...

• robbob2112

• 

 

[Tulex]

What's been said. I don't like the idea of buying 12v with the plan of using them later as 48v.

 

[sumpower]

Maximum inverter size rule of thumb used to be.

12 volt: 1,200-1,800 Watt Max "usable" AC inverter
24 volt: 2,400 Watt to 3,600 Watt Max "usable" AC inverter
48 volt: 4,800 Watt or larger inverter

> LiTime 3000W $330
3000 divide by 12 volt = 250 amps At this amperage

> Vevor 5000W $400
5000 w didived by 12 volt = 416 Amps your battery will fault at this current. Edit it time for a class T fuse also.

> Zetawale 4000W $360
4000 watt divide by 12 = 333 Amps

With a 24 volt inverter you cut the amperage by half.
With a 48 volt inverter you reduce it by half again.
Reduce the amperage and reduce the cost of conductors.

 

[AH Trimble]

How many systems, or versions of systems, do you want to buy/build?
Build it right, buy it once.

There is an old saying...Pay me now or pay me later, and later it will be more expensive.

 

[Rednecktek]

The BMS in a 12v battery will often limit you to 100a continuous discharge, so with a single battery 1200w is about all you can get.

Double check the specs for continuous amperage and that'll tell you what size inverter you can support.

For a basic inverter, not an AIO, Giandel and Rzlwb (Rwlzb? Rlbwz?) are pretty solid units that are affordable still.

Or if money allows go straight to 48v and skip the learning curve.

 

[Chispas]

Looking to buy an inverter to reduce reliance upon gas powered generator when power goes out. Primarily powering up to 2 or 3 lights, 1 or 2 fans, computer, internet, & wiFi. Typically, on the house electric, with 1 fan, 2 lights, computer, monitor, internet, & wifi these use about 1.8 - 2.0 kWh per my Kill-A-Watt, and runs about 14-16 hours when running on my 5550W generator with 7 gallons of gas.

To start with, that's about all I would use on it. The battery I'm starting with is Eco-Worth 12V 300Ah:

Love that it has onboard status indicators!

I hope to add additional batteries once or twice a year for extended run times & hopefully to also run the refrigerator + assorted small appliances as needed without having to rely upon my 22 year old generator & save on gas at the same time.

So I'm looking SHORT TERM at just an inexpensive inverter to get me through at least a year or two. I've kind of got my eye on three "Pure Sine Wave" 12V candidates:

> LiTime 3000W $330
> Vevor 5000W $400
> Zetawale 4000W $360

All 3 have four standard 110V/120V outlets. I had also looked at the Renogy 3000W, but it's $415 and only has 3 outlets.

Eventually, I'll want to switch over to a 48V inverter after I get 4 batteries, but that's too far down the road to even think about right now.

From the reviews that I've checked out, LiTime appears to be the better inverter overall, but also has the lowest continuous output. Vevor seems almost as good, and definitely has a much larger running capacity - I'm heavily leaning towards this one.

While the Zetawale seems like a happy medium in both price & capacity, I'm a little leery due to the lack of quality reviews. I also noticed 1 Amazon review that says the internal fuses are soldered in place? I cannot find a manual for the Zetawale, I'm guessing that one reviewer just didn't know how to remove them, but...

Would any of these 3 be a good option, &/or Is there a similarly powered / priced option out there that I've missed?

As said by others, starting off with 12V batteries & building them into strings can be problematic, not really recommended.
How about just starting out with a basic, 12V system to power your modem, WiFi , fans & lights etc ? This would be a good learning experience & wouldn't cost a fortune & the tools that you would need would be there for a future build. You haven't mentioned panels ? Were you planning on charging the battery with the generator ?

The BMS in a 12v battery will often limit you to 100a continuous discharge, so with a single battery 1200w is about all you can get.

In this case, the BMS is rated at 200A but leaving something on the table is good. Also, will these cheaper inverters actually deliver the stated power ? for the loads you've described, 3000w is huge, more than the BMS can handle. Within that price range, you might even be in Victron territory, a smaller inverter but with a good surge capacity, low standby current & best of all a 5-year guarantee.
As said many times on here, make a plan first & then look to buying kit.

 

[Q-Dog]

3000 watts is way more than you need to run fans, lights and computers. We use a 1000 watt inverter in our shed to run fans, lights, computers, sewing machine, radio ... everything except air conditioner. We were going to build a system on a cart but I set everything up in the shed "temporarily" and we found it changed how we use that building, so now it seems a bit permanent.

Victron 1200VA inverter, 2.5kWh batteries, 800 watts of solar panels.

 

[littleharbor2]

Using a 5500 watt generator to run those little loads is terribly inefficient i understand why you want to get away from using it you might want to look into a small inverter generator other situations down the road nothing wrong with having more than one generator, for different jobs

 

[sumpower]

Using a 5500 watt generator to run those little loads is terribly inefficient i understand why you want to get away from using it you might want to look into a small inverter generator other situations down the road nothing wrong with having more than one generator, for different jobs

With an inverter generator of 2000 to 3000 watts you would be able to run your loads on 2 gallons of gas for the 14 to 16 hours, instead of the 7 gallons you say you are using now. Fuel savings $ would pay for itself alone if you are doing this daily?

But the ultimate long term savings would come from an installation of solar panels, battery, and a small inverter.

 

[AH Trimble]

Using a 5500 watt generator to run those little loads is terribly inefficient i understand why you want to get away from using it you might want to look into a small inverter generator other situations down the road nothing wrong with having more than one generator, for different jobs

Yes!
We ran a 2000w inverter generator for 3 years, added a 5gal tank to it and it would run for 2 - 3 days in eco-mode. Ran all our lights, fans, TV, microwave, etc. When we finally upgrade the genset for the house back-up we kept the little guy. Used it off and on for a long time as a portable source of power. We finally sold it for about 1/2 what we paid for it. Not a bad deal.

 

[Mattb4]

Interesting looking battery. Having BMS fault indication is a unique feature. The SOC indication is unlikely to be reliable. I am guessing the On/Off is only for the display and not a battery output disconnect.

I would not go very elaborate/expensive with a 12vDC mobile inverter since you will soon fine it inadequate other than for small temporary loads. Certainly do not add more 12vDC batteries towards an eventual idea of series connecting to get a 48vDC battery. Use what you have and get a feel for what works and use the knowledge in your eventual larger setup.

 

[wpns]

Typically, on the house electric, with 1 fan, 2 lights, computer, monitor, internet, & wifi these use about 1.8 - 2.0 kWh per my Kill-A-Watt

Just to clarify, as this is an important point: How exactly are you using your Kill-A-Watt, and are you measuring KiloWatts or KiloWattHours(per day)? 2KW is a lot, 2KWHR/day is under 100W average. It makes a huge difference.

I hope to add additional batteries once or twice a year for extended run times & hopefully to also run the refrigerator + assorted small appliances as needed without having to rely upon my 22 year old generator & save on gas at the same time.

We obviously applaud your desire to go with solar, especially DIY solar, as that's why most of us are here. However, the cost savings on gasoline won't pay for the battery, much less all the extra bits. Just so you aren't expecting a _financial_ Return On Investment.

All 3 have four standard 110V/120V outlets.

Many small inverters also have output terminals, so you could potentially hardwire some Romex and some double-duplex outlets in a 'quad' box.

Eventually, I'll want to switch over to a 48V inverter after I get 4 batteries, but that's too far down the road to even think about right now.

As others have mentioned, don't do this, it always ends in disappointment. Batteries with different ages will make it worse, and even with inter-battery balancers, it's likely you'll be back here asking what went wrong and what you should do to fix it.

From the reviews that I've checked out, LiTime appears to be the better inverter overall, but also has the lowest continuous output. Vevor seems almost as good, and definitely has a much larger running capacity - I'm heavily leaning towards this one.

Note that these are sales figures, and there's no downside to the sales guys from lying. "Oh, it blew up when you tried to use it at the rated specs? You clearly did something wrong, and voided the warranty".

While the Zetawale seems like a happy medium in both price & capacity, I'm a little leery due to the lack of quality reviews. I also noticed 1 Amazon review that says the internal fuses are soldered in place? I cannot find a manual for the Zetawale, I'm guessing that one reviewer just didn't know how to remove them, but...

No, the fuses are a fail-safe in many of these inverters and are (for instance) four 10A fuses in parallel, and soldered in place. Not removable, and not a warranty repair, etc.

So first of all, don't plan ahead so far you are spending tens of thousands of dollars on the far future system that'll run your entire house. But don't buy the cheapest thing you can today and find yourself unable to expand it later (unless you are willing to discard it all and start over, or use the 'starter' system somewhere else).

Personally I'd never buy a(nother) LFP battery without some kind of comms, probably BT for a starter system. This will allow you to see how the battery is doing, how well balanced the cells are, and why it stopped working when it inevitably does. I'd probably step up to the:

LiFePO4 12V 280Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery | ECO-WORTHY

ECO-WORTHY LiFePO4 12V Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery has twice the power, half the weight, and lasts 8 times longer than a sealed lead acid battery, no maintenance, extremely safe and very low toxicity for environment. Our line of LiFePO4 offer a solution to demanding applications that require...

www.eco-worthy.com

even though the BMS is 'only' 200A (2400W) instead of the 300A (3600W) of the other one.

There are lots of 12 inverters on Amazon from $10(!) to $10,000(!), I'd decide how much I want to spend, look at ratings and reviews, and order one, it's not a lot of money even as a learning experience. I'd look long and hard at something Victron, though they are expensive, you get what you pay for, and again, it's your budget, so you get to decide wha you want to spend.

What are you going to use to charge your battery? Your 5500W generator is overkill for charging a battery with a charge limit of 2400W, and will still need a charger (EcoWorthy has a decent one at around $100) but it'll still charge up in a few hours, not overtax your generator, and it's paid for, though you'll need a battery charger (or step up to a low-power All-In-One, again see the Victron offerings, but we may have blown your budget again, but at under $500 it includes a 50A charger). Solar PV is the obvious way to go on this forum, and Victron MPPT boxes are amazing and not terribly expensive, but the 'balance of systems' is a whole 'nother rathole.

So kinda up to you, but I'd recommend either cheap (under $100) inverter or Victron (AIO or separates) and the battery with BT. Plus whatever the charger ends up being.

 

[Browse]

Just build one of Will Prowse's recommended small hand truck systems:

 

[chaosdsm]

Holy brain overload....

First & foremost.... my generator is 22 years old, it could die tomorrow, or last 22 more years... Its primary duty is running my refrigerator and well pump, plus the lights in both bedrooms and both bathrooms, in addition to what I'm wanting to run on the battery backup power. Replacement cost is what I'm spending on battery backup, though I might have to get a small gas powered inverter generator just for the fridge & pump if my gen stops working sooner instead of later....

NOISE is also a factor, even the "quiet" inverter generators are still loud.

IDEALLY, I'd just pick up: Eco-Worth 10.24KWh home backup power kit with 48v 100Ah LiFePO4 (x2) & 5000W 48V Hybrid inverter.... it is however triple my purchasing power, & is realistically about 3 years down the line.... Even those "budget hand truck" thingy's are well beyond my purchasing power.

YES, the battery is a smart battery with Bluetooth monitoring & phone app. It does ONLY have a 200A BMS, but 2x in parallel = 4800W.

YES, this starter system is actually an upgrade to my workshop system. When not used for emergency power, this system will be powering all of my rock tumbling equipment, 2 exhaust fans, & all of the lights in the shop.

I didn't say this in original post, but the power usage I stated was Peak Power usage: Which is with my computer running at 100% utilization, about 1280W running watts by itself, at idle it's only about 140W. During an extended power outage, I'll swap in my laptop instead of using my PC which runs at about 125W when gaming, giving me room for up to 2 additional fans (about 120W each high / 80W each low). I already have a 105Ah 12v LiFePO4 battery which is powering my current rock tumbler, which can be swapped in when the 300Ah battery gets on the low side & needs to be recharged.

Obviously with everything running & only one 300Ah battery, it will only offer a few hours run time: with 2 fans, internet, wifi, laptop, & lights, I'm guessing about 280W, so about 11 hours of runtime. When swapping to the 105Ah battery I would drop one of the fans and run the remaining fan on low, & put laptop in hibernation or just unplug it & run on laptop battery, dropping power usage to about 120W, so about 8hrs or so of runtime, plenty of time for a LiTime 60A charger plugged into the generator to recharge the 300Ah battery.

I only have 1 good solar panel, Renogy N-Type shade tolerant 200W, & a Victron 75/15 mppt charge controller, so at minimal power usage, I can charge via solar to some degree in the event of a dead generator, but hope it doesn't come to that....

 

[chaosdsm]

If you still decide to do a 12v build look in my answer thread for the UPS or CPAP builds for ideas. --> "My UPS for the Media server and computers"....

This is almost EXACTLY what I had in mind, just with a 80A LiTime charger instead of solar.

 

[chaosdsm]

So I ended up buying the Vevor 12v 3500W inverter for $199 direct from Vevor, & after some additional savings was only $208 shipped!

Based on my calculations, this will be plenty of power to run the crafts office - currently in planning - out in my garage. Custom rotary rock tumbler (will handle up to 75lbs of rocks) on 12V DC high-torque 60RPM motor, two 12V DC exhaust fans, laser engraver, 3d printer, Cricut Maker 3, two vibratory rock tumblers, & lighting. The rock tumbler & exhaust fans will run directly off 12V DC, everything else off the inverter. The only thing that will be running continuously is the rotary tumbler, everything else would be intermittent usage.

Little disappointed by Vevor this time around. Included cable for connecting battery to inverter is a #2 AWG - 60227 IEC 02(RV) 450/700v wire, which as far as I can tell has a 90C PVC insulation. Also, the lugs on the battery cable have 10mm holes while the Inverter has 8mm posts. Don't know if it matters at all, but the wires have also been flattened out into an ovaloid shape. Seems like too much potential for disaster to me.

All that aside... #2 wire to power 3500 running watts & 7000 starting watts??? Pretty sure that's even beyond the capability of #2 Kapton PTFE insulated wire....

Fortunately I already have an inverter battery cable for it from WindyNation - 2/0 AWG 105C welding/battery cable rated up to 325A with 5/16 lugs. I actually got a 10ft section, which I will cut to 3ft & crimp on new lugs (pneumatic crimper + marine grade adhesive lined heat shrink) to connect battery to inverter, then will have the rest left to cut & connect additional batteries in parallel as needed.

I'll keep that Vevor battery cable handy though, I'm looking to setup a solar/battery setup in my lawn mower shed to recharge the EGO mower with their 700W rapid charger, #2 wire should handle that just fine.