What is the best brand of 12v power inverters?

[John Bennett]

I'm going to spend a couple of weeks driving around southern California with my wife and kids. I need a DC:AC power inverter to run all their electronics.

I've heard some inverters are cheap Chinese junk. Is there any brand that people consider superior?

I'm looking at this I-tec brand at Gardner Mountain:

http://www.gandermountain.com/modpe...ower_Inverter&str=POWER+INVERTER&merchID=4005

I-Tec 450 Watt Power Inverter
$59.99

I'm willing to spend a lot more for superior quality. I'm unfamiliar with these devices and don't know what is superior.

Any help appreciated!

 

[QtrHorse]

Xantrex makes some of the best inverters you can buy.

 

[Zero_Enigma]

IIRC Xantrex OEM's some of thier inverters I think perhaps to sell more units when another company rebrands it. Ive not confirmed that but just what I've heard before.

I've a MotorMaster Eliminator 175W which just recently died from well my fault but if I did not hook it up tot he 12v battery I think it would have lasted 10yrs (About 5-7yrs in already).

I think most inverters would last you 5yrs if you just use it in the car. Mine was always exposed to the heat in the car and it still worked. Cost me about $15ish CDN on sale.

 

[devo]

I work for a company that deals with every inverter line out there. Xantrex makes good inverters but they charge a great price. From looking at sales vs returns the Thor inverters are better all around units. They come with a 2 year warranty and are professional grade. All of the internals are also conformal coated which makes them marine grade as well. No one is supposed to know this but Thor has a 15% reserve built into all of their inverters. Their 2000 wat unit will actually run at 2300 watts continous. Among the top lines we offer (Go Power, Samlex, Xantrex, Peak, Wagan, Trip-Lite, Cobra, Power Bright, Rally, Solar etc the Thor units top them all. Thor is getting ready ot launch their pure sine wave units that are going to match up directly with the Dimensions brand. We supply right around 500 differnt commercial fleet accounts and they either have or are in the process of using the Thor inverters we supply.

 

[xul]

Let's say you price these out on Nextag and you list 8 prices picked at random.
The middle 4 contain 50% of the prices out there.
The other 50% outside this range better have a good reason to be so cheap or so costly.

So for [normalized] prices
1
2
4
4
5
6
8
10
half the units cost between 4 and 6.
You could also calculate the average price but you hardly ever see that.

 

[Eneloops]

I would NOT recommend XANTREX. It's a mess of Chinese Junk inside with extremely sloppy solder everywhere and minuscule heatsinks. I noticed GoPower PSW inverters cost about three times as much. I found a video on youtube showing the inside of one, and it's leaps and bounds better quality. Looks like I will get the 600W GoPower for the same price as the 2000W Xantrex.