Cobra 400watt Power Inverters

[Malaki86]

I *used* to like these power inverters, with used to being the key words. I bought my first one, hmmm, probably 2-2.5 years ago. I ran my laptop, printer, etc with no issues whatsoever. I could have the truck shut down all night and it'd never make a noise.

Well, a little over a month ago the fan on it started getting noisy - bearings probably. So, I decided to buy a new one at a Pilot. I used that one for, hmm, 15 days and all hell broke loose. First, the fan went out (same bearing noise). Then, it started setting off the low battery warning squeal after an hour or so of having the truck shut down (even though the batteries are not only new, but showing a reading of 11.6volts.

So, I stopped at another Pilot and exchanged it for another new one. That one lasted a total of 8 days. It went freaking apesh*t today. The fan started making noise first (actually started the noisy fan day before yesterday). It finally started a constant beeping and flashing between the red and green indicator lights.

So, I went to Wal Mart and bought yet another new inverter. This one isn't a Cobra - it's a Schumacher 410 watt. It seems to be working pretty good unless I turn on my printer with the truck shut down. It just takes too much "power on" juice, I guess. With the truck running, it's no problem. The price on the new one is the same as what the truckstops sell the Cobra's for.

Hopefully this one will live for more than a couple of weeks...

[Malaki86]

Well - this just sucks.

The new power inverter worked great last night - but... When you start the truck, it kills power to the Cig lighter plug. So, that sets off the inverters low battery alarm. It doesn't reset itself, either. So, you have to jump in back and cycle the power off and on.

I put that one into storage in the truck for a backup and stopped at a Flying J to exchange the dead CPI-480 yet again...

It sucks, because out here there's not many places to choose from. The only other one that's common on the road are the yellow ones they sell in the Pilot/J's. Something tells me those are even worse.

I did find out that my entire setup on uses 75 watts during normal use. If I'm scanning or printing, it uses 105 watts total. I found that out from the Schumacher inverter - it has digital readouts for the 12v voltage, AC output voltage and the output wattage. The truck batteries drop fast, though. Within maybe 1.5-2hrs, it had dropped to about 10.2 volts running the inverter and the bunk heater.

[Jackrabbit379]

It's funny how the first one lasted so long, but you got a couple rotten new ones. That's weird how that happens.
Hopefully, you can find you one that will work for ya, and last a good while..
I wouldn't know what kind to get. I don't know anything about power inverters.

[Malaki86]

I wish I could put in the 1,500 watt one I have sitting at the house. I never had any issues whatsoever out of it. Plus, it'd be nice to have a microwave and a REAL coffeemaker in the truck. That cut down of my costs quite a bit.

[Jackrabbit379]

They won't let ya use it?

[Malaki86]

Nope - they had a couple trucks burn down from guys overloading their inverters (and bad installs). So, they said no more in any company trucks larger than can be plugged into the cig lighter.

[Chunker]

Something you might want to consider is cable size and distance from the batteries when plugging cig type inverters. If you can get by with it, run your own larger cables from the batteries with a cig lighter recepticle on the end. The newer pieces of junk out there today are just that.

[Malaki86]

If I do something like that and get caught by the company, I'm out of a job. Period. No questions asked.