Sunforce 11240 1000 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter with Remote Control

This is a preliminary review. There is a tendency to seek reviews before one has enough time to gain experience with a product, and this is no exception. I don't yet have appropriate wiring to connect it to a battery, so have only done limited testing. First let me state what would hopefully be obvious to anyone purchasing an inverter of this size. Full load current consumption from a battery is 100 A. That means large, short wiring and a good battery. For any serious use, I would only use a deep cycle battery, preferably with > 100 AH capacity. A car battery should only be considered for occasional short term emergency use, and forget running the engine--most car alternators can't charge the battery that fast. Now at lighter loads, its a different story (but then why are you buying a 1000 W inverter). At any load over 200 W, forget a cigarette lighter adapter!!!!The thinnest wire rated for 100 A is 4 AWG. 10 feet of that (each of two wires) would drop 1/2 volt at full rated power! And 1/2 volt will cut your running life by probably 25% due to low voltage shutdown. These facts apply to ANY 1000 W inverter!First let me correct a mistake in other reviews that comes directly from the manual. There are two receptacles on the front panel. Some reviewers have stated (and the manual also says) that the load is divided between them and cannot all be drawn from a single outlet. That is false. I opened the unit up and examined the wiring and the two outlets are wired in parallel and do not have so much as a fuse or circuit breaker between them. I also have drawn over 1 KW from the unit from a single outlet. That one piece of mis-information initially kept me from ordering the unit.My initial testing was done with a heat gun as a load. I tried four settings1. Inverter switched off - Current draw was unmeasurable. (less than .001 A)2. Inverter switched on, but heat gun switched off (idle inverter current 1.2 to 1.5 A)3. Heat gun on low, drawing approximately 550 W (current approximately 50 A)4. Heat gun on high, drawing approximately 1000 W (current approximately 100 A)I also monitored the output waveform for the last three cases and it was indeed an accurate sine wave (contrary to a label on the bottom of the unit). It should be noted that the heat gun on low power draws current primarily on only one half the AC cycle, and this did not interfere with the operation of the inverter, or noticeably alter the voltage waveform, which speaks well of the unit. I am sure such a load would adversely affect the output capacity, though.I measured the no-load output voltage at 123 V. The front panel display said 120. The front panel power display appeared to read about 10% high. One minor negative I discovered is that pressing the button to change what measurement the front panel displays is short lived. After about 2 seconds it reverts back to input voltage. I would have preferred that it stayed where I put it.My testing was short lived, and didn't involve any real world use, so this review is incomplete. However, I was pleased with all the readings I took. I consider the unit to have met its specifications and my needs. As others have noted the "cooling fins" on the side are plastic and only to impress people. I'd have preferred to see just sheet metal, which would make the unit a bit narrower, but I've never been impressed by such attempts at looks.To me, this is probably the best unit for the price available. Like everything else these days, it is made in China. However the label says it was engineered in Taiwan and designed in Canada, both adding some credibility. Also unlike some of the competing units, they have North American offices--you aren't dealing with a Chinese company. The manual is brief and has a few inaccuracies, but is written in reasonably English, not by someone for whom English is barely a second language. Like a lot of manuals, it has sections in several languages, which means it is physically thicker than it would need to be.Pure sine wave inverters have come down a lot in price recently, thanks to technology that has become more readily available. They have also become smaller and more compact, because of high frequency switching technology that avoids the need for 60 Hz magnetics. They still command a price premium, but it is now less than 2:1 and in many cases it is worth the higher quality output they offer and the fact that they can run pretty much anything. The 100% overload capability makes them much more useful for things like motors with high starting current. They are definitely ready for mainstream use at this point, and this particular one looks like a strong contender. The 90% efficiency rating is also very useful. It means longer battery life and less heat generated.

I received the 1000W inverter today. It looks heavy duty to me. I thought I'd read the instructions first before installation. The entire manual is in fine print, had to get out a magnifing glass to read some parts. The manual is in three languages, but not a lot of pages. I guess they felt that only experienced installers would be setting it up.The unit has a 3 digit display, the manual shows the error codes that could be displayed, some make since, some don't. The manual shows an example of a 4 digit power load as 1380W. The panel shows this as KVA. Will have to keep the manual handy if an error code shows up.The manual does cover all the important things that an installer would need to know. Anyone who understands the basics of electricty should be able to set it up.When first connecting the groud wire the entire bolt turned inside the case, requiring me to open the case to tighten it up.The connectors for the battery connections are too close to each other making it difficult to tighten them. The tightening nuts are designed for finger tightening and make it difficult to get them tight enough. The weight of a stiff 4 AWG wire was enough to losen itself with very little vibration. This could be a real safety issue. There should be some way to lock them down.The unit also has a 12 V cigarette lighter socket which is powered even when the 120 V circuit is off. Too bad it dosent have it's own on/off switch. Due to the 120 V circuit's high self power consumption (2.5 Amps) of this inverter, I found this socket handy for plugging in my modified sine wave inverter for low power requirements thereby conserving the batteries.The digital display shows the AC voltage until pressing a very small button, then displays DC voltage for 2 seconds then switches itself back to AC voltage display. I'd rather see the DC voltage most of the time or at least have a choice.I was able to operate my big screen TV that would not work with a modified sine wave inverter.... After a year of daily usage my UPS started tripping on overvoltage. I used several volt meters and concluded the Sunforce voltage display was showing 120 V but was actually putting out voltages up to 155 volts. The UPS is set to trip at 142 V so had to increase some load to drop the voltage or I had to keep the batteries at a low level of charge. Once again I had to open up the inverter and find a voltage POT to adjust the output voltage lower. Now the front display shows around 105 to 110 volts and the actual voltage stays around 130 V which is below the UPS trip threshold.The TV failed, will never know if the high voltages contributed to the failure, junked it and got a newer and better TV making sure the power is always conditioned through the APC UPS.I've also had many over load trips, usually accounted for by motor start ups. Too bad it dosen't have a (one time) automatic restart and a longer period to allow for a motor to spin up.