(Video) What is a Power Inverter and which inverter do I need? What does a power inverter do?

by Justin Gray

Maybe you've asked yourself one of the questions below and are here to find an answer, We'll answer all of these questions in this video:

What is a Power Inverter?
What are the uses of an Inverter?
What type of inverter do I need?
What are sine waves?
How to calculate wattage from amperage and volts?
Amps to watts conversion.
What size inverter do I need?
What can I power with an inverter?
Inverters for CPAP?
What is modified sine wave?
What is pure sine wave?
How does a sine wave work?
What are sine waves?
Inverters for multiple appliances.
What is Peak Surge (surge current, inrush current)?

Unedited transcript:
Hi I'm Justin from Wagan Tech and today we're gonna take a look at some of the most common questions asked about power inverters like what are the uses what type of inverter do I need what are the differences between inverters and which one is right for me

so let's dive right into it

first let's take a look at what a power inverter is it takes DC current which is the battery power from your car and turns it an AC current which is like what you find in the wall outlet of your house

power inverters come in two main categories your standard plug-and-play models to which you simply plug into the 12 volt DC accessory outlet of your car and the hardwired model these ones require you to run a positive and a negative power cable to your vehicle's battery

so you may ask what kind of appliances can you use with a power inverter they can be used with anything that runs off of AC power from a blender to a curling iron to a cooktop to a crane even - they can be used for a myriad of things we have police departments fire departments ambulance crews and even civil services that use our power inverters daily across the world

so you may be asking yourself well that's great all these other people use power inverters but what would I use a power inverter for: you could use it for your laptop powering a DVD player you know when you're out tailgating you want to run that blender you can certainly do it the power inverter even when you're camping you can have a straight iron you can have a hairdryer or anything else you need even CPAP machines for people that require those.

now let's take a look at the different types of sine waves you have modified and pure sine wave

modified also known as square sine waves are manufactured sine waves that work with most devices

pure sine wave or natural sine is the same sine wave that comes out of the outlet in your house and works with every device pure sine wave is ideal because the voltage rises and falls smoothly and changes polarity instantly when the voltage crosses zero holes this does not cause excessive heat buildup or add stress to electronic devices as it is smooth and a consistent change

on the other hand modified sine wave is more like a light switch with abrupt voltage Rises and fall with long periods of rest at zero volts this abrupt change causes some devices to simply not operate it can also create an electrical noise and some devices as well

okay so which sine wave is right for you are you gonna be running medical devices like a CPAP machine or are you just gonna be running a blender if you're running a medical device or sense of electronics like printers fax machines computers you'll walk pure sine pretty much anything else that isn't a clock or doesn't have an oscillation or isn't a fluorescent light you can use with modified sine-wave

okay so now you have a basic understanding of what a modified and pure sine wave is now you're probably asking yourself so what inverter do I need you need to take a look at the wattage requirements of your appliance in order to answer that question most devices will have the wattage or amperage requirements posted on the device itself
it may say 75 watts or five amps if your device doesn't list the wattage here's how I can calculate it take the volts times the amps and that equals watts for instance let's take a look at this lamp on the bottom the label says 120 volts at 0.5 amps so you take the 120 times the 0.5 and you get 60 watts
another thing you don't want to neglect is the amount of appliances you can run at one time just because your lamp requires 60 watts doesn't mean you shouldn't include the other devices in the calculation
so if you're running two devices at the same time make sure you calculate both of those devices wattage is up in order to make sure you get the correct power inverter for example you have a laptop that 60 watts and let's say you have a portable DVD player that's 40 Watts you'll add those two wattages up 60 and 40 you know come up with a hundred watts

so now you've calculated the hundred Watts that sounds good but it may not be the ideal inverter for your needs you'll be taxing the inverter if you get a hundred watt inverter and put a hundred watt load on it so that's why we suggest a 20% buffer so what you do is take your hundred Watts add 20% to it and come up with 120 watts that would be a better fitting inverter for your needs

lastly let's talk about peak surge you may have heard of it before and been wondering what it means what it is is when a high wattage device starts up it draws an insane amount of power for usually less than 1/2 of a second that's called the peak surge of the device some devices can search up to 3 times the amount of it's running wattage this is something you need to take a look at when selecting a appropriate inverter for your needs

alright so that's the end of our basic overview of power inverters make sure you like this video subscribe to our Channel turn on those notifications because we have lots of more videos going in depth about inverters and how to connect them coming up soon thank you very much for watching this video oh yeah for more information about our inverters, go to www.wagan.com