The truth about inverters is, as always, somewhere in the middle. Modified sine inverters are a good solution for many loads. But let's examine the various types of loads first. There are three types of them. A) Purely inductive i.e. coils, linear transformers (the old well known ones), and motors. B) Electronic loads i.e. the power supplies of the various electronic equipment. C) Purely resistive loads. Starting from the last category (C), these loads are typically all incandescent lamps, water heaters, irons etc. These devices do not care about the type of the power and its waveform. They work happily either with modified sine voltage or even with D.C. voltage (i.e. coming directly from batteries). The only important factor is to satisfy their demands in terms of voltage and intensity. The nature of the power is irrelevant in their case. Pure sinus in their case is just an unnecessary luxury. Next comes the B) category, of electronic equipment in general. Most appliances in our days make use of the so called "switching power supplies". The old fashion, linear transformer based power supplies, are not existing any more. Now, the prevailing type of switching power supplies (s.m.p.s) also doesn't care about the type of the input waveform. As soon as the input voltage gets in it, it passes through a rectifier circuit and is converted to an almost pure D.C. voltage after the rectifier/filtering stage. Next, this high D.C voltage passes through a chopper stage and is stepped down to the nominal operating voltage of the equipment. (All electronics work on D.C voltage). This power supply can also work on D.C voltage. What is left, is category A) mostly induction motors. These motors, it is true, work happily with pure sine power. Yet they have no problem with modified sinus inverters under some presuppositions. These deal with the quality of the inverters to be used with them. Talking about the modified sinus inverters themselves: there is nothing wrong with them as invention. There are many types of them, but let's examine the ordinary one, which is the "single pulse" per every semiperiod of the wave. In particular, as long as this pulse has 120 degrees of duration (against the 180 degrees of the entire half wave) and the pulse intervals before and after this main pulse remain symmetrical and equal to 30 degrees i.e. 30/120/30 per half wave, then this waveform is the nearest perfect approach to sine wave, coming from a single pulse modified sine waveform. In this voltage, the third harmonic of the fundamental frequency (150Hz for 50Hz systems and 180Hz for 60Hz systems, which is the most dangerous for inductive loads as it contains the highest energy) is completely suppressed. The higher harmonics, under the above condition again, exist in minute magnitudes and therefore are harmless. The real problem with the cheap inverters of the market is that they regulate their output R.M.S voltage (i.e the equivalence with the mains voltage) by affecting the duration of that single pulse, generating thus plenty of harmonics at the output. It is common to see (under low battery and heavy load conditions) waveforms that look like purely rectangular, where all the odd harmonics of the fundamental frequency are present there. This is what mostly disturbs the inductive loads. In such a case these loads need a means of thermal protection when working with modified sine inverters. The humming noise is stronger with these inverters simply because the transition of the voltage during each semiperiod is abrupt. (That's why harmonics are produced). There is also an interesting sub category of motors. These are the so called "universal motors", which are ordinarily used in power tools. These motors (with the toothed rotors and the carbon brushes) are called universal just because they can work happily either with D.C or A.C voltage. (The ones using speed regulators are excluded, just because their electronic speed regulators cannot work on D.C). In conclusion, about this controversial topic, it all depends on what one is intended to operate with his inverter. Of course a pure sine inverter covers all the needs, but is it really worth it to operate an energy hungry water heater with a much more expensive pure sine inverter? This is only wasted luxury... Therefore this decision has to do with various parameters such as some emotional ones such as the noise of the device which doesn't mean that the device suffers because of non sinusoidal voltage applied to it. Another crucial parameter is the working hours per day of each device. For a refrigerator, for example, yes, the use of sinusoidal inverter is a must, but not necessarily for all the rest loads. Hopefully these lines will help some buyers or users of inverters in clearing the fog covering this topic in their thinking. The promotion therefore of sine inverters seems to be nothing more than a marketing trick rather than a matter of such an overestimated importance...

A pure sine wave had a single fundamental frequency, 50hz, while a modified square wave 50hz 'sine wave' can have a large number of additional harmonic frequencies, caused by the sharp edges of the square wave, these spikes in the supply can be noisy and possibly dangerous to sensitive electronic equipment. HOWEVER, contrary to what you may be told by the sellers of hideously expensive pure wine wave generators, ALL reasonably quality commercial electronic equipment is easily able to filter out these noisy spikes in the supply voltage. For simple 240v heating equipment, it doesn't matter. For the items of 240v equipment I use in my van ie. toaster, kettle, laptop, hair dryer, power saw, battery charger, pressure cooker, I have never had a problem with my 3000w modified square wave inverter.

I have been happy without an inverter. I am an electronics technician and have figured out how to save power as I am always off grid when I am in my van. My fridge is a two way Engel which has 12 V DC and 240V AC inputs. Ligths are 12V LEDs, My laptop was using a DC to DC converter but when it died I replaced it with my Asus Transformer pad with keyboard. This has a massive 16 hour battery life and I charge it often in a library. I could charge with my 12V USB bullet charger but it takes ages. I have no microwave oven or other power hungry mains powered appliances.

Thanks for the input. Beautiful sunset btw 🇦🇺😍

Nice man, thanks alot! great info!

Beautiful spectacular sunrise.

Love the video and the explanation of the inverters mate. I literally had no idea. I truly think more KZfaqrs should be this awesome. Clicked like, and subscribed. Looking forward to more from you. Be safe. Mike T ~ Las Vegas, NV USA.

Good info. Nice install as usual thanks. I hope ur doing well

Great informational video mate...

We just ran everything off 12v. Bought a DC adapter for our notebook PC too. Less money to spend and less to wire in.

Most underrated topic. Very important lesson.

Great idea mate

Love your videos Thank you!I am trying to gather the things I need to set up a solar system on my van and I was thinking one battery AGM or 2 golf cart type I want that CTEK250s and directly wired to batteries and alternator with about 200 watts of polycrystalline Renogy panel..I want to have a 45 quart compressor refrigerator wired to it and house lights a fan 12volt appliances whenever charging laptop and phones....my question is...Can I get by without an inverter with this amount of wattage and setup? TYVM

Thank U for explaining so I can understand! lol! 🐙

I see some electronics on your left eye. What is the diafragma and zoom capability?

A modified sine wave inverter has the peaks cut off. All “smart” electronics, such as a laptop, cell phone etc. need a pure sine wave inverter or over time they will be destroyed. However, you can run “smart equipment” off a modified sine wave inverter if you install a line conditioner with power backup in conjunction with your inverter. Line conditioners are relatively inexpensive & are sometimes a good alternative to purchasing the more expensive pure sine wave inverter, especially if you already own a modified version.

You should really put the fuse at the battery, not at the load. If the positive wire gets shorted to ground between the fuse and the battery the way you have it now the fuse would not blow and you will run down the battery or cause a fire.

Great advice. I would put my fuse closer to the battery but your install looks nice and clean great job.

Dude I've just subscribed love your content really good advice. I am about to embark on a very similar path bought a Toyota commuter kitted out. We're are you based am currently in Western Australia. You are my guru guy right now I am learning a lot from you. Hopefully we will cross paths one day

i installed an inverter in my car for when i go beach or car shows for speakers and tvs and what not an i agree that pure sine wave is much better, i got mine at whole sale price through my families business for like 200 an its a 600 watt pure sine wave worth every penny

(4:44) - Very easy to construct a low volt (usually 19v) adapter to run off 12 or 24v supply. All you need is a buck/boost regulator to modify your available DC voltage to 19v. Thes can be had off of eBay for about five bucks apiece. >

for the fuse i have not tried on but they have circuit breakers so if something happens you just reset it instead of finding a fuse

(3:55) - Let's get one thing straight. _*All*_l electronics run on DC. (Those items that do require a 230v supply immediately convert the mains to low voltage DC inside the "box"). In fact the majority of 230v mains equipment such as vacuum cleaners also run on DC. You take apart a modern vacuum cleaner and the first thing you'll see when tracing the "mains-in" will be a 230v full bridge rectifier. What this means is that your vacuum cleaner will very happily run on 230v AC or DC. Not too sure about modern fridges though. Need to look into that. >

have you ever considered putting a pop top roof on the van so you have a living and sleeping space?

if you have a modified sine wave inverter try connecting a line conditioner power surge strip to the Inverter to make the power supply pure sine wave.

(4:45) - Yeah, most microwaves would have issues with square-waves simply because, the transformer inside those things is usually one of those big old behemoth types that doesn't take kindly to anything other than pure sine wave input. This monster transformer immediately multiplies the input voltage up to nearly three thousand volts, so yes, this does present problems. Having said that, the most modern microwaves have switching power supply units inside them negating the need for those old, heavy, bulky and unwieldy large simple iron core transformers. In fact, it would be rather a simple affair to convert one of these modern microwave ovens to run directly off your low voltage DC supply. >

Excellent advice. When I do my Build, the Electric is what I can't wrap my head around...I've always been good and handy with all the other factors, but the Electric I'm really going to have to school myself...Cheers! Thumbs Up!

Hey bro you ever planning on visiting the States??? U know like Colly? Colorado that is? I start my adventure in my boxvan in August. I also have a 2000w pure sine wave inverter and seems to drain the 300ah agm batteries much faster than the dc connect I had with my fridge, but that was giving me probs so I decided to plug the dometic 2.2cu ft into the pure sine wave inverter and thats when I noticed the 3 100 ah batteries draining faster. bum deal but had to do it. Stay breezy bro.

Modified inverters are not designed for Inductive loads. That is anything that has a coil or winding as it primary connection. Eg, Heavy transformers that still have a REAL transformer in them, drills and power tools that have motors, kettles, toasters and basically anything that uses an element to generate heat.

may be a silly questions, but If you turn your invertor off, does it still pull power from your battery?

im still learning about this stuff, but it seems that buying a gas powered pure sine wave generator might be the best bang for the buck?...more power for less money?

(5:20) - But it's not your laptop that's at risk here. Only the charger. It is the cost of the charger against the inverter that you should be comparing here. >

The can inverter said 10A on it... so that would be 120watts I think.

Hey :). hope all is well with you.

your fuse should be at the battery! If you were to have a problem, the way it is now you have many feet/meters of wire to get hot and catch fire before the fuse blows possibly! Fuse always at the battery! good work otherwise!!

Your fire extinguisher should be near the door, not in a corner pocket buried in a tangle of cables. If a fire starts, you make the fight or flight when headed towards the door.

(3:00) - Pure sine wave inverters also produce their sine waves digitally. So? (3:05) - There is no "science" as such, behind it, just tried and tested electronics engineering theory. >

Modified sine wave Inverters are CRAP and a total waste of money. I RV full time and run an outback 3500 watt pure sign wave inverter. It runs all my stuff flawlessly. Pure sign wave is the only way to go.Sure modified sign will run some things but in the long run will damage your appliances and so on. Spend the extra money on a Pure sine wave inverter. the up front cost will save you money in the long run.