Tag: inverter

Installed: low idle current drain kit

I got the low idle current drain kit for the Exeltech inverter today.  Installing it seemed very straight forward since it only had two pieces….  1 piece of shrink wrap, and 1 ferrite bar.  The instructions were very good, but I found that I had to deviate from them slightly to get things to work.

  • I used Gorilla glue to bond the ferrite bar to the inductor, and clamped it in place for 10-15 minutes

  • I carefully cut the glue between the inductor and that red capacitor thing to allow the shrink wrap to sit flat and neat.
  • I used a hair dryer which seemed to take forever!  I had to stop multiple time because I felt like the board and components were getting too hot.  The shrink wrap just wouldn’t shrink!  eventually for the last little bit of shrinking I got out my propane pen torch to finish up the job.

All said and done, measuring the results with my Trimetric 2020, I believe this modification saves me about 300mA of electricity when the Inverter is in an idle state.  .3 Amps doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but when you add it up it definitely saves.

Before low idle kit:
1A idle current draw * 24 hours = 24 Amp Hours

After low idle kit:
.7A idle current draw * 24 hours = 16.8 Amp Hours

So in a 24 hour period with the inverter powered on, I’ll save 7.2 Amp Hours.  That savings is almost the same as running 90 watts of lights for 1 hour!!

XP1100 unboxing

I haven’t powered it up yet, but I’m pretty impressed with the build quality.  It’s a very heavy & solid unit that seems to be built well (made in USA!).  It has two knock outs for the battery cable (came with strain reliefs too), and judging by the size it looks like I will have to run one cable for each knockout instead of running both out of one.  I’ll be wiring this up with 2/0 cable so it’s pretty thick!  The heat sink fins seem pretty functional on the top, and the bottom has even larger fins.

Here are a few shots of the Exeltech inverter.

  

  

 

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