So I picked up a 1500W inverter from Costco the other day. The unit is approximately 10" x 10" x 2". My "plan", such as it is, would be to use the inverter to power my TV and DVD player without having to operate the gen set when not docked. A mounting location for minimal interference and DC wire run would be on the wall directly behind the passenger seat and just above the floor. In my coach (1984 28' Regal), this would be directly above the battery box.

I solicit your opininns on the best way to penetrate the pasenger compartment for the DC cabling (as well as any suggestion for a better location of the electronics). Hate to drill through the floor, but there appears no simpler solution. I also have to be aware of a properly sealed penetration to prevent unwanted gases and moisture from having an easy route into the cabin.

I successfully run a small inverter through a 12v plug in the cigarette lighter, but that may not be husky enough to run 1500w.

You should already have heavy wires between your house battery and the converter, acessible from inside. Also, you'll have several 12v circuits on the converter.

There should be no need to go through the floor directly into the battery. Your inverter won't care where it gets it's 12v juice, so long as the d/c wires are heavy enough to prevent voltage drop.

This presumes you're planning on plugging your a/c accessories into the outlets on the inverter. If you're contemplating hard-wiring it into your a/c circuits, you need to talk to someone else.

My coach came with a cheezy 9 inch Phillips DC TV. I changed to a 13 inch AC TV so I already had the DC wiring up by the TV behind the area you see here with the smoke glass plastic.



I, however, use just an 800 watt inverter. It works OK for the TV, DVD and Satellite. But when I turn on the TV it cycles a few times before it finally comes on.

Whether of not your 1500 watt inverter will run your accessories off the cigar lighter depends on the current draw of the accessories.

As far as the hole in the floor goes, I wouldn't worry about it. I relocated my passenger seat and bolted down two swivel chairs on the passenger side with no trouble at all. Just be sure to protect the wire from any metal chafing. You can seal the hole with the grey RV putty.

OK, thanks guys. I procured a piece of #10 fine-stranded wire for the Battery-to-inverter run. Think I'll go ahead and install a fuse near the battery.

Hi Ron, can you post the manufacturer and model number of the inverter you installed? And when you're through give us a full assessment of the quality of the invertor and its performance? Also it's effect on the picture quality if any? Noisy? Hot? Any info would be appreciated...

Have to look up the instructions, but I recall the recommendation being something like a 90-amp fuse. I will chose not to use the full load capability, so I was planning on fuse-limiting the input to about 600-watts or so. Guess I'd better parallel that #10, huh? To meet the full load capability, I'd have to run a #1 Awg! Seems like an awfully large conductor for such a small inverter!

I will post my results and my list of aww-sh*ts when the project is complete.

Thanks Bill, good idea. Think I'll go with a 70 amp range unit. Leads appreciated.

Took a while, but finally got the inverter installed. Correction: it's a 1000W instead of 1500W. Anyway, the installation is basically complete. Have to mount the breaker and get proper terminations for the connections.

The TV picture with shore power is clear with no squiggles. With the inverter running the show, there are small black lines rolling up the screen about 6" apart. Does not have the "fuzz" (white spots) that are there with my gen set running, but the lines are almost as annoying!

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. :-)

I've had really good performance from 12VDC/110AC TV from Panasonic. It's a larger screen then the TV/VCR Combo's too. I also purchased a "Fundai"? 12V VCR...little more money for both but eliminates a noisey, interference producing invertor.