GREAT, March 5, 2011

These tiny lights work great! They aren’t flood lights, so do not purchase them for that. They are wonderful accent lights for your home or yard. I am still trying to find the ideal place to put these as there are so many areas I can use. I will probably have to purchase more. Delivery was on time, no delays. Everything was perfect.

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Gazebo Solar Lights, August 15, 2010

Great product, adds nice touch to the gazebo, it’s bright and the ideal does not use any electricity.

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Biggest waste!, July 16, 2010

Purchased this item to bring some light to our new patio and gazebo, what a disappointment! We might as well sit in the dark. I wish I could get our money back!

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good! ideal bang for the buck!, January 26, 2009

By 

Matthew P. Schulte (Missouri USA) – See all my reviews

  

Bought this off Amazon a month or two ago. I was looking for an affordable pure sine wave inverter to replace my Duracell (Xantrex) altered sine wave inverter. I was anticipating to have issues from the get go (due to the cheap price!) but this inverter is working out quite nicely. I have it hooked up to 4 Trojan T-105 batteries which is charged up with an 85 watt Kyocera solar panel and Xantrex C35 charge controller.

Being pure sine wave, I can run anything now that my old altered sine couldn’t. No more annoying buzzing sounds from CFL’s or TV’s. certain appliances that would not power up on the old inverter now work flawlessly. Some things I run on the Sunforce: Samsung 22″ LCD TV, CFL’s of all sizes, Playstation 2, battery chargers, laptops, electric cooler.

I have not tripped the over current protection yet at all, not even when using items that typically surge, such as a massive power drill.

No fan issues like the other review mentioned.. in fact I have not heard it come on at all yet; then again it’s winter time here in Missouri so I assume it truly is thermal controlled.

The remote keychain that was provided with the unit works great. Since I am doing the electrical work on our new cabin, I can turn off and on when working on the electrical. Then turn it off when we leave for the week.

The only issue I have had so far is once I came back on the weekend and the inverter turned itself back on sometime during the week. This normally would not be a large issue except we are limited on battery capacity and can be a nuisance if kept happening. This has only happened the one time so no biggie.

The LCD readout on the front of the inverter is a nice feature, more costly inverters do not have this by default, though I rarely look at it.

I would like to determine how much power the inverter uses when it’s powered on and in idle mode. The documentation doesn’t mention this anywhere and would anticipate that would be a major selling point. (or, disadvantage if it’s too much of a power draw). I do not have an amp meter to test what it is, if you find out please post a review.

The only other downsides is:

1) this inverter has no permanent mounting brackets. only rubber feet on the bottom. luckily the thick DC cabling keeps it well secured within the battery box.

2) the DC hookups are HAND TIGHTEN only. This can be an issue if you, like me, use the proper gauge wiring. in my case I am using 6 gauge, which is actually borderline of being too small but the batteries are close by. I ended up using pliers to tighten the hand lugs. With thicker wiring, I envision this would be a large pain.

PROS:

inexpensive! I noticed the price just went up though

LCD readout on front panel

Keychain remote, I have not seen any other inverters include this with the inverter itself

CONS:

no mounting brackets? I am sure you could finagle some aluminum straps around it, instead.

hand tightened DC connections

no mention of idle power usage.

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It’s OK for the price, September 7, 2009

I’ve had the Sunforce 1000w inverter for a couple of weeks now. Like a kid with a new toy, I had to try it on a couple things.

1. Bass guitar amp – First thing I noticed was the static noise was a lot louder than when it was plugged into grid power. I guess the power is not as clean as it should be for a pure sine wave inverter.

2. Rice cooker – It drew around 600 watts according to my Kill-A-Watt. The inverter cooling fan was turning on and off very frequently during cooking. When the rice cooker was done and went to “keep warm” mode, it was only drawing 40 watts but the cooling fan still turns on and off for a while until I unplugged it. I can see the fan turn on for any draw over 500 watts, but 40 watts???

Pros – It works. Cheap price. Cool remote power unit. Power information display panel.

Cons – Like other reviews, no way to mount it. Fan turns on at really low power consumption. The heatsinks are plastic and serves no real purpose. You would think if they used real heatsinks, it would’ve provided superior passive cooling to minimize cooling fan operations. The large thumb screws for the battery power leads doesn’t tighten good enough, superior to replace them with nuts and washers from a hardware store.

I give it a 3 1/2 star.

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Not working reliably, January 31, 2010

By 

John C. Muir (Kent, WA) – See all my reviews

  

I purchased the inverter to use in an RV to power lights, TV/DVD, and other light AC loads. The price on this unit is very attractive so I purchased it and checked it out before installing. I tested it under light and maximum loads and even hooked it up to an oscilloscope to verify if it was really a sine wave output. The last thing I did was bring it in the home to power the TV, stereo, computer, DVD, and VHS player simultaneously. (This is still well under 1000W.)

Conclusions:

(1) Powers all loads I have thrown at it without a problem (except see #4# including electronics, 1000W electric heater, fluorescent and incandescent lights, and an electric drill.

#2# Has a real sine wave output.

#3# Causes considerable interference to AM radio when used to power the stereo system, but totally no interference on the Television or FM radio or anything else.

Strangely, the Television guide function on the cable box stopped operating, but I cannot be sure if the inverter caused this.

But the really bad part:

#4# It has unexplained shutdowns. This usually happens under light loading conditions. The unit shuts down and displays an error code of OST #overload# or 529 #inverter defective#. The unit was not overloaded #not even close) any of the times this has happened. And when it happens, you have to turn it off and wait several hours to turn it back on. I think it has to lose its memory of the error before it will operate again.

I will probably be contacting the manufacturer regarding this problem. The unit is no good to me if it doesn’t work reliably.

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