Best inverter is best power back up source to invest – especially, if you live in a locality with frequent and unannounced power cuts. It provides 4 to 12 hours of continuous power supply during a blackout.
As they are a long term investment, it is better to look into some important feature before making the purchase. It helps you choose the right one according to your needs.
First calculate your power requirement
The first thing is to calculate how much backup you want, or how many appliances you want to support. The general power consumption about common appliances is listed in below table.
| Appliance | Power requirement |
|---|---|
| Fan | 80 |
| Tube light | 40 |
| CFL | 20 |
| LED bulb | 7 |
| Television | 120 |
Say you want to support 4 fans, 3 tube lights, 3 CFL bulbs, 2 LED bulbs and one Television. The total power requirement is (480 + 340 + 320 + 27 + 120) = 634 watts. So you need it which can support 634 watts.
Best Inverter types
Based on their working principle, inverters are categorized into three types. Pure sine wave, modified sine wave and square wave.
Pure Sine Wave and modified sine wave are suitable for heavy loads like laptops, microwaves, mixer grinders and TVs. However, they are costlier. Square Wave Inverters the cheapest but suited for only basic power back requirements like fans and lights.
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As we discussed earlier inverter converts DC current to AC current. But depending on how the AC current looks like, the inverters are classified as Sine wave inverter or Square wave inverter. The detailed differences are mentioned below in a table:
| Feature | Square wave | Sine wave |
|---|---|---|
| Supported appliances | Motors | Computers, laptops, refrigerators, ovens |
| Noise level | High, creates humming noise as well as in appliances | Normal |
| Safety of appliances | Less | High |
| Price | Economical | High |
It is always good to have Sine wave inverter even though they are costly for the sake of safety and longevity of the appliances. There are modified sine wave inverters too which are cheaper than sine wave and costlier than square with moderate performance. In some sense they are placed in between sinewave and squarewave and very few models available in the market so you can safely ignore them.
Capacity
The capacity is directly proportional to total load that you want to support. The accurate formula is total load to be supported, divided by the power factor. There is efficiency loss in the conversion of energy that indicated by power factor. In other words we are balancing the energy efficiency by dividing with the power factor.
The inverter capacity is measured in Volt Ampere, often abbreviated as VA. In all the product description the VA rating is mentioned. Please see below picture on how to identify the VA rating.
Final checklist for before finalising Inverter
- If you are first time buyer, try to purchase the best Inverter, battery combo.
- It is good to buy Inverter trolley, so that you can place inverter, battery inside a trolley. It is easy to move if you place the Inverter, battery in a trolley. Before buying trolley make sure you have enough place in home to put the trolley.
- Finally, make sure your home have proper earthing, to avoid accidental electrocution.
- Look for warranty, longer warranty means better products. As we have mentioned the price of battery increase if the warranty increase.
