Renogy inverter fan noise

Bertietoo

Bertietoo

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We currently have an unbranded Chinese inverter/charger. It's only 1000W, but that's OK for us as it only runs the fridge when not on EHU.
I have in mind to upgrade to Lithium and at the same time upgrade to a Renogy inverter/charger set up.
One problem we have with the current one is that the fan is fairly noisy. It's not helped by the inverter being right behind the head of the bed(on my wife's side!).
So any new inverter would need to be quieter. Has anyone any info of the Renogy inverter's noise output?

Thanks
Steve
 
I don't have a fridge running on the inverter, but I understand that it's common practice to switch it off at night, relying on the insulation on the fridge until the next day.
On a related issue, I keep reading about inverters that only switch on "on demand", such as when the fridge thermostat cuts in. Can anybody point me towards one of these, I'd like to get an idea of the cost?
 
Renogy fan.
I only ever hear my fan running when it’s under heavy load. EG. When using the microwave.
(Oh, yes you can, using lithium and a correctly sized inverter.)

Fan running with the fridge? Not gonna happen with a 12v fridge.

I’m probably the last person who should give advice.

BUT, go for the biggest battery you can afford. 300w Fogstar as a minimum. The 460 is a brilliant bit of kit, and possibly the 3000w Renogy.
Although, if I was starting over, I’d have the Victron Inverter/charger.
Hope that helps.
 
bartman said:
I don't have a fridge running on the inverter, but I understand that it's common practice to switch it off at night, relying on the insulation on the fridge until the next day.
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It may possibly be common practice, but if so, it is a bad practice. That is how food can get contaminated and food poisoning occurs. If you put a tracking thermometer in a fridge and a freezer you would see what kind of temperature they go up to when switched off - and it is above the recommended ones easily.

bartman said:
On a related issue, I keep reading about inverters that only switch on "on demand", such as when the fridge thermostat cuts in. Can anybody point me towards one of these, I'd like to get an idea of the cost?
Click to expand...
Inverters with an ECO mode or AES (AES in this contect means 'Automatic Economy Switch' and NOT 'Auto Energy Selection') will stay in a standby mode and detect if there is a load demand - and if so will turn on to satisfy that demand, then turn off when the demand has gone. Probably all the Victron inverters do this (all the ones I have used/set up do) and using this function is a significant power saving.
 
Exwindsurfer said:
I ran a renogy 2000 watt inverter for a couple of years now and never heard the fan running I think it a good bit ok kit.
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Same here and ditto. Although the first Renogy 2000 I bought was faulty, a little red LED would come on shortly after turning it on, and the inverter would switch itself off. Anyway without much fuss Renogy sent me a replacement and it works fine.
By the way you will need to join the battery / ies to the inverter using Very Thick cable, at least 25sq mm. Preferably 40sq mm. You can either pay a lot of money for it from ebay, or do what I did which is to go to a local engineering company and buy some electric welder's cable. That was, and I am not exaggerating, one tenth of the cost of getting what might or might not be copper cable from ebay. The Chinese are very adept at copper plating aluminium and steel whereas proper electric arc welding cable is solid copper strands and heavy and floppy.
When you get the Renogy it comes with two short fat cables, one red and one black. They have two uses: one is to loop and fix each end to a handbag. The other is to fill an otherwise empty space in your wheely bin. They are 'high' resistance aluminium, nowhere near as good as proper copper, and in any case they are so short they will not reach from the inverter to the battery / ies.
One very nice thing about the Renogy is that it comes with a remote on / off switch. You can mount an inverter under a bench seat but you don't want to have to lift it every time you want to turn it on or off. You mount the Renogy remote somewhere you can easily access it.
 
I was using 35mm cable at first but it was getting warm so I replaced it 70mm and had no bother after that and like you Andrew I use welding cable and wrap red tape round it for the live side + a 250 Amp fuse in line.
 
gasgas said:
.... By the way you will need to join the battery / ies to the inverter using Very Thick cable, at least 25sq mm. Preferably 40sq mm.
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Sorry, but the phrase "Very Thick cable" followed by "at least 25sq mm" made me laugh :D 25mm2 cable is middlingly thickness at best :)

PS ... not sure where you would get 40mm2 cable from? and if you did, where you get connectors for it from? The common steps from 25mm would be 35mm and then 50mm (and larger) . Best to stay with common size options for numerous reasons.
 
I have a Renogy 3000 inverter and 400 watts of lithium. It drives my air fryer and microwave. The only thing that it won't drive is a Tacwise tacker/nailer.It makes no noise at all. Although O have never taken it to the max.
 
polar bear said:
I have a Renogy 3000 inverter and 400 watts of lithium. It drives my air fryer and microwave. The only thing that it won't drive is a Tacwise tacker/nailer.It makes no noise at all. Although O have never taken it to the max.
Click to expand...
It might be a peculiarity of the tool. For example, we did some tests after installing a Victron 12/1200 inverter ...
Ran a Toaster fine. Ran a Kettle ok. When it came to a Hairdryer, it would not run the Hairdryer on the low heat setting, but it would work ok when set to the higher power high heat setting. This is actually not uncommon for some types of hairdryers.
 
@Bertietoo One thing to give serious consideration to before buying Renogy is their really bad reputation for support and warranty in the UK.

Their products are generally reliable and once upon a time we’re good value however over the past couple of years prices have risen to the point spending a few more quid on a superior brand such as Cotek or Victron is probably sensible.

When a Renogy warranty claim is made via the online tool the emphasis is always placed on the customer to do all the diagnosis, provide video and photographic evidence and jump through lots of hoops. I’ve been through it three times it’s incredibly frustrating.

This process can drag on for weeks sometimes months my last failure was with my second replacement One Core which was bricked during a firmware update ironically almost a year to the day my first One Core went up in smoke.

It took them two months to decide to replace it and that’s nothing unusual I’ve heard of far longer for faulty batteries.

The official Renogy support group on Facebook regularly has people trying to get assistance to progress warranty claims and one of the admins there is a Renogy employee and does seem to be able to escalate cases.

I am not aware of any current Renogy inverter with a power saving mode however as they are rebadgers and not actual manufacturers they do have a constant churn of product variations so maybe in the future….

In the meantime both Victron and Cotek do and it’s really beneficial my Cotek draws perhaps 200mA in power saving mode, sadly I can’t use the similar AES feature of my Victron Multiplus because it buzzes on and off each time it wakes up to check for a load which is loud enough to be Irritating especially at night.
 
Thanks CriftinsCampers, I hadn't heard of Cotek inverters before but, having now downloaded their data sheets it looks like they aren't compatible with Lithium batteries.

Steve
 
Bertietoo said:
Thanks CriftinsCampers, I hadn't heard of Cotek inverters before but, having now downloaded their data sheets it looks like they aren't compatible with Lithium batteries.

Steve
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I use my Cotek inverter with my Renogy Lithium Battery, it’s been running my Fridge in my Crafter for the last few years.
It was a replacement for my Victron phoenix 500 which in eco mode was incapable of consistently supporting the inrush current of the fridge.

The Cotek brand is rock solid used in lots of Service vehicles although often rebranded as Antares, I see about 50/50 split between Antares and Victron kit with a smattering of Sterling in the many many ex Ambulances I work on.

Never ever seen any converter using Renogy though yet mainly because up until recently they lacked features like earth neutral bonding, however we only see a subset of their products in the UK and they recently announced a whole bunch of different inverters at the NEC

They’ve got some cool stuff as well, and other than the stupidly expensive price, their vision system looks very promising if they launch it here.
 
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wildebus said:
it is a bad practice. That is how food can get contaminated and food poisoning occurs
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It's also daft.
If the fridge stays cold overnight on its own, it won't turn on and so won't use any power or make any noise.
If the fridge switches on on the night, it is because it detects the temperature getting too warm for safety.
There is no rational reason to turn your fridge off overnight, unless it only contains stuff which won't spoil by getting warm, in which case, why turn the fridge on in the first place?
 
Bertietoo said:
We currently have an unbranded Chinese inverter/charger. It's only 1000W, but that's OK for us as it only runs the fridge when not on EHU.
I have in mind to upgrade to Lithium and at the same time upgrade to a Renogy inverter/charger set up.
One problem we have with the current one is that the fan is fairly noisy. It's not helped by the inverter being right behind the head of the bed(on my wife's side!).
So any new inverter would need to be quieter. Has anyone any info of the Renogy inverter's noise output?

Thanks
Steve
Click to expand...
I suspect the fan on your current inverter is running continuously whenever it's switched on, most inverters ( and any half decent ones) have the fan wired via a temp sensor, how soon the fan operates depends on power demand and inverter size, I doubt the fridge on it's own would cause the fan to cut in even on a relatively small inverter but definitely not on an inverter of around 2kW.
 
The fan on the current one doesn't run continuously, but it does run for long periods when it's in charger mode if we are on EHU. This is particularly a problem at night.

Steve
 
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