Sine or Modified Sine Inverter?

[highdesertranger]

I don't want wire charts or speculation. what do the instructions say? link to instructions please. highdesertranger

 

[jonsun]

Agree.

I would suppose that we would not start using a battery at 12.0 V; more likely closer to 13 Volts.

Plus like amps are 1.4 @ 115v with an actual measured 4-6 at battery

 

[Boyntonstu]

Would you use #24 copper wire for 100 Amps?

https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

#24 copper wire has a diameter of 0.020", pretty thin.

Copper wire up to 0.020 inch (500 micrometres)[6] can be successfully wedge bonded with the proper set-up parameters. Large diameter copper wire can and does replace aluminum wire where high current carrying capacity is needed or where there are problems with complex geometry. Annealing and process steps used by manufacturers enhance the ability to use large diameter copper wire to wedge bond to silicon without damage occurring to the die.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_bonding

How are power Mosfets wired internally?   With 0.020" wire!

Guys if you consider 0.020" wire to small to carry large currents, I suggest that you trash all of your inverters that use power Mosfets.

It is not just the diameter or the gauge, it is the length that is important.

So a tiny wire can handle huge currents in a power Mosfet over a very short distances.

How do I know?

I used to wire bond semiconductors on a K&S wire bonding machine. .


http://www.kns.com/en-us/Pages/Wedge Bonder.aspx?kns=TLFQStL4sfpp+l8m5g2LJIDi4UdZRnLt5nUkS4vc17s=

 

[tx2sturgis]

Plus like amps are 1.4 @ 115v with an actual measured 4-6 at battery

That's actually a pretty light load. If you plug a 1000 watt microwave oven into the inverter and run it for 10 minutes on 100% power, with some food inside of course, then feel those input wires...I'm guessing either they will get really hot, or the inverter will not run for very long.

I think most of us, most of the time, spec the input cables for the load that the inverter could be expected to power at maximum.

In my van I have a 300 watt inverter and it runs small loads just fine with 10 gauge cables.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Guys if you consider 0.020" wire to small to carry large currents, I suggest that you trash all of your inverters that use power Mosfets.

It is not just the diameter or the gauge, it is the length that is important.

So a tiny wire can handle huge currents in a power Mosfet over a very short distances.

Semiconductor devices and power mosfets in particular, and the materials inside the hermetically sealed case, are always mounted to a heatsink if they are expected to dissipate any level of power and heat. Those tiny wires and the semiconducting materials (usually germanium and/or silicon) inside can get really hot...so the heat is dealt with by some form of passive or active cooling. The sealed, and sterile, interior of the component case also limits the amount of oxygen available and the conducting wires and traces don't oxidize as fast, or at all.

Sometimes the devices are actively air cooled with fans or in some cases, water cooling. If you wanted to pass 100 amps of current thru 50 feet of 22 gauge wire, and you could somehow cool that wire with either water, air, or a metallic heatsink, then sure, you can pass a lot of current thru it. Probably dropping it in a pool might be enough to double or triple its normal ratings in free air. (we could detour into superconductors but lets avoid that subject.)

But, for practical purposes, comparing the internal working of devices is just not relevant for the other supporting components.

Take vacuum tubes for instance: Passing large amounts of current (electrons) thru an empty vacuum seems counter-intuitive and wont work if you try it outside of the glass envelope and at normal room temperatures. If it did, we would not need any wires at all!

But...you make us put the 'thinking cap' on  and that's a good thing sir!

 

[Boyntonstu]

Semiconductor devices and power mosfets in particular, and the materials inside the hermetically sealed case, are always mounted to a heatsink if they are expected to dissipate any level of power and heat. Those tiny wires and the semiconducting materials (usually germanium and/or silicon) inside can get really hot...so the heat is dealt with by some form of passive or active cooling. The sealed, and sterile, interior of the component case also limits the amount of oxygen available and the conducting wires and traces don't oxidize as fast, or at all. 

Sometimes the devices are actively air cooled with fans or in some cases, water cooling. If you wanted to pass 100 amps of current thru 50 feet of 22 gauge wire, and you could somehow cool that wire with either water, air, or a metallic heatsink, then sure, you can pass a lot of current thru it. Probably dropping it in a pool might be enough to double or triple its normal ratings in free air. (we could detour into superconductors but lets avoid that subject.)

But, for practical purposes, comparing the internal working of devices is just not relevant for the other supporting components.

Take vacuum tubes for instance: Passing large amounts of current (electrons) thru an empty vacuum seems counter-intuitive and wont work if you try it outside of the glass envelope and at normal room temperatures. If it did, we would not need any wires at all!

But...you make us put the 'thinking cap' on  and that's a good thing sir!

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]"Semiconductor devices and power mosfets in particular, and the materials inside the hermetically sealed case, are always mounted to a heatsink if they are expected to dissipate any level of power and heat. Those tiny wires and the semiconducting materials (usually germanium and/or silicon) inside can get really hot...so the heat is dealt with by some form of passive or active cooling. The sealed, and sterile, interior of the component case also limits the amount of oxygen available and the conducting wires and traces don't oxidize as fast, or at all. "[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]The above is not important because before anything gets hot, the Amps must first flow through the wire without blowing it up.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]I built the first Silicon transistor for the Army Research Labs in the early 60's and I used 0.001" diameter gold wire bonded to the aluminum pads.  I was surprised to see how much current could pass through the wires that were 1/4 the diameter of the human hair. We did not seal the TO-5 package or heat sink it.  It is quite impressive.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TO-5[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]15" of  #10 copper wire does not seem like a challenge in comparison[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif].[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]AAMOF I saw a chart on the net that showed a chart with 100 Amps going through 24" of the wire within the safety range.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]BTW Gold wires do not oxidize.[/font]

 

[tx2sturgis]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]BTW Gold wires do not oxidize.[/font]

But copper certainly can and does. 

Yes I know what TO-5's are, I did component-level electronics repair for about 5 years and enjoyed hobby electronics for my entire life since my early teens.

TO-5's have just about disappeared in consumer electronics these days, but of course are used in custom manufacturing and still show up in certain industrial and military applications. I still have a small supply of precision industrial thermostats in TO-5 cases...we used them for temperature sensing applications in commercial and amateur repeaters, to signal the controller to turn on the fans!

Emitter, base, and collector, or source, drain, and gate...

Yep...familiar.

In my garage I still have a selection of ECG catalogs....if that tells you anything.

 

[jonsun]

nerd alert

 

[tx2sturgis]

nerd alert

And you're damn lucky for if not, you would have no TV, no radio, no computers, no phones, no solar, and no batteries!

Wait...in your case...that might be a good thing!

 

[jonsun]

many people think we'd all be better without all of it  :dodgy:

 

[Boyntonstu]

But copper certainly can and does. 

Yes I know what TO-5's are, I did component-level electronics repair for about 5 years and enjoyed hobby electronics for my entire life since my early teens.

TO-5's have just about disappeared in consumer electronics these days, but of course are used in custom manufacturing and still show up in certain industrial and military applications. I still have a small supply of precision industrial thermostats in TO-5 cases...we used them for temperature sensing applications in commercial and amateur repeaters, to signal the controller to turn on the fans!

Emitter, base, and collector, or source, drain, and gate...

Yep...familiar.

In my garage I still have a selection of ECG catalogs....if that tells you anything.

That is great experience.

I was concerned with designing a fabricating what went inside the active semiconductor components, including sputtered Tantalum resistors.

We are fellow nerds.

 

[tx2sturgis]

including sputtered Tantalum resistors.

We are fellow nerds.

I prefer the term, geek...but anyway...back in the day, during component level troubleshooting, along with the normal tools of the trade, we used Freon spray, and on those pesky tantalum capacitors, which would get noisy, with power applied to the board, we would literally squeeze them...if it was a bad one, you knew it real quick!




Anyway...best to return to the subject at hand....what was it again?

 

[jimindenver]

MSW vs PSW inverters and like most things it appears that one needs to do the research as to what then need and what are the options that fulfills them. It may not have to be the pricy options but if you are not willing to put in the effort to figure it out then those options are most likely to not disappoint.

 

[Weight]

Yes we have no instruction booklet. I trust the charts that have been developed over decades of experience resulting in best practices that become the safest way to play with something that can burn your van and you into ashes. If your inverter instructions list 10 awg as sufficient, go for it. The cost of larger wire is insignificant in my over-all build. I cannot give someone advice that goes against best-practices, even if i did invent direct current electricity.

 

[Boyntonstu]

Yes we have no instruction booklet. I trust the charts that have been developed over decades of experience resulting in best practices that become the safest way to play with something that can burn your van and you into ashes. If your inverter instructions list 10 awg as sufficient, go for it. The cost of larger wire is insignificant in my over-all build. I cannot give someone advice that goes against best-practices, even if i did invent direct current electricity.

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]I trust the charts that have been developed over decades of experience resulting in best practices that become the safest way to play with something that can burn your van and you into ashes.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Agree.  As I said, there is a chart on the web that indicates 2 feet of  #10 AWG safe enough for 100 Amps.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Thank you Mr. Edison:[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]The two feuding geniuses waged a "War of Currents" in the 1880s over whose electrical system would power the world — Tesla's alternating-current (AC) system or Edison's rival direct-current (DC) electric power. Amongst science nerds, few debates get more heated than the ones that compare [/font][font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]Nikola Tesla[/font][font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif] and [/font][font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]Thomas Edison[/font][/font]

 

[tx2sturgis]

even if i did invent direct current electricity.

Hey Mr Amp, let me buy you a drink and pick your brain for a minute...I hear they have this new-fangled stuff called AC.

 

[Boyntonstu]

Hey Mr Amp, let me buy you a drink and pick your brain for a minute...I hear they have this new-fangled stuff called AC.

12V or 110?

 

[tx2sturgis]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Thank you Mr. Edison:[/font]

Edison didn't invent DC.

So there!

 

[user 15722]

... even if i did invent direct current electricity...

even getty liked that one !

wheels

 

[Weight]

Could you link to the chart showing 10 awg for 100 amps? My vote is for Tesla over Edison for depth of knowledge. Edison for perseverance and leader of nerds.