Customer Reviews

Sima STP-325 325-Watt Power Inverter

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nice design, good qulity, easy to use. However, the cooling fan is noisy.

this won't break down like other cheap inverters, great for using laptops in cars, definitely would recommend this to others

This power inverter works great powering my laptop and charging my cell on road trips. It never overheats and the fan makes very little noise.

This inverter has ridden around in my family van for about two years now. We originally got it for a New York to Florida family road trip. Our van has an auxiliary video input for the rear-seat DVD screen, so with AC power available on the inverter, the kids could use their game console as well, and that was a big hit with them. The inverter had no trouble powering any combination of two devices in the two outlets: Game cube and laptop... game cube and cell phone charger... cell phone and laptop... I still use it occasionally for my laptop when in the passenger seat.

The inverter will trip off -- requiring a reset by turning the power switch off and on -- if it thinks there is an overload, and also every time the car is started, which is annoying but predictable. (Only a few rare times has the unit clicked off with a normal load that it is really capable of handling, but this never happened enough times to become an issue.) It also has an audible alarm if the input voltage from your car battery dips too low, to prevent draining it. This feature saved me once when I was waiting in a parking lot one night, working on my laptop, and I had forgotten my headlights were still on.

The only real con I could mention is that the cooling fan is quite loud, even noticeable over road noise. I usually stuff the unit under a seat, or under some other items in the car (while keeping the fan ports unblocked, important!) to minimize the annoyance.

The inverter comes with battery cables and a lighter plug, but I have never used the battery cables. Overall, I would recommend this unit to others.

I bought this to recharge my laptop between uses while traveling from one point to another. It works perfectly with my laptop. Several things to note; my laptop adapter draws more wattage than average, approx. 180W, which is the practical limit when using the lighter plug cable. Sometimes when I stop, the brake lights drop the voltage slightly and the alarm will beep, otherwise when driving it's fine. My charging system and battery checked out OK, it's simply drawing a lot of current through the lighter plug. If your laptop or other item pulls less than this, you'll be fine, just be aware of this limitation with any inverter. Check your devices and add up how many watts you will need while driving, otherwise you will be limited to the battery clips to take advantage of the full 325W capacity.

This inverter does exactly what it is supposed to. Runs fairly quiet (fan noise is not overbearing as in other units I've tried). The two outlets are convenient. One time I tried to use it when the thumbscrew on one of the terminals was inadvertently loosened by one of my children. It appropriately went into overload mode to prevent any damage to the videocamera I was charging. As soon as I tightened the thumbscrew, the inverter worked perfectly and charged the camera.

We drove up to Canada, many hours in the car and with out this unit the trip would have been much longer. I was able to plug in my laptop and powered speakers and the kids watched DVDs the whole trip. Worked great...

works great. Used it for the summer while camping to run a small tv.

I am most pleased with this fine inverter. Relatively small size, excellent quality, no problems (so far). Highly recommended.

Works well. I had it powering my laptop for over 24 hrs with no problems. The fan is noticeably lound, like a computer fan. If the power inverter is on when you start your car, the inverter will "trip" off.