Customer Reviews

Sunforce 11260 2500 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

** UPDATE **: The 2nd unit fried as well. Big smoke came out of it, hopefully nothing was hooked to it when this happened. It looks like a very unreliable product.

If you are looking for a 2500W true sine wave power inverter, this is probably the cheapest and it will do a decent job as long as you don't have appliances that require a big peak wattage for starting a motor.
The main annoying feature is that if your input voltage gets too high (>14.5V) or too low (<11.5V), the unit will get into alarm mode and keep beeping until you power cycle it. The unit never resumes automatically when the voltage comes back to normal.
If you have wind turbines, they typically output 14.7V on wind gusts and the unit will constantly go into alarm during storms. You then have to constantly turn the unit off and on to get it back online.
The remote just does not work if the unit went into alarm mode which makes it pretty much useless.
Also the first unit I got fried during the first week. I have been running the new unit for about 6 months (connected to solar panels and wind turbines) and it still works (despite the alarm problem).

I hooked up the inverter to (2) 55 A.H. deep cycle batteries in parallel and it ran my pellet stove, 32" LCD TV and Satellite receiver for (4) hours before giving me a low battery warning. This is a very quiet running unit and the LCD display allows you to monitor you battery condition at any time. I am very pleased with this unit.

Horrendous customer service and unreliable product

I have had nothing but problems with this inverter. It is completely unreliable. The OST is continually tripping the unit, which causes the AC to turn off and everything attached to it. After months of the unit tripping, it finally permanently failed, error code 529, and almost caught my camper on fire. It took weeks to get the smell out. I'm a seasoned electrical engineer with many years of power supply design experience, so I know the unit was installed correctly with very heavy wires, and located closed to four 125Ahr batteries in a clean, dry and well-ventilated area.

After sending over five emails to customer service, I finally received a response after threatening to write a bad review on the internet. They instructed me to send the unit back to NY, and they would look at it. I know it was delivered through a tracking number, but after numerous emails, I still have not received even an acknowledgment that they received the unit...very frustrating to say the least.

My 2 cents...buy from a more reputable company with customer service. You may need to spend twice the money, but it is worth every penny to get something that you can install, forget and enjoy for many years.

if you need something for a 12V system in my opinion this inverter rocks. you can see it in action on a vid i posted on youtube ( ... ) it can be hardwired in to get full output at one connection, it runs at its rated output and more imo. It can run big 8foot fluorescent lights in my garage, desktop, refrigerator and still can handle my BIG 2000 watt microwave when i turn it on, but trust me the fans will scream with that load goin heheh .. i know my electronics, this inverter is a steal .. dont expect perfection though, the power isnt ultimate clean. I didnt have any real issues with the cleaness of the power except with one thing, the ups on my pc would reset occasionally and cause my desktop to shutdown .. direct wall plugging everything solved that i just dont use the ups with it now. My laptop works fine, desktop works fine directly plugged to the wall, my digital clocks, digital microwave, chargers including high tech rc model chargers - everything - works just fine on it. I have it hooked to 8 215AH golfcart bats with 4/0 cable (dont skimp on the power cable if you want full output)i have a second one on order so i can divide up my loads for my whole house and i would recommend this inverter to anyone that has a 12V system.

I bought this to use as back up for the occasional power outages we get in Michigan. The inverter runs the furnace, TV, bunch of lights, computer and internet gizmoes. I have 3 marine deep cycle batteries connected to it and I get 3 hours of power.

The inverter runs until the battery voltage drops to ~10.5Vdc. Suprizing just how much power a house takes to run.
For long term use I would need more batteries and some means to charge em up.

Shutdown usually occurs when the batteries are close to depleted and the furnace comes on pulling the voltage low and tripping the low voltage shutdown.

I put about 20 total hours use on it. I ran a power test with an electric heater all the way up to 2500 watts. The weak link is how thick the wires need to be. The inverter seams to be able to handle the power as long as I can keep the battery voltage above the low voltage threshold.

I had trouble with this item only 1 month after I got it. The fans keep running and only way to stop them is unhook the inverter power source. Soon as cables are hooked up they start running again. I have tried contacting the company several times and still cant get a response from them. Phone lines put you into a endless loop waiting for support. I would stay away from this one and look at another brand. UPDATE Sunforce finally contacted me and I am sending the unit in. Will update when I get it back.

I had high hopes for this pure sign inverter, but have been highly disappointed. It appears to work fine, but is poorly engineered and cheaply constructed.

"cooling wings" on the side are just plastic to make them look like they will disipate heat.

Cooling fans go on and off constantly in split seconds when it starts to get warm. Not engineered well enough to have the cooling fans start up and cool it down for a few minutes then shut down again.

Does not appear to be able to handle the loads specified.

Overall very disappointed with it.

I used it for about 2 months and it works most of time. However I noticed the following issues.
1) It shutdown once whenever I used washing machine (peak watts is only around 1.5kw). Power off/on and then it started working again.
2) The unit itself consumes around 30 watts when there is only 10 watts load.

Product seems to be working fine. Computer and phone don't seem to like it but the batteries charge. Price was great. Power objects like a microwave are working great. Got the pure sign because it works closer to real AC.

More substantial than I thought.

It was able to run my big 25cu.ft. double door refrigerator, the sticker says it uses 1100 watts.

However my 4 golf cart batteries only lasted 4 hours after dark. I have 160 watts of solar for recharging the batteries, but will have to add at least another 200 watts to keep up with battery use.

The 4 fans come on intermittently and keep the inverter cool, even in 100 degree heat.

I love the big digital display, you can select AC voltage out, DC voltage in and kva usage.

It seems to require .006 kva (whatever that means) at idle.

I got it on sale at Amazon for $425.89 (twice the cost per watt compared to China brands)and the reason I only give it 4 stars.

So far it has outlasted two Power Jack inverters, one a 5000w and one 3500w ($800).