Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Extremely sensitive & unreliable, October 7, 2007
This is a decent power inverter, at best. I do not recommend this for continuous use for longer than 2 or 3 hours.
I purchased my first one at Wal-Mart, which subsequently died on me after about 10 hours of continuous use. It kept blowing a fuse, with OR without having anything drawing current, other than the unit itself. I disassembled it and found the internal fuse to be in working condition. I came to the conclusion that the voltage regulators were at fault, and drew over 30 amps of current, since I tried a 30amp fuse and it popped immediately.
I exchanged it for a second one at Wal-Mart, and used it on another road trip yesterday; this one no longer functions. I didn't bother disassembling this one because I've decided that this brand and/or country of assembly/manufacturing (made in china, of course) is not worth my while.
The cooling fan on both units was finicky. They would buzz after long use and often required multiple power cycles (unplugging and plugging back in) to get it to spin up again.
My usage was with a Dell Inspiron 6000 1.6ghz Pentium-M (SpeedStep enabled, running at 800mhz) with a 4200rpm drive, and cpu usage was between 0-10% at most. There was little the power inverter was required to do; the Dell AC power cord I use is rated at 65watt max current, and my computer, as you see noted above, was operating at 0-10 percent @ 800mhz. This is unacceptable performance from the PowerLine inverter.
My first inverter failure was at 10 hours, and my second at 7 hours. The second one, again, either has cheaply made voltage regulators or has blown a fuse internally; I won't waste my time taking this one apart to see if it's the internal fuse or regulators that have gone bad.
Each inverter failed in different cars, so it's not likely that a dirty or unstable DC power supply is to blame. I blame the over-sensitivity of the cheap components used in manufacturing. I've had cheaply-made power supplies in computers last longer than this, and I learned my lesson with those quickly--now I've learned my lesson with DC-to-AC power inverters, especially those of the PowerLine brand.
If your use is infrequent, and for less than 2 hours at a time, this might do the job you need. The internal capacitors are not a durable brand, either--there are no identifying markings on them at all. My draw of less than 65 AC watts causes the fan to operate improperly and then render the device useless--this is my second and last purchase of a PowerLine inverter product.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Save your money, March 16, 2008
My experience is similar to Jonathans. This unit is a piece of junk. I had a similarly rated inverter for several years (I have forgotten the make and model) and it worked perfectly until it was stolen from my car. The FIRST TIME I used this one, with a Dell laptop power supply (rated 90 watts continuous) connected, after about 4 hours use, it began screaming at me with its built in audible alarm. It screams whenever it is turned on, with or without anything plugged in, load or no load. Maybe I will tear it apart for the alarm. THAT seems to work just fine!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
no goooooooooood, March 22, 2009
I keep reading all these reviews and they all have the same problems I have had with the PowerLine Inverter: screaming alarm, flashing light, and basically just not working anymore after small usage.
So heed the warnings...
Don't buy this product if you want something durable!
Try another brand.
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