What About LiFePO4 Batteries and Pure Sine Wave Inverters?


Lots of threads on dedicated AC circuits, but not much information regarding DC to AC battery driven systems. I never considered this as a power option because I assumed that the inverter would be noisy, but is this true? The setup is pretty simple where an AC/DC charger has the negative lead attached to the battery and the positive passes through an appropriate fuse on the way to the positive terminal. The on/off function can be a simple removal of the plug from the wall, or a smart wall plug. The charge state can be read from the charger, or you can add a wired, or Bluetooth battery monitor. The battery then feeds the inverter with a much larger fuse on the positive line to the input of the inverter. Your system is then plugged directly into the inverter, or at least your power conditioner is plugged into the inverter. Depending on battery capacity and system power usage, you can then run off the grid for many, or not so many hours. The problem is that it is difficult to find advice on such a power arrangement here on Audiogon. I’m just now putting together a system and I’m thinking that for better lithium battery life and shorter charge times, I want a larger capacity battery that I charge to 80%. I might also want an inverter that is oversize compared to the load that it experiences, in that most inverters turn on their fans when they reach 40% of their max power, or reach thermal trigger levels. The latter makes me think that mounting to a large aluminum surface might be thermally advantageous. Perhaps, someone that actually has some experience with this subject could offer some pointers.

vonhelmholtz

You ask about the inverter but never answer your question. I think that it will be very hard to find a commercial inverter that is not noisy simply because all loads other than high end audio don’t require a high quality inverter. And commercail audio is fine with bad power. So why would a manuafacturers waste money on it? The original inverters sold to drive skill saws from a truck battery were actually a square wave.

So I would confirm that I had an audiophile quality inverter before I spent a dime on anything else. The battery doesn’t matter at all for sound, it is all the practical concerns you mentioned.

And I agree you should ovesize the inverter, partly for quiet as you mention but also to esure you have the high power that quality audio needs.

I’ve offered for anyone with the popular battery backups being bought to bring one over and let my PS Audio Power Plant analyse it as an input. I get about 4% thd from the grid. I haven’t been able to test any inverters.

Frankly, I thing the major cost of the PSAudio power plants is the high quality inverter.

Jerry

So, with all of the many companies making audio oriented power equipment, why aren’t there high end inverters marketed for audio?  I would think that this either means that they are already available via products made for the general marketplace, or they are difficult/cost prohibitive to make.

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