leaves Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Gents A lot of online stores advertise cotek inverter as a 24/7 unit. I have been told its more of a camping unit for medium use. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 It is a good inverter, and yes, it can operate 24/7. Been around a long time. I found only one issue with my 1000w Cotek (was 2nd hand at the time): It could not power one 5w LED light only. Light flickered very badly. Load was to little for the inverter to recognize, or it was just old. Then I got a Victron 1600va inverter ... problem was sorted, and years later, still is. So if you can compare the Cotek, a good inverter, and Victron a very good inverter, comparing apples with apples, checkout the Victron Phoenix inverter range, the ones with no chargers. Much cheaper than the ones with chargers. http://www.victronenergy.com/inverters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 From much looking on the internet, it seems the Cotek is sold as a Samlex in the states. Plenty of reviews and guys opening them up and fixing them i\on youtube. It's a decent sine wave inverter, doesn't have a floating ground like the cheapies, good design. Definitely capable of doing 24/7. I would say it's a middle-of-the-road inverter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 I recently purchased a Cotek S600-224 inverter which I will be using for camping and load shedding so it is good news that they are good quality inverters . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 It is a good inverter, and yes, it can operate 24/7. Been around a long time. I found only one issue with my 1000w Cotek (was 2nd hand at the time): It could not power one 5w LED light only. Light flickered very badly. Load was to little for the inverter to recognize, or it was just old. Then I got a Victron 1600va inverter ... problem was sorted, and years later, still is. So if you can compare the Cotek, a good inverter, and Victron a very good inverter, comparing apples with apples, checkout the Victron Phoenix inverter range, the ones with no chargers. Much cheaper than the ones with chargers. http://www.victronenergy.com/inverters If the light was flicker the Cotek was running in power saving mode. It turns off and on until a load of at least 20w is present. Else it pulses to test the load. Causes the flickering Cotek is a very high quality brand. They are pretty expensive however but the circuit boards are all made for industrial type environments (eg. corrosion protection coated circuit boards, etc.). They are also well suited to inductive (eg. motors, etc.) type loads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Tried that. When it power saving mode (a very cool feature!), the 5w LED light never even came on, load was way to small to get it out of power saving mode.See, when I did the solar thing, the loads where reduced to the needs, so at times the 5w bathroom light was the only light being switched on.If I however switch on more lights, or a computer, then the inverter woke up no problem. But as I said, maybe it was just old, or the never models have it sorted. Just thought I mention it for it was a rather huge let down for me at the time, having a 1000w inverter that could not power 1 x 5w LED on its own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Tried that. When it power saving mode (a very cool feature!), the 5w LED light never even came on, load was way to small to get it out of power saving mode. See, when I did the solar thing, the loads where reduced to the needs, so at times the 5w bathroom light was the only light being switched on. If I however switch on more lights, or a computer, then the inverter woke up no problem. But as I said, maybe it was just old, or the never models have it sorted. Just thought I mention it for it was a rather huge let down for me at the time, having a 1000w inverter that could not power 1 x 5w LED on its own. Yeah I would be very put down by that. I have a Cotek SK1000 and it ran a USB charger (which is less than 5w) without any problem. On power saving mode however the charger would turn on and off. Strange problem... FYI, if you do buy one, the serial protocol for the inverter is partially covered by this guy: http://anton-janovsky.blogspot.ie/2011/09/i-am-building-power-management-system.html I can confirm it works. Additionally, most of the commands listed here work (serial port, RS232 section): http://www.canadianpowerconversion.com/files/s1500_manual_aug2009.pdf Slingers 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 What he is doing ... clever and very nice!!! But out of interest. I tried similar setup, back in 2008: http://anton-janovsk...ent-system.html using the GSM Commander (the supplier was very helpful!) to use the batt voltages to change between Eskom and inverter power, to protect the batteries. Found it not a viable solution as the volts are up and down depending on the load drawn / not drawn by inverter from the batteries. I.e.: Inverter is on, and under load so when 11v is reached, system does what it is programmed to do, i.e. switch off the inverter. Inverter is off, but then the batt voltages jump back up above 11v ... Inverter is on, volts drop immediately to 11v, or lower ... Inverter is off, volts come back up ... You get the picture? So in this scenario, you are not achieving the goal of protecting the battery, you are actually straining them. Moved to a Victron batt monitor using its SOC set to X%, trigger relay, and on Y%, reset relay. Less volatility and by doing it so, you can allow the batteries to be charged in-between. It is a very fine line I learned. Now I am set to 95% SOC, switch, 100% SOC, switch back, with override if there is no Eskom, then I rely on inverter switch-off, which has never happened, touch wood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingers Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 I have been using my cotek sk3000 inverter 24/7 for 2 years now and have to date had no reliability issues leaves and Clint 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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