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

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.

Good question.  Like I said, I think the PS Audio power plant is built around a quality inverter but when I once asked PSA about a slightly different piece of equipment (120V in 240V out) they acted like I was crazy for suggesting something that didint come from their pipeline.

Frankly, I think you have a good suggestion for an audio product, especially with the growing use of batteries as home backup power.

Jerry

Thanks for the information. I found this link:

Tweak Audio on Power Inverters

He  suggests a specific brand of power inverters and claims that just powering off the charger isn’t sufficient, but the charger should be disconnected from the battery during listening. Powering down the charger is easy to do remotely, whereas disconnecting and reconnecting the charger is more work and in my room, would require stepping over cables and moving around components. A WiFi power switch could be used to disconnect the charger.

Yes, it is very important that you don't power off the charger. chargers are notoriously dirty.  so I think (more research needed) that you have to have the charger disconnected when you are running the inverter to get good results.

I think powering it off is sufficient.  It doesn't need to be disconnected.

Jerry