BESTEK 500W Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter DC 12V to 110V AC Car Plug Inverter Adapter Power Converter with 4.2A Dual USB Charging Ports and 2 AC Outlets Car Charger, ETL Listed, Blue

Took it camping to inflate a large mattress and it worked perfectly. No hesitation and the motor ran at full speed with no extra humming or noises you'd get on a modified sine wave inverter. There's a photo attached hooked up to the car battery to do this job. This load is about 190 watts, with whatever spike that happens when the motor starts up. When it first arrived, I tested it with an oscilloscope because I was skeptical of the "pure sine wave" claim on an inverter at this price point. There's two photos attached- the one that looks perfect is this inverter running an LED 110v lamp. The one that looks a little rough around the peaks/valleys is from a 4000W inverter meant to run a house off the grid (costs several thousand dollars)- but it's running an air conditioner, refrigerator, and all the other junk people plug in at home. Still, it goes to show that this little inverter makes a really nice sine wave. This is good because many types of electrical devices don't function well (or they make weird humming noises) with a poorly shaped sine wave (or a square wave like the cheaper ones make). Other tests I tried: - Charging my Macbook worked fine with normal power plug - Connected it to a 50 watt power source to see what it does under overload. When you try to draw more power than your source can supply, it resets until you turn it off and on again then it happily tries again. This is nice because if you run it from a weak battery it won't sit there trying to make 110v and failing miserably, possibly damaging whatever you're trying to run. - Used USB port to charge the Macbook as it can accept power from a normal USB source (obviously it'll charge a lot slower because there's less power available, but still it gets some juice). Worked fine. - Charged a phone from USB, worked fine I read the bad reviews before I bought this inverter. Some of the bad reviews maybe they got a defective unit, but others are almost certainly from improper use (especially the blown fuse ones). Some things to watch out for: - The cigarette lighter or power port on your car will NOT supply 500 watts, I guarantee it unless you've got an electric car or something and even then probably not. My truck has a 20 amp fuse on that circuit and the car in the photo attached has a 15 amp fuse. At 12 volts, that means they can supply 240/180 watts respectively. And that's at the point the fuse blows, not the point you can safely draw power- the car port says "125 watts max" when its fuse blows at 180. So the people mad because this inverter "doesn't work in my car" or "blew a fuse in my car" were simply trying to draw more power from the inverter than the fuse in their car would allow. - Note in the photo above that I connected directly to the battery. If I had plugged this into the 15 amp power port inside the car with the cigarette lighter adapter, it most likely would have blown the fuse. - The power adapter on my laptop says 140 watts, so even plugging that into the inverter using the car's power port *might* blow the fuse if there's a spike on startup. You REALLY need to look at what you're plugging into this thing if you're using it inside the car and see how many watts it uses- then pad that for safety and because the inverter is not 100% efficient at converting DC watts from your battery to AC watts that it outputs. - Like any electronic device, solder joints can break if you drop it so be careful with it. Treat it like a laptop or something else you don't want broken. Broken solder joints will result in intermittent failure or complete failure. Maybe keep it in the box when you're not using it. Things I haven't tried: - drawing a 500W load to see if it really is 500W. I can only verify it supplies about 200W well. - checking how much power it draws when off with no load, or on with no load. I'd like to get around to this because would be nice to know if it needs to be unplugged when not in use.

Power inverters aren't anything new, I still have a 100W unit I bought from Radio Shack over 30 years ago. But even with the affordable power stations available today, inverters are still popular and with a few additional parts, allow the project-person to build their own power station for much less money. On a whim, I decided to try my hand at building my own power station, which includes s 27 series battery box, a 24DP battery that has about 50AH, a 50 watt solar panel, some cables, an inexpensive PWM charge controller, and this BESTEK unit. So far this is working well. The BESTEK is fused, and has convenient, easy to manage, large plastic nuts that allow you to fasten the cables to the battery. It is amazingly light, and relatively quiet. All inverters and power stations make a little noise due the their built-in cooling fans. 500 Watts isn't a lot; you aren't going to power a microwave, a/c or heaters. But you can charge batteries, run a few power tools, and several LED lights. So with a build like mine, you could easily add security lights to a barn or shed. Building your own power station with inverters like the BESTEK also gives you the advantage of putting the inverter where you want it without occupying the full space of an all-in-one power station. So if you're adding solar to an old tear-drop or DIY camper, something like this might be a more convenient addition. In addition to a reduced cost, a DIY system with inverters like the BESTEK lets you replace individual elements. The BESTEK unit appears to be well made and nicely finished, no rough edges. Plugs fit securely, and so far I haven't noticed the unit getting very hot. The cable with the cigarette lighter adapter is nice to have, so if you just need a modest amount of 110 volts while traveling or camping, you don't need anything else, just plug it in to your 12V socket and you can charge a laptop. Depending on how long you need it or how big (AH) your battery is, you may want to leave the engine running. If you're just beginning with your DIY power station, remember the rule of them that you need a battery that's about 10% of the AH (amp hours) of the watts of the inverter you plan to use (I.E. a 1000 watt inverter needs a 100 AH battery.) So in my case, my 50 AH battery is perfect for this BESTEK unity. BESTEK has inverters up to 2000 watts, but for those you'd need a 200 AH battery to utilize that much energy. I like this BESTEK unit, and am enjoying my build. I will likely buy a higher watt unit in the future!

This little inverter is perfect for running a laptop, printer, game console or other small device in a vehicle. It will charge all my Milwaukee and DeWalt tool batteries using the fastest chargers. Unfortunately, I needed it to run my solar powered gate opener. It ran the opener fine, but the standby, or "no load" draw was over 7 watts. Times 24 hours, that means it will use about 180 watts per day if I never open my gate. My solar panel makes about that, so this inverter simply wont work for me. There are other inverters that will open my gate (square wave, 300 watt) that draw only 48 watt hours per day.

Having done some testing with this inverter and using it off and on, it does pretty well. AC output voltage stays at reasonable levels (above 112 Volts at very high loads) and the sign wave stays smooth the entire time regardless of the load. I even hooked up a 730 watt load to it for a short period of time and the sign wave stayed clean and the voltage regulated itself to stay above 111 or so with a 12.3 Volt input. (14+ Volt input would likely yield better results). I would NOT RECOMMEND overloading this! For testing purposes it did well for a very short period of time though the fan sped up a lot. Likely it would’ve overheated at that 730 watt load, more or less that test is just to show your load can exceed that maximum capacity for a very short period of time and this will not have any issues. (Aka if you’re powering a large fan that has a startup surge of power or similar devices.) Running at rated power though and it will do fine. As with any device I wouldn’t recommend running above 80% capacity however, just as a general safety rule. I like that this product is as advertised with a pure sign wave and a very strong output voltage. (While lower than typical residential electrical levels it is still acceptable). At Lower loads it’ll hold 116-117 Volts just fine.

I bought this to use to power our 2 electric coolers for our dogs farmers dog dog food. One was used as the fridge and one was used as the freezer and it power both perfectly on our long trip in the car from Wisconsin to New Orleans and then again from Wisconsin to Tennessee. Seems very well built too.

This the third time I purchased one of these inverters. I have 2 for my purposes, and I gave one to my daughter when she was transporting her bearded dragons long distance during the winter. They needed to be kept warm and she was able to plug in heating pads into the inverter and then into the car's 12 volt power outlet. They operate very well. I use mine for emergency / remote power use. That means they get thrown into the back of the truck and bounced around a lot and that hasn't affected them at all. I have a few 35 amp hour UPS batteries that I can put in place to where I need some power and I'll attach these inverters. There's a little bit of fan noise, but only when you start pulling a lot of power. I do suggest connecting directly to the battery with heavy duty cables if you want to pull full power. The alligator clamps, while we'll built, aren't really meant for that amount of current.

I have a small upright freezer that I wanted to be able to run from a 200ah 12v lifepo4 battery for when the power goes out. It draws less than an amp at 120v once the compressor spins up but the inrush current makes it so most smaller inverters can't run it. I didn't want/need a giant 1-2kW inverter since the idle draw would average almost as much as the freezer. This inverter also struggles to run it from the included clamp cables, when the freezer compressor kicks in it does work most of the time but since the freezer powers on 20-30 times per day, it usually fails within a day and requires babysitting. When the overcurrent or under voltage protection or whatever kicks in on this inverter, the light just blinks red and the power has to be cycled in order for it to work again. I made some short 6AWG cables about a foot long with ring terminals going directly from the battery terminals to the inverter inputs, and now it works very reliably. It runs for days until the battery runs out like i want. Idle consumption seems low and efficiency seems good, haven't measured but it never gets hot. Satisfied with this purchase. Edit 2025-12-20: I have used it while car camping and a couple small power outages the last year and still works great. Found out it runs a small WTJMOV brand 0.6 liter 600w kettle long enough to boil a full pot of cold water and click off on its own without tripping any of the inverter protection circuits. Draws 620w when running from the wall but 535w when running from the inverter, boils 600ml to make 2 cups of tea or a bowl of ramen in 7 minutes.

I purchased this thinking it would work great in my shed solar charging system for re-charging cordless tool batteries. I wish had I read ALL of the broken English disclaimers before purchasing. BEWARE: the cooling fan on this unit runs CONSTANTLY. Therefore this inverter has a constant and not-insignificant power draw, whether it’s under load or not. My shed battery is small (20AH) and powers only a few LED lights plus this inverter. Because of the power draw, I can really only switch this inverter on while the sun is out, or it will nearly deplete my battery within a day (with no load). This unit also states that it should not be left on constantly. I have a smaller version of the same Bestek inverter which does not run constantly, and it works great in my camper for off-grid power: I leave it switched on while camping and switch it off when we leave; the cooling fan almost never runs. This inverter does its job while on, but beware, this is not a “set it and forget it” type of inverter. It’s really designed more for periodic use only. I may get an inexpensive timer switch and wire it to this inverter so it comes on during scheduled times when the sun is out, but it’s just one more thing added to my solar kit that will also have a power draw of its own.