Power inverter problem

[Phytrax]

I have a 750 watt power inverter that I hardwired to the battery. This used to work great in my F-150 but I'm having problems getting enough power to it in the Titan. I just used 16 gauge wire in the F-150. That didn't work in the Titan so I went to 10 gauge. That helped some but it still has problems pushing a 2 amp bench grinder when it is supposed to push 6 amps. If I use the short cables hooked directly to the battery it works fine. I had to run longer cables this time, could that be the problem, even though I went to 10 gauge?

Something else odd, it works with my laptop and my Nokia charger, but my generic Nokia charger says "not charging" when I try it. It works fine in the house.

[TitanBlue]

Your feed is way too small, use #2 Gage and you'l be fine. 16 gage is not even in the ballpark to draw the approx 62.5 Amps at 12 Volt you need to produce 750 Watts, which is about 6.25 Amps at 120VAC. You will not likely get 62 Amps available for the invertor at idle.

EDIT: tech12volt is right, 4 ga. will be fine. I like overkill.

[tech12volt]

Originally Posted by Phytrax

I have a 750 watt power inverter that I hardwired to the battery. This used to work great in my F-150 but I'm having problems getting enough power to it in the Titan. I just used 16 gauge wire in the F-150. That didn't work in the Titan so I went to 10 gauge. That helped some but it still has problems pushing a 2 amp bench grinder when it is supposed to push 6 amps. If I use the short cables hooked directly to the battery it works fine. I had to run longer cables this time, could that be the problem, even though I went to 10 gauge?

Something else odd, it works with my laptop and my Nokia charger, but my generic Nokia charger says "not charging" when I try it. It works fine in the house.

4 gauge will do . thats all you need to do . and a short 4 gauge ground . make sure you get a fuse up front. or i prefer a circuit breaker if you will be using a grinder. this way if you trip it you can reset it.

[Phytrax]

Well thanks both of you for the help. I really don't feel like running that crap again but I guess I will at some point. Really the hardest part the first time was figuring out where to drill the hole by the steering column so I didn't damage anything. I still don't understand why it seemed to work fine on my F-150 with the 16 gauge. I never ran a bench grinder on it but I did run at least 500 watts of other stuff (Alienware laptop, ext hard drive, printer, cell charger all at the same time).

As far as the breaker and ground, I guess I need a 60 amp breaker run on the positive lead and then ground the negative to the chassis? Is this correct? Also, what's the best place to hook up the ground wire? Just to the battery terminal?

Thanks a lot for the help.

[TitanBlue]

Ground to the frame if you like, if the battery is close, that is ok too. Yes, a 60Amp fuse or Circuit Breaker (Self resetting type maybe) will give real good protection to the Invertor. They can draw more current temporarily, but I'd want to avoid it.