prices of Magnum MS2812 2800W Inverter with 125 Amp Charger

[carl2591]

I was looking at these Inverters and found out the price of them $1983.20 was consistent EVERY WHERE.. check amazon, EcoDirect.com, Inverter Supply and others..

my guess is the manf is not allowing free market to price the product but they are fixing the pricing of the product.. sorta like sony did some years ago with PS2's. If i remember they got smacked by DOJ for price fixing...

look for your self.. google.. ms2812 magnum inverter and see what comes up..

if this is true....

this is not the way to do business.. I am going to not buy magnum products till this issue stops..

posting on their facebook page may send a message to them..

of course they do not have a facebook page that i found..

[lewster]

Originally Posted by carl2591

I was looking at these Inverters and found out the price of them $1983.20 was consistent EVERY WHERE.. check amazon, EcoDirect.com, Inverter Supply and others..

my guess is the manf is not allowing free market to price the product but they are fixing the pricing of the product.. sorta like sony did some years ago with PS2's. If i remember they got smacked by DOJ for price fixing...

look for your self.. google.. ms2812 magnum inverter and see what comes up..

if this is true....

this is not the way to do business.. I am going to not buy magnum products till this issue stops..

posting on their facebook page may send a message to them..

of course they do not have a facebook page that i found..

Carl,

Your anger is misplaced and disingenuous. The prices that you are seeing on the web is just slightly above the actual wholesale cost for these inverters. I don't know what you do for a living, but selling a $2000 item for a dollar in profit is a certain recipe for business suicide. NO BUSINESS, regardless of how low it's overhead is, can operate on a profit margin of .005%. Perhaps you would like one of these business outlets to PAY YOU to take one of these items off their hands by selling it below their actual cost!

Magnum is one of the few quality electronic products that are designed and manufactured in the USA. They also carry a 2 year warranty and are fully field serviceable by a large network of factory authorized service centers, and are widely considered to be one of the best, most reliable inverter/chargers available today.

If you are simply looking for the cheapest inverter/charger, buy some Chinese garbage that you will throw away if it is ever in need of service. Many manufacturers use the MAP (minimum advertised price) in their sales contracts to level the playing field across their many vendors. If you are so determined to buy cheap, cheap, cheap........you might call one of these vendors to see if they will sell to you below the MAP.

The slogan...." Quality doesn't cost...it PAYS!" comes to mind.

[TouringDan]

Lewster says they make a quality inverter and that it is servicable. This is very important to me. If they want to fix the price, as long as it is reasonable,
I really don't care.

Dan

[carl2591]

lewester,
i understand your point. it just struck me as odd that of the 5 to 6 places i looked the price was the same.. I have a hard time with that.. I know they are made in US and have a two year warranty but the price shown 1983.20 being just above wholesale is hard to take.. and i doubt they are only making a dollar profit on a unit..

Amazon is one place i look for quality product at a good price so when i see there price the exact same as every where else that sends up a red flag for me..

again i go back to sony and the PS2 and price fixing..


just sayin..

Originally Posted by lewster

Carl,

Your anger is misplaced and disingenuous. The prices that you are seeing on the web is just slightly above the actual wholesale cost for these inverters. I don't know what you do for a living, but selling a $2000 item for a dollar in profit is a certain recipe for business suicide. NO BUSINESS, regardless of how low it's overhead is, can operate on a profit margin of .005%. Perhaps you would like one of these business outlets to PAY YOU to take one of these items off their hands by selling it below their actual cost!

Magnum is one of the few quality electronic products that are designed and manufactured in the USA. They also carry a 2 year warranty and are fully field serviceable by a large network of factory authorized service centers, and are widely considered to be one of the best, most reliable inverter/chargers available today.

If you are simply looking for the cheapest inverter/charger, buy some Chinese garbage that you will throw away if it is ever in need of service. Many manufacturers use the MAP (minimum advertised price) in their sales contracts to level the playing field across their many vendors. If you are so determined to buy cheap, cheap, cheap........you might call one of these vendors to see if they will sell to you below the MAP.

The slogan...." Quality doesn't cost...it PAYS!" comes to mind.

[pattonsr]

If someone is looking to buy a Magnum MS2812 2800W Inverter with 125 Amp Charger, then I would certainly look at the brand new Magnum MSH3012M, a 3000W Hybrid Inverter with 125 Amp Charger. If the shore or generator power is lacking, the Hybrid will add up to 3000 watts to handle the demand. Of course, if you need a big Magnum it is assumed you have at least 400 amps of batteries.

The idea is that you do not have to buy an oversized generator to handle the extreme demand cases. Let the Hybrid handle the extreme cases and buy a smaller generator.

The Hybrid adds around $300 dollars to the price of the MS2812. If it works as advertised, then it is worth every penny in my opinion.

[overlander63]

Carl, the MAP is there to keep some dealers from selling, or at least advertising for sale, an item for less than other dealers's cost. If this is the first time you've seen it, you haven't gone shopping for a Honda generator lately. That is just one of dozens of examples.

[Tradewind67]

Hi, I just purchased a 1967 trade wind, with a shot electrical system, and I am not quite sure where to start. If we were to purchase an inverter, would we additionally need a converter to bring the power back down to twelve volts? And out of the three inverters, which would you most recommend for dry camping only?

Go Power! GP-SW3000-24 3000-Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter
http://amzn.com/B00153BEA6

3000-Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter
http://amzn.com/B003Y5EZC2

Whistler Pro-3000W 3,000 Watt Power Inverter
http://amzn.com/B003R7EGA8

And if had forgotten to state, I would like to have the power going to all of my outlets, not dedicated ones. Thanks, Ben

[CA_Tallguy]

Originally Posted by pattonsr

If someone is looking to buy a Magnum MS2812 2800W Inverter with 125 Amp Charger, then I would certainly look at the brand new Magnum MSH3012M, a 3000W Hybrid Inverter with 125 Amp Charger. If the shore or generator power is lacking, the Hybrid will add up to 3000 watts to handle the demand.

I've been off searching the web to read about this and am very, very intrigued. Not cheap, but WOW it looks like a great unit! As far as I can tell in my research so far, it's the only pure sine wave unit that does anything like this. Someone from the company posted on another forum site explaining that it was basically a grid-tie inverter in the way it syncs up the power sources (though it is limited to not feed power back into the grid).

Other inverter/chargers pretty much seem to either pass-through from the generator/grid or can instant transfer to the inverter. They have some features that can help start a heavy load like an AC pretty seamlessly but I have not found something as sophisticated as the boosting the magnum claims to do.

[switz]

After reading the Magnum manual for their new unit, a lot of installation and operational questions would need to be designed around to accommodate this unit, especially if a solar system were added to the project.

[CA_Tallguy]

I agree - there is a lot to think about as this really starts to tie together the AC and DC systems much more closely than I think most airstream trailers currently contemplate. I have the same questions about how solar fits into this, but my gut tells me that these and other inverter/chargers have got to work with external sources like solar as that is a primary ingredient in a lot of renewable energy systems and that is more of the industry these companies are in than any other.

Strangely, most of the manuals I am reading for these types of systems are silent as to how solar fits in. I know that if I get a charger/inverter of the same brand as my solar controller (outback) that they would talk to each other and coordinate. But I am very interested in trying to pair this magnum with my outback solar.

I did find this buried in he magnum manual... See "load support VDC"

3.2.2 LoadSupport
While in the Standby Mode and the charger is enabled, the MSH-M Series inverter/charger has the ability to work in parallel with the incoming AC source to support the AC loads using current from the batteries. During the Standby mode, the current and voltage from the AC source and the AC load current are continually monitored. When loads that exceed the available current from either the shorepower grid or the generator are connected, the Load Support feature is automatically activated. The Load Support feature causes the MSH-M inverter/charger to reduce/stop the battery charging operation and begin the inverting operation to allow any available current from the batteries to be used to ensure the AC loads are powered and the current does not exceed the capacity of the AC source, or trip its output breakers or fuses. The Load Support feature turns off once the load demand decreases and spare power from the incoming AC source is available; when this happens, the battery charger is again activated and begins charging the batteries.
For the Load Support feature to automatically function, the following needs to occur:
1. An AC source (shorepower/AC generator) must be connected. 2. The inverter must be enabled (INV LED is on).
3. The battery voltage must be ≥0.5 volts (for a 12-volt system) or ≥1.0 volts (for a 24-volt system) than the LBCO setting.
Info: If using a remote and the unit is in load support, the status will indicate either “Load Support AAC” or “Load Support VDC”.
There are two modes of operation within Load Support.
• Load Support AAC – In this mode, the AC loads connected are requiring more power than the incoming AC source can provide on its own. The inverter pulls the additional current—that is needed for the loads—from the inverter batteries to keep the incoming AC current from exceeding the input amps setting on the remote control.
Info: In Load Support AAC, even though the LED indicators may indicate charging, the inverter/charger may not be putting current into the battery. If using a remote, the Inverter/Charger Amps AC meter will indicate the load support process by displaying a negative current flowing from the batteries to the loads. The input amps AC value on the remote will also drop during this process, while the load amps AC value remains the same.
• Load Support VDC – In this mode, an external DC source (i.e., solar, hydro, wind, etc.,) is providing more current than needed, causing the battery bank voltage to rise. The inverter/ charger reduces the incoming AC current and uses current from the batteries in an effort to keep the battery voltage from rising above the temperature-compensated battery voltage setting on the remote control.
Info: The charger must be enabled (not in ‘Charger Standby&rsquo for the Load Support VDC feature to be active.

[CA_Tallguy]

I may have figured out one way this can work but I am guessing that there are other ways the unit is smart about solar charging. Basically, you can manually enable the charging when you want to use it... so you can run off the solar and batteries and just enable the charger when the battery bank starts to get depleted.

The manual talks about a few different things that can be enabled and disabled. One is the inverter where it sounds like the unit can essentially act like any other inverter attached to the system. Just connected and ready to supply AC. You can also turn the inverter off and the unit will simply pass through AC shore/generator power if attached.

In "standby mode" the charger is active and the system is ready to failover to the inverter if shore/generator power is cut or becomes unstable. It sounds like the load support feature works in this mode and it says the inverter has to also be enabled for it to work.

I'm still confused but it seems like some combination of having shore/generator power attached with these options may offer the same flexibility I have now.... And hopefully more. I generally don't use my converter to charge the batteries as my solar is usually sufficient. Then I turn on and off my inverter as needed if I don't have shore power and I want to watch TV or something.

With the magnum unit, I think you could just run things off solar and the batteries and simply start the generator when you want to run air conditioning or the battery bank starts to get depleted. What I am hopeful about is that if the battery bank is full that the solar panels could reduce shore or generator power needed for AC. It sounds like "load support VDC" does that.

[robwok]

Just my 2 cents, I installed a coleman heat pump, then ran wires for a wall mount thermostat. An interesting component of the wall thermostat was a wire mount for generator control, so basically, this thermostat would tell an electric start generator to kick on before the AC is needed. Just another layer of automation if you want it.

Rob.

[CA_Tallguy]

Here are questions I asked of Magnum and their answers...

QUESTION: I am interested in your 12 volt hybrid inverter and wonder if you can tell me if there are any things to consider when using this with an outback solar controller? Will they work well with each other or will the inverter and solar controller fight with each other over charging the battery bank?
ANSWER: The solar charge controller does not talk to the inverter and they work independent of each other. If your charge controller has the battery voltage at or above 12.7 VDC when you apply AC voltage to the inverter, our unit will bypass the bulk and absorb mode and go directly into the float mode.

QUESTION: The only mention of solar I can find in the manual talks about Load Support VDC. Is this a user configured mode or is it a mode that the charger/inverter unit might enter into when it senses solar or an external charging source of some type and load support feature in general is active? Can it enter both load support VDC and AAC as necessary?
ANSWER: Just like it talks about in the manual, if the battery voltage from the charge controller causes the voltage to rise, the charger in the inverter will reduce any ac current and uses the current from the batteries to help keep the voltage at the batteries from rising above the settings in the remote for the battery type. It is also temperature compensated, so it will take the battery temp in consideration when using the AC amperage for the charger.

[CA_Tallguy]

Upon further research, it appears that at least two other companies offer a similar product with boosting capability.

Mastervolt Combi
http://www.mastervolt.com/automotive...erter-charger/

Victron MultiPlus
http://www.victronenergy.com/inverte...8v-800va-3kva/

I think both offer solar charge controllers as well (magnum does not) and I believe that the two devices from the same company would network together so they could bet optimize and coordinate charging from two devices. I'm unsure right now about how important this coordination is vs just hooking up a different brand into an existing system. If you are shopping for both, I would think there are a few reasons it would make sense to get the same brand. At the very least, they would be able to have unified system info on a single remote.

[lewster]

SECRET SPY UPDATE!!!!!

Actually, Magnum is very close to releasing their solar charge controllers. I was just at the factory and saw several in beta testing. That's all I can say (under penalty of bamboo under the finger nails :-) )

They should be available in 30-60 days.

I'll update the Forum when I get the official word.

[matthorr]

This sounds like a great way to help prevent the AC tripping the circuit breaker on the power pole or over loading the generator. We have a pair of dogs and a few hundred dollars of insurance is worth it to give us some peace of mind that we can leave them in the trailer with the AC running in summer.

We also leave the roof vents open and fans on as a back up. This is a bit off topic, but has anyone found a good temperature alarm that could notify our smartphone if the temp gets too high in the trailer?

[CA_Tallguy]

Unfortunately, it's not just a few hundred bucks for the device... They are about $2000 plus most will probably add the remote control panel and maybe some other add ons. I think it is more like $3000 when you add it all up with tax and/or shipping. And then there is the installation still left and supplies for that. (This would become a pretty core part of the trailer electrical system and some rewiring most likely will be needed.) Finally, a unit like this really should sit on a pretty good size battery bank so some people may be looking at putting money there too.

I am dreaming about installing a unit like this along with an on-board cummins propane generator. I think the project would set me back $6000 to $7000, maybe even more.

[CA_Tallguy]

Originally Posted by lewster

SECRET SPY UPDATE!!!!!

Actually, Magnum is very close to releasing their solar charge controllers. I was just at the factory and saw several in beta testing. That's all I can say (under penalty of bamboo under the finger nails :-) )

They should be available in 30-60 days.

I'll update the Forum when I get the official word.

Interesting news! Thanks for the info.

I used to think that the high end solar MPPT controllers were expensive but in relation to this inverter/charger they are cheap! If I go forward with one, I will likely sell my newish outback and get one from the same company.

[matthorr]

Originally Posted by CA_Tallguy

Unfortunately, it's not just a few hundred bucks for the device... They are about $2000 plus most will probably add the remote control panel and maybe some other add ons. I think it is more like $3000 when you add it all up with tax and/or shipping. And then there is the installation still left and supplies for that. (This would become a pretty core part of the trailer electrical system and some rewiring most likely will be needed.) Finally, a unit like this really should sit on a pretty good size battery bank so some people may be looking at putting money there too.

I am dreaming about installing a unit like this along with an on-board cummins propane generator. I think the project would set me back $6000 to $7000, maybe even more.

What I was thinking when I wrote was a few hundred more than a non-hybrid inverter/charger. I eventually want to install solar, but am thinkin about doing it in pieces. Inverter first, then batteries, then solar.

I think I could handle the inverter myself. The solar might be too big of a project for me to bite off. Looking at the manuals, it looks like more or less replacing the current converter and then wiring in the accessories. I have a newer trailer (2012) so I don't think any major electrical work would be needed. Assuming it will fit in the same space...

I like that the magnums just connect to the existing AC circuits and don't use separate outlets like the $800 factory option (that I don't have).

[lewster]

Actually, adding a large inverter/ charger for both AC and DC use does require quite a bit of re-wiring. The smallest wire I use for battery to inverter runs is 2/0 with 4/0 for runs over 5'. They also need the proper size of Class T fuse and fuse block.

Then you need to run an ' in loop' and and an 'out loop' to and from the inverter for 120VAC, plus a couple of 30 amp breakers. Not to mention the re- wire of the existing breaker box's 30 amp 120 VAC input, all 10/3 cabling minimum, depending on the length of the wire runs.

Nothing really difficult, but you surely need to know what is going where of you will have one mess on your hands !