AIMS Power PICOGLF40W12V120V 4000 Watt and 12,000 Watt Surge 12 VDC Input to 120 VAC Output Pure Sine Inverter Charger Backup Power

Last year, with no experience in this field, I purchased a Power Bright 3,500 watt modified sine inverter for my motorhome conversion from generator to battery bank with solar. The Power Bright was a good unit for the price but the output voltage varied with battery voltage all the way down to 88 volts. The Power Bright unit also didn't play well with my microwave. I came to the conclusion that I needed a pure sine inverter.I found that there are two types of pure sine inverters. The cheaper smaller ones are high frequency. The AIMS PICOGLF20W12V120VR is a low frequency inverter. Low frequency inverters have tremendous starting power. This unit is rated to hold 6,000 watts of starting power for 20 seconds. The high frequency inverters are usually only rated to hold twice their power for less than a second. This unit easily starts my rooftop air conditioner which takes about 4,500 watts to start but settles back to 1,200 watts in operation. The difference is that this unit is very heavy. It's heavy because it has a large copper wound transformer in it - you get what you pay for.Why was I willing to go from a 3,500 watt inverter to 2,000 watt? I learned that you can only draw so much current from a 12 volt system without generating tremendous heat. Under a constant 2,500 watt load, my heavy 2/0 welding cables and connectors would get very hot. I would say that it's impractical and perhaps dangerous to draw constant loads over 2,500 watts from a 12 volt battery system (Update: I used 2/0 welding cable throughout, marine quality bus bars and switches, and fused both sets of batteries (200 amp) as well as the inverter (300 amp). Also all of my 120 volt appliances are under 2,000 watts continuous. The microwave is 1,200 watts. Coffee maker and toaster about the same.My other issue was voltage. Whereas the modified sine inverter's output voltage declined with battery voltage, the Aims unit holds a nice 121 volts AC at 60 cps down to battery voltage cutout.Overall I believe this AIMS unit is an extremely well built, high quality unit. It has large connector posts for your 12 volt cables. The connectors for wiring 120 volt input and output are also high quality. The indicator lights on top of the unit are nice but for my application I purchased the REMOTELF remote display. There is also a little rheostat type dial on top which you can use to adjust how much of your 120 VAC input goes to charge and how much gets passed through (Update: This is a very important feature if you have a smaller generator My 2000 watt inverter generator (1,600) continuous will trip the breaker at the full 70amp charger draw. I can adjust this to load the generator at about 75% for a two hour charge). The transfer switch is very fast and doesn't drop loads when switching from house power to inverter or inverter to house power. The fan is quiet and only runs when there is a significant load or is charging at a high rate.The unit does draw substantial idle power. It does have a power saver mode but this works by cycling power into the system every second or so. Problem with this is that my refrigerator doesn't see the power when deciding to use electric or gas so goes to gas. My other problem with it is that my microwave seems to have some type of relay in it that clicks every time the power cycles. The power saver was impractical for me to use so I just turn the inverter on from the remote when I need 120 VAC.This unit has 1 more dip switch than shown in the manual. Also has a couple of green wires hanging out the back that look like they could be connected together or to external wires. I had no idea what they were for except some type of ground. I called AIMS and there customer service was very responsive. They told me that I should connect them for a motor home application but I still don't understand why. (Update: I've since learned a bit more about electrical and these two wires are connected to bond your 120 volt AC neutral to ground) It wouldn't hurt them to put out an addendum to the manual with the changes to the unit since the manual was printed and some explanations such as what the functions of these green wires are and when they should be connected or not and why. The manual could be much better.Just took my 4 dogs out overnight in my Class C with the new solar installation and AIMS inverter. Found a nice isolated meadow on the eastern slope of the Washington Cascades about 40 miles from home. Turned on the AIMS inverter and popped some microwave popcorn (not good for you). Woke up at 5AM, let the dog's out, turned on the AIMS and made some coffee. Happiness in my old age.

I had to return it after 3 days. It started surging and even small 5W LED lights in the house started flickering. At 4KW capacity with 12KW surge it could not even run a 1500W microwave. I never approached even 3KW on the usage side but it struggled anytime any appliance came on. I had twelve 100AH batteries fully charged with 2GA wiring so there was no issue on the input side. Very disappointed since split phase inverter/chargers are not inexpensive. Only good thing was that it failed in a few days rather than 6 months down the road when the only option would have been to choose a lengthy repair OR re-invest completely in something more reliable. Too bad since this had all the features that I wanted.

I installed this awesome looking inverter into my truck with six 125 amp hour agm2 class 31 marine batteries. This inverter replaces a 5,000 watt modified sine wave Aims Power PWRINV500012W inverter. This new unit has a sophisticated, multi-mode battery charger for protecting my batteries from over charging. It also can turn my gas generator on when the battery power drops too low. The generator power in turn causes the inverter to go into charge mode. However, with only a two wire control, it cannot turn my three wire controlled generator off. This inverter is extremely heavy at over 70 pounds, and it is much heavier at one end than the other. I was surprised how hard it was to move around during installation, especially because I did not want to scratch or damage it, so I installed the inverter onto a huge base plate first and the bolted the entire assembly in place. I feed this monster with four 2/0 welding cables. Two positive and two negative. I also installed a Blue Sea 300 amp fuse directly onto the positive lug of the inverter.Compared to my old Aims inverter, this one seems to breathe much better, and stay much cooler, but there are far more holes for dust to enter as well. There are various fans and fan modes, and when they all light up this thing is not even close to quiet. Thankfully that only happens when big loads come online, like the refrigerators in my food truck. But there is always at least one fan blowing. It is never silent. As dusty as my truck is, I suppose I will have to blow this thing out with an air gun on occasion.The quality seems top notch and even the manual was well written. However, despite being a mechanical engineer, I still could not figure out how to get the unit to charge my batteries on my demand, rather than waiting for the batteries to drain to 10 or 10.5 volts, or how to pass the A/C shore power (generator power) through the unit to the A/C output in A/C priority mode. There are a lot of modes that this unit can run in. And all those tiny dip switches control a great deal of functions. You might want to maintain access to all those buttons and switches.However Aims Power handled my emails with ease. So I will of course modify this review as needed, now that I know how this unit is supposed to work. As for turning the unit on and off, I am disappointed that Aims chose to not manufacture a cheap, simple remote like my old $20.00 PWRIREMPWR. Instead Aims has a $130.00 led panel that has very poor reviews and a lack of functionality.160607 UPDATE:This unit now runs, in one mode or another 24 hours a day, 4 days a week. My generator provides the AC current to this inverter to charge my huge battery pack for about two hours a day. That is all the charge time it takes to allow this inverter to provide AC current the rest of the day to power a full size fridge, various fans, a computer and even occasional use of a 15,000btu Frigidaire Window Air Conditioner Model: FFRE1533S1. But at 11 amps ac, the air conditioner draws over 100 amps dc, so running the air conditioner on battery power requires the generator to charge the batteries every 5 hours.