Inverters are now equipped with a lot of features. Most of the inverters have LCD display to show important information. Different colored lights are also employed in the inverters. There is another most important feature is the inclusion of Solar Charge controller in the inverter main body. Other fail safe feature are overcharging, overloading, Short circuit protection, low battery alarm, low battery shutdown and over temperature protection. It should also protect against inverse battery terminal installation. I myself connected cables to opposite PV terminals but everything was safe and sound, even the wires stayed there for several minutes.
Homage Inverter – Tron Duo
Homage has a variety of models available. Some can only be used with battery while others have built-in charge controllers. Homage Tron duo is the inverter that have built-in solar charger controller. The different models of Tron Duo series are mentioned below.
- HTD-1011 SCC (800W, Solar Capacity 500W)
- HTD-1211 SCC (1000W, Solar Capacity 600W)
- HTD-2011 SCC (1600W, Solar Capacity 1000W)
- HTD-2211 SCC (1800W, Solar Capacity 1200W)
The model under consideration is Homage inverter Tron Duo HTD-1211 SCC. It has a capacity of 1000W while also offering a Solar capacity of 600W. It can support 6 Tube Lights or 16 Energy Savers and 6 Fans.
Box
Homage inverter has a pretty decent box and packing. Inside the box, there is one power cable, some user manuals and the inverter itself.
Size
Inverter looks sleek and compact with blue light on the top and some fine curves edge design. The size is almost equal to an Xbox One S or PS4 Slim.
Inverter Design
Inverter is small with a rectangular shaped body. Screen display shows all important information related to load and equipment. There are 4 buttons beside the LCD display; bigger Power button, Settings, Select and Enter. Blue light on the top of inverter can be turned off and on from the settings.
Cooling
There are air vents on all the sides. On the back, you have high rpm fan which makes no noise at idle or while charging. Fan noise is detectable at higher loads only.
Features
Inverter features solar power of 600W that means you can connect 600W solar panels with it in either series or parallel. Make sure the solar panel capacity is not more that the prescribed limit. Inverter has solar power connectors at the back. You can connect cables thereby removing the screws.
The overall capacity of the inverter under consideration is 1000W. I was able to achieve a maximum of 500-600W usage in the office with my computer turned on.
You can set the charging priority to either solar or utility. Or you can select both for charging. Same is the case with usage priority if solar is set as a priority the inverter will use energy from solar panels to power all the load connected unless the solar power is unable to support the load. When it is out of Solar capacity it will use the battery to assist. In case, the load is higher than the capacity of both battery and solar, the inverter will use utility (AC) source.
In the daytime, if your load is high, it will keep on switching from solar to utility and vice versa. I’ll suggest to keep it away from the busy room so you can’t hear the sounds – it’s really annoying. I bought the inverter mainly for computer and it was able to run computer even on solar power only – thanks to the 600W built-in charge controller.
Reasons to avoid homage solar Inverter
There are a lot of benefits of the solar inverter as discussed earlier but there are certain issues too. When you’re powering everything with solar and suddenly you have cloudy weather the inverter will shift to the battery and sometimes it trips when the load is out of capacity.
There are certain security features in the inverter which prove to be a disaster sometime. Like it trips on small or undetectable short circuits. Another thing I noticed you can’t use this invert with any other inverter in your home. Maybe there is some back current flow due to wiring. Probably you’ll not face some of these issues but I thought I should mention everything.
Conclusion
When looking for an inverter always calculate your expected maximum load, So your inverter can support it. Solar charger controller is the best feature so far as in our country solar energy is abundant. So Solar power will keep your equipment on in daytime even if you have several hours of power outage. It can also charge the batteries even if there is no utility (AC Source) available. Solar power can also save money from consuming less electricity in the daytime.