I was reading all the comments about local made inverters and Trace.
I can tell you this:
Trace was a company that revolutionized the inverter business up up Washington, Seattle, Arlington. It was out of necessity for the boating industry. They where manufacturer for a harsh environment ( Salt water ) where corrosion is heavy. Movement, vibration etc.
They learned all the tricks, they learn from very good engineers, Boeing Airplanes is right next to them. They learned manufacturing process. They applied those knowledge to the manufacturing and design of the inverter business.
Trace kicked off when Dominican started to purchase the device. This is the sad part, Trying to reduce cost to developed the DR series. It's the most popular Inverter in the Dominican Republic. It was design to fit in a traveling bag ( 4 units ). That was one on the main part of the design.
The original design had lots of bugs, but with time it was perfected. In some ways it's an inferior design but with new technology. It cost less, but they had to bypass some manufacturing procedures, Like conformal coating the boards against corrosion. Charging the battery wit a Triac, etc. They still do some part but not all.
Conformal coating is a sticky coat of transparent plastic paint , like a plastic shield that the electronics is submerge. It helps the component in avoiding vibration and corrosion from the salt and the sulfuric acid sometimes next to the battery.
The transformer is one very heavy part of the Inverter. They put more effort on building this part because it's the most important part of the inverter. The reset will be a copy, like the Firmware or program on the microcontroller, the Fets of transistor are all computer design, etched and manufactured. The transformer is on of the parts that's done by hand. Testing them if very important. This is where Local made inverters fail!
Local made inverter do not have a very hard testing process. The quality control is important but not near a US, Canadian Inverters.
Xantrex when out and bought almost all the inverter factorys, including trace. That's why they are now Xantrex. Some of the guys at trace stated a new company call OutBack Power. They are in the Pure Sine Wave inverter. It was not design for the Dominican Republic, it was design to be the best pure sinewave inverter and the safest. That's why they cost much more than Xantex. But the also have another thing, experience.
I recommend Xantrex and OutBack Power inverter.
I could tell much more about it but it, but it will be a long story.
