Ok Tom, larger wire installed and got it mounted on the power board.
I assume you need evidence
HD was packed, didn't even pull into the parking lot. Stopped at Auto Zone instead and picked up some lugged battery cables, #4 wire.
Now for the full power test. Turned on all the lights, 400 watts (10 x 40 watt florescent tubes), the band saw (360 watts) and hit the button to close the garage. The door closer balked but nothing else did. The lights didn't flicker and the band saw didn't skip a beat nor did the inverter squeal. 760 watts for about 2 minutes. Don't know if it would have shut down later or not, didn't wait around for it. I didn't have the kill-a-watt on it so I don't know if that watt rating is completely accurate. The closer is rated at 1/2 HP, had to turn off all the lights to close the door. At least that will keep me from accidentally leaving the lights on
I tried the lathe but it groaned, turned a little, then the inverter squealed and shut down. After a reset I tried the air compressor by itself. It ran but much too slow to do anything. I know the lathe draws 300 watts when running, have no idea what the starting requirement is. I put the compressor on the kill-a-watt and it draws 750 watts (sheesh, and I said I didn't have any big loads
) . The documentation for the inverter claims 1000 watts of surge but only good for 2 seconds (crap that's short!)
I would hazard a guess and say that it would not live long at 750 watts. Overall I'm quite happy with it for now. It completely lives up to it's advertising, so far.
Low idle draw
Slightly under rated
Could use a little more butt in the surge department
Kevin