Xantrex freedom marine 25

[Secondwind410]

I was given an freedom marine 25, 2007 vintage inverter. The inverter has had very little use. I was reading the manual and was surprised that it is a modified sine wave. Is this unit worth the hassle and cost to install it, or should I purchase a new pure sine inverter ? We only use it for a led tv, lap top charging, perhaps bread maker, hair dryer, microwave. Any help would be appreciated

[Stu Jackson]

I have a Freedom 15, 1999 model, MSW, works just fine with all of those implements.

[Wood]

I have a circa 1995 Freedom 25. It powers almost everything except some types of power cubes - like USB chargers. It even powers an induction cooktop.

[dksail]

We have a 2006 Xantrex Freedom 20 and have used it for 3 summers. The manual warns against some microwaves, but we have used it on everything else and it works fine. It did reject an old battery charger, not surprising.

However, if you plan on keeping your boat for awhile, I would upgrade to pure sine wave. Electronics seem to get more and more complicated, so why make it harder? I plan on upgrading but so far the Xantrex refuses to give me a good reason to.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by dksail

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It did reject an old battery charger, not surprising.

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Could you please explain what this means?

[dksail]

The battery charger was making horrible humming noises to a point where I thought it was going to burn up. It was a plug in charger from the 1980’s. Worked fine on a 120v plug in.

[Secondwind410]

I have read that the newer xantrex have had poor reliability? Would 2007 be from a dependable year ?

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Secondwind410

I was given an freedom marine 25, 2007 vintage inverter. The inverter has had very little use. I was reading the manual and was surprised that it is a modified sine wave. Is this unit worth the hassle and cost to install it, or should I purchase a new pure sine inverter ? We only use it for a led tv, lap top charging, perhaps bread maker, hair dryer, microwave. Any help would be appreciated

Depends on the microwave design, everything else will be fine. We have operated all the same on our Freedom 2000 which also is specified as modified sine wave. The very lightweight microwaves use a DC-DC converter with a high frequency (lightweight) transformer rather than a 60Hz (large, heavy) transformer. Apparently the solid state DC-DC convertors in the lightweight power supplies need a well defined sine wave. Not knowing this, we bought a lightweight one and it would not work on our Freedom inverter. Guessing the problem, I went back to store and bought the heaviest one they had of same size. It actually cost more, and was significantly heavier. I didn't take it apart to confirm but I am very sure it has a big 60Hz transformer inside. It works fine with our Freedom inverter.

I don't think you'll know until you try it.

[AlexCollier]

I have a Xantrex Marine 20 - with a Heart Link 1000 on my Beneteau Oceanis 461.
It was already installed when I purchased the boat back in 2000 and I have been using the system ever since without any issues.
It keeps both the house and engine starting battery charged nicely and the link interface keeps me informed of the state of the batteries. I only use the inverter function when essential as it really does suck down the battery. But it has worked fine when I have used it.


One nice feature about the Xantrex is that you can add on additional ecoboost charging circuits. I just ordered one to charge the generator battery.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Secondwind410

I have read that the newer xantrex have had poor reliability? Would 2007 be from a dependable year ?

My 1998 unit is still doing fine. Back then the units came with connected 2/0 wires. Later models made you buy your own wires. Even later models added echo chargers built in. IIRC, it was around 2010 to 2012 when they started to go south based on reports from skippers with new ones that didn't last.

[Bycrick]

There are two issues with an inverter charger. As pointed out above, the MSW output is sometimes disliked by equipment that has switching power supplies. They often expect good sine-wave input.

There’s also potential issues on the charging side. A 60-Hz Charger like the Xantrex has a big, heavy, very inductive transformer. That gives it a poor "power factor." A low power factor means that as much as 30% of the AC input power is turned into heat before you even try to convert to DC. Some generators don’t work well with the old MSW inverter charges. My old Heart, the predecessor of the early Xantrex version, wouldn’t run on the Genset unless I ran a hairdryer too. The true-sine-wave inverter/Chargers also do power-factor-correction which avoids the problem.