School me - 12v to 110 outlet

fred

FIRST, completely disconnect the batteries and shore power. Open the bench were the converter is and you will see all the connections. Then take the front cover off the converter and you should see two or three open spots for new connections (it will be obvious.) Connect the positive wire from one of the outlets to one of the open slots and install a bus fuse (I did a 10 amp fuse. But someone chime in if you have other thoughts.) Then connect the ground wire to the negative bus bar. This is also obvious once you look around the converter. It is a bar about 5" long screwed down (mine was on the floor inside the bench) where ALL of the ground wires are screwed into. If you don't have an open slot, it's fine to double up. 

If you get the kind of outlet pictured above with a voltmeter, then just connect that positive wire on that to the same bus as the positive Line In from the battery (you may have to use your best guess here. It is a large gauge red wire.)

Now, I did have to extend the length of wire provided with the outlet, but if you have to do that and aren't sure how, take the outlet to the home store and tell them you need to extend the wires and they can tell how. It didn't cost me more than a couple of bucks in supplies.

BTW, if I didn't mention it above, I got the outlet on Amazon for about $18. I got the pure sine inverter at eTrailer for about $100.

As to your second question, I believe people use the above configuration all the time with no wiring problems. But again, maybe someone else can chime in on that, since I am the original "idiot" who asked the original question (and look at me now! See what you can learn from this board!)

https://www.etrailer.com/12V-Power-Accessories/Wagan/WC2600.html

200 watt. From my research it seemed like that would be plenty for my needs (television, mobile devices, etc.) and still be within the pods 12v capabilities. It's NOT going to handle a blow dryer or space heater, etc. so consider what you want to be running and do the math.

If you search on this board for "inverters" you will see a lot of discussion about whether a pure sine inverter is necessary over modified sine. I decided to go with pure since the one above was reasonably priced. But I did see a modified sine inverter at my local Costco recently for under $40. I might have given that a try if I had seen it before I bought the pure sine one.