sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Power Inverters

I'm wondering if anyone uses power inverters in their vans or trucks?

If so, what size do you use?

What do you connect to it?

Do you have any trouble with them/do you have good, bad, or just ok results?

Do you have anything between the battery and the inverter to help regulate or maintain the input voltage (eg capacitor)? Do you have anything to prevent the battery from going dead?

I'm thinking about getting one for my new van, but I wanted to first see what others are doing. Thanks!

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I have used them for years. I currently have a 400 watt unit. It is mostly used to power my laptop and printer.

Sometimes we use it to power the battery charger for the drills. However, it really sucks the van battery with the new Rigid charger.

With normal use, the inverter will not kill the battery if used all day. Of course we crank it up to go to different calls and to lunch.

I ran a wire straight to the battery for the postive and negative goes to the frame.

Sam's Club has several inverters with pretty good pricing.

I use a 140 watt unit for the various battery chargers. No complaints so far.

i too have a 400w unit from walmart. use it to power laptop, drill chargers, etc......

I currently use a 1500 watt unit (1000 watts with 1500 watt surge) and can't imagine what I did without it! I am a big football fan and when we go to games in Washington, DC (no team name mentioned here), we set up a huge tailgating spread. We set up a big tent, I bring the crock pot full of wings, the blender, the neon "bar open" sign and yes, even a big electric fan to keep the flies and bees away. It also works great on low speed in the back of my Explorer to pump the interior heat out to us standing behind the car. ALL of these devices (and then some, like a TV for pregame stuff) are handled by the converter just fine. I even have a portable icemaker (Iceman by Windchaser Products 800-405-2943) that pumps out a full tray of cubes every 6 minutes to keep the blender going. We do a bit of camping and my wife considers camping to be a hotel that doesn't have room service, so when I bought the converter, I made sure to buy one that would support her hair dryer. It does it just fine. We even provided power to an adjacent camping neighbor for their camper with no problem. Just keep one VERY IMPORTANT THING in mind. These things use a ton of battery power, so if you are going to permanently install it, use welding cable (mine is wired with #2AWG)connected directly to the battery, not the fuse block. Also, invest in a deep-cycle battery. I also use a heavy duty relay rated at 100 amps to turn the power on and off through a small dash-mount switch. Lastly, make sure you control the relay through a "switched" power circuit in the car so it only works when the car's ignition is on. I have killed my battery many times by forgetting to turn it off when the game starts. Let me tell you that it's pretty embarassing when the party tent at the football game needs a jump start. As you can tell, I am a huge fan of these marvels of technology....I use mine for everything; long trips with my kid in the car and his video games to my wife's hair dryer. Buy a good-sized one, wire it right and you will wonder what you did without it!

ev607797 is right about proper feed cable sizing, every application is a little different so if you want to be sure your sizing your feed properly use the the 3% voltage drop rule https://www.sailnet.com/collections/articles/index.cfm?articleid=caseyd032 will be of a help and be sure for safetys sake fuse within 9 inches of the battery termination. The inverter manufacturer will tell you what size fuse youll need. good luck

My litttle 300 watt unit plugged into the lighter works great. I use the GPS in my laptop all the time. Lots of times I will leave it on when I'm on a service call, and it has no effect on my battery.

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fingerlakestelecom.net

Yes, I know what you mean. My total cable length is only about ten feet and I used cable, not the frame ground for the negative connection. I also used a 100 amp flat fuse in a nice clear holder right next to the battery on the side wall. I used hypress type crimp on lugs rated for 600 VAC to ensure against vibration loosening, etc. I have monitored all cables and connections even when running at peak output and the #2 copper seems to be fine. Thanks for the input!

I have a 350 but its just not enough. It overloads with just the laptop plugged in. I do like the idea but just need more power. Saw a 700w the other day on sale for 159.99 think thats the way I'm going next. And as far a battery problems F250 SD Diesel has 2 so no problems.

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ssimpson@oneringtelecom.com Need a Telrad Programmer Kit? Telrad Programmer Kits

[This message has been edited by SSPhone (edited April 19, 2005).]

been trying to convince my wife to let me buy one. I have my eye on a nice one, it's about $27,000. A bit pricey, but if you buy it, they throw in a Free 2005 Tacoma truck