Whats The Largest Watts, DC-to-AC Inverter Can You Use Via Lighter Socket?

timtim2008

Whats the largest Car/Truck Inverter can you use via lighter socket?

Without adding a 2nd or 3rd battery? without any special mods?

Without adding an additional alternator, etc.. SAFELY?



Is there a forumla on how long it will run too?

When should you just run a seprate wire from batt to inverter?




I'm intrested, because of the nice mods on this topic
re: http://www.contractortalk.com/f5/wiring-inverter-52897/

480sparky

All depends on the fuse size and wire size.

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Teetorbilt

The fuse is usually a 10A. Figure in your conversion loss.

Newer models may have a higher amp rating due to everybody plugging in and more available sockets. Look in the owners manual for the rating and go from there, try not to max it out.

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Brock

Can't answer you specific question but have heard twice that snap-on has the best one on the market. http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item....group_ID=21224



What you wanting to run off it?

mdshunk

About 100-150 watts is the biggest inverter you dare run from a lighter socket.

timtim2008

just want to run about 150/200watts.. (laptop about 50w, and drill chargers) maybe a glue gun and or sodering gun.. every now and then..

Is there a formula to figure how many hours you can run off your battery before it dies?


BTW: thanks for the quick answers.

mdshunk

For battery life, that's tough. What you really want to know is how much you can drain the battery and still have enough to start the vehicle. That answer is all over the map, depending on a whole lot of things.

By the way, I sure wouldn't run a 200 watt inverter on a cigarette lighter socket. Best to hardwire it, and get a Battery Buddy (or another of the many similar knockoffs) if you're concerned about draining the battery.

http://batterybuddy.com/

olyteddy

Yes there is a formula. It's called 'Ohm's Law'. The watts into your inveter will be slightly more than the watts out. However, since the voltage in is 1/10th the output voltage, the input current will be 10 times as much. There are plenty of Ohm's Law Caculators out there. Let me google that for you