Hi everyone, I'm off to France in June and desperately need advice on inverters that can be charged from a car cigarette lighter.
There seem to be so many on the market that I'm getting a little confused and not sure what I should be looking out for. My requirements are that I can run off a 3-pin 13amp 4-gang extension lead and plug lights or a laptop into it. It would also help if it had a USB port for mobile phone charging.
I bought one a few years back from Halford's only to find that it wouldn't recharge (old shelf stock) so it's made me wary. Any and all advice gratefully received.
Inverters are very power hungry, I would say 150watt is as big as you can go for running of a car fag lighter socket, a 150watt inverter will draw around 10amp as inverters makers always over egg the power rating.
Remember most car 12v outlets are fused at 10amp, although more and more are now 20amp especially for cars that don't carry a spare wheel.
For sensitive electronics it's best to go for a Pure Sign Wave inverter not the cheapy Modified Sine Wave type.
For the laptop, I would use a 12v step up supply, not quite an inverter but will up the 12v to say 22v that the laptop runs of, these type of units often have a selectable voltage output, and adapters to fit the laptop DC socket.
I use one in car for my laptop and 16v satellite meter when on charge.
If you really must go down the inverter route, get something with a decent power rating say 500watt and Pure Sign Wave, of course such an inverter would have to be connected directly to the battery, downside is that run time is limited to battery capacity.
I don't favour inverters at all, probably there best use is when built into a petrol suitcase generator like the Honda EU i200.
Quote: Originally posted by saxo1 on 03/5/2016
Not sure what you mean,inverters don't hold a charge they just convert 12V to 230V they only work when connected to a 12 or 24V battery.
saxo1
Thanks for your prompt reply.
Sorry, needless to say but I'm not at all savvy about this sort of thing and having used one that I bought from Halford's – that once it ran out of juice wouldn't recharge – I've been rather wary of them. I just wanted some independent advice.
Do you mean you are tent camping at a campsite in France? You don't need an inverter you just need a tent mains hookup lead to plug into the campsite ehu. This will give you 3 mains sockets in your tent to plug in lights & charge your devices.
I run the laptop of a 12v laptop adapter, simple device that ups the voltage from 12v to say 22v, the unit has selectable voltage upto around 24v, and comes with the various adapters for the differing laptop DC connection.
iPad's etc can be run of fag lighter USB adapters, the decent ones can do 2amp or more.
I don't find the need for an inverter, as there is usually a work around for low amp mains stuff.
Add to that, the fact that a high power inverter need to be connected directly to the car battery, otherwise the car auxilary 12v socket fuse would blow at 10amp, although many cars are now rated to 20amp.
So I guess the question is, do you really need an inverter, I once did when I needed to run a Sky satellite box from the car, for that I used a £20 150watt Modified Sine Wave inverter, there was no other solution until I got hold of a Sky Mini-Box which was 12v.
I think you are talking about something like this: Maplin Power Pack.
Although the batteries in these things are small - I'm not sure how much life you would get with lights and laptop power supplies running from the inverter. I'd suggest that you want to be looking at an EHU.
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Topic: Inverter
