Looking for a basic 12 v DC to 120v AC inverter. What kind of power limit is there to a car outlet vs direct battery hookup? I would be looking to run a 50' extension cable and operate small things like air mattress pumps, maybe a laptop.
Looking for a basic 12 v DC to 120v AC inverter. What kind of power limit is there to a car outlet vs direct battery hookup? I would be looking to run a 50' extension cable and operate small things like air mattress pumps, maybe a laptop.
If it doesn't blow your cig lighter fuse, it's not too much to run through there. Most cig lighter fuses are 15A @ 12V which works out to 180W. A 70W inverter will run most laptops.
I run a laptop off of the HF plug in the lighter socket inverters. Very handy gizmos. For more than 100 watts, you want something hooked directly to the battery. That's around 10 amps on the 12V side, give or take.
Just remember, there is approximately 10 times the current on the DC input vs. the AC output, so the DC cables should be as short as possible. If you need 50 feet, use an AC extension cable.
I've powered a laptop on a plugin power inverter like this:
And on a larger inverter that had dual plugs and USB connections. No problems to the car or the inverter. Hell, I once ran a guitar amp off of one. It was electrically noisy but did the job.
Laptops/Computers use DC. You can get DC air pumps too. Skip the double conversion if you can. But are either of these options actually cheaper? Probably not since an inverter can be purchased pretty cheaply and is a multitasker. Just thought that you should know about system inefficiencies.
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