Portable Power Inverter. does anyone know if these are safe for use in your car?

Question

is there a possibility of draining the auto battery if you use your laptop too long?

does anyone have any practical knowledge of these products?

i'd really appreciate some advice.

Answer 1

Many, if not most, power inverters have a built-in low-voltage setting which will warn you or shut off the inverter before your battery is drained too far.  When selecting an inverter, check to see if it has this feature.

Answer 2

If you are going to use it on a regular basis then buy one that has an integral battery charger built in, it will cost a little more but you wont have to install a secondary battery.

Answer 3

Recommendation: Have a mechanic install a second alternator and run the inverter off of that.

Answer 4

Any drawing or usage of current will deplete a battery.

Most are safe to use.

If you can check to see what amount of power your device draws, you can determine what it will take from your battery.

Then after a certain amount of time, you know you will have to start your motor to recharge the battery.

You may also hook up with the lap top company and they can give you some 411 too.

Answer 5

You shouldn't have any problems if you use a reputable device and use it right.

That's my personal experience.

I have recently used something like this

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Modu...

to power a SONY DCR-SR72E digital camcorder with a harddrive on a 600 mile journey to record things like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISOqTaVgr...

I plugged the invertor into a cigarette socket and plugged the 240V camcorder's power adapter into the invertor.

It' didn't affect any car's devices, everything behaved as usual (and I have also powered an iPod with a dedicated iPod dock adapter, original Mazda accessory).

The only thing is to got the switching on and off order right.

Turn the key into On position but do not star yet, wait, till most of the lights go off to have the electricity subsystem stabilized. Start the car. Switch on the lights (if applicable) and only then switch on the invertor. Then switch on the laptop/camera/whatever.....

To switch it off - power off the device. Switch off the invertor. Lights off, engine off.

I only use the 12-240V invertor when the car is moving.

Answer 6

1.) they are safe.

2,) you can but it takes a really long time, you can have a second battery installed with a "battery isolator".  Can be done by anyone who knows about RVs.  The idea is you can drain the second battery, but not the first but the charging system will charge both.  Most probably overkill.

3.) I know a salesman friend who uses his laptop and a cellphone as a modem to stay in touch all day with his home office.  Worked well when I tried it.