Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
While you are at Pep Boys, pick up some extra fuses for that cigarette lighter socket, because with 5 appliances plugged in, it seems highly likely that sooner or later you'll accidently get more running than the circuit is designed for, and you'll blow the fuse.
Voice of experience speaking...
Hiya OpenD, nice to see you.
I'll stick with the 3 if I can find it, but it's good to have a few fuses anyway. When I get my car serviced this week for the long trip, I'll first ask them where on earth the bloody fuses go!
Yanked these out of the car... anything look familiar?
Thank you E4U. O'Reily & Pep Boys are both walking distance from my home, so I'll go this weekend. Also, out of curiosity, could an adapter with 3 12V power points be plugged into another to get 5 power points? Not that I'd ever do it, I was just wondering how much energy a car battery has.
But, check these out...
I can now live in my car.
Lol nice pizza oven. You could burn up wiring if blow fuses. Are you planning on having all that stuff on and running while you're stopped driving or both? How much does each of those things you want draw in amperage and what is the wattage used in each accessory? You may want to run some heavier duty wiring to the inverter. Maybe 10 even 8 ga wire.
In this months Harbor Freight catalog- 10 inverters from 80 watt cigarette light plug $20. $200 watt with battery clips, 400 watt $28 and 1000 watt to 5000 watt big RV type hard wire inverters.
Nice site, D4, thank you. I'm not comfortable enough to play around with the battery clip models, but I don't see any multi-plug inverters, which plug into the cig lighter. I'll continue to sift through the site... maybe I just missed it.
Lol nice pizza oven. You could burn up wiring if blow fuses. Are you planning on having all that stuff on and running while you're stopped driving or both? How much does each of those things you want draw in amperage and what is the wattage used in each accessory? You may want to run some heavier duty wiring to the inverter. Maybe 10 even 8 ga wire.
Honestly, I'm half tongue-in-cheek & I'd could work with just 2... 1 for the ever-present Garmin & the other either for an MP3/phone charging. It's rare that I charge my phone in the car, but of course, when I need it most (nervously racing (not literally) for an interview) or driving cross country... that's when I'll need a full charge & may not have done it the night before. I also have a MP3 player, which seems to take many hours to charge up at home. When I use it just a few times in the car, it's dead, so I'd like to use it whilst it's plugged in & charging.
Thank you for the calculator. I'll have to google wattage of the electronics I have. That's not my forte & obviously, you can see from my posts that I don't speak electronica.
Probably not a good idea to plug a bunch of stuff in a cigarette lighter. The low power inverters can be used in a cigarette lighter but the big 400W models need to be clamped to the battery terminals.
Just out of curiosity, can the car be driven with the clamps on the battery? I don't need anything that powerful, I think... just the Garmin & phone charging at the same time.
Quote:
Some vehicles will have a cigarette lighter and a spare power port just for extra accessories.
Recently, I found a cig lighter outlet in the back of the car... it's a Honda CRV. I had no idea it was there. I'm guessing that's for campers or perhaps there are coolers/vacuum cleaners which can plug into it? I was hoping they make hot rollers with that kind of plug... I'm imagining that extra 20-min of sleep I'll get, given that I can drive to work with rollers in my hair.
Also, perhaps all I need then, is one of the extensions I saw when searching, to plug into the back of the car?
Not at all what I was looking for, but thanks anyway. Re-read the 1st post for the type of inverter...
I tried searching Amazon, but as I said in the 1st post, had no idea what the inverter was called & tired of pouring through pages of those I didn't need.
If you blow a fuse you are over loading the wiring . do not replace the blown fuse with a bigger one.
If you are demanding greater out put than that outlet can deliver you will need to set up another pair coming from the battery on it's own fuse ,which might be better any way .
Remember too that heavy use can draw the battery down if the engine is not running.
I like to keep jumper pack for travel just in case something goes wrong on the road.
I like to prepare for the unexpected , that way it usually never happens .
I say usually because when it does happen, and I have properly prepared, it's not much of a traumatic event.
Like being able to drop the gas tank and clean it out in the middle of the desert, because the last place we got gas had water and mud in it.
As a mechanic I don't go any where with out tools. Having been in search and rescue I don't venture across country with out my gear.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
O'Reily & Pep Boys are both walking distance from my home, so I'll go this weekend. Also, out of curiosity, could an adapter with 3 12V power points be plugged into another to get 5 power points? Not that I'd ever do it, I was just wondering how much energy a car battery has.
