Battery charging in car through an inverter
- Thread starter Ilmakuvausorg
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Anyone take a spare car battery with them to charge inspire batts out on location?
Is this viable or does the battery need to be hooked up to a running vehicle?
By leisure battery you mean a spare car battery not hooked up to vehicle in use used only to charge inspire batts?
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Hi, no leisure batteries are different in design to ordinary car batteries (which are designed for very short high current burst discharge). Leisure batteries are used in boats and caravans etc and are designed to slowly discharge over a defined period depending on their capacity. Have a word at a local outlet and they should be able to advise you on which size to purchase. Hope this helps?
You would be better off simply running the car for a few minutes. With the car running, the battery voltage will be around 14 volts. With the car off, the battery will be 12.6 tops, and fall from there. Inverters vary, but most will quit below 12.0. It won't take very long for your inverter to shut off, due to low voltage. Most are spec'd to run from 13.8 Volts. Also an 80 AmpHour battery weighs in excess of 50 Lbs. Not something I would really want to carry around.
Hey moose, just got a few more tb47's And yes the wall wart seems to be screaming hot. Only charging batts, not rc, but still seems like don't put the charger on the carpet... I will grab my thermal cam and see what the temps are but yikes, potential point of failure. Re my earlier post about the true sine vs modified square wave inverters - the mod square waves produce way more heat in the wall warts while charging, I will be sticking to mains power or true sine inverter... Cheers
I wonder if 450 Watts is enough? I might run an under dash cigarette lighter plug dash direct to the battery with large wire with a 20 amp or larger fuse. It would be easy to install, but then how much wattage on the Sine Wave inverter do you really need?
The Limiting factor is the cigarette lighter plug itself. Most can only handle 10 amps. If you think you will need more than 100 Watts, the inverter should be hard wired into the vehicle with at least 10 gauge wire. Direct to the battery fused properly of course, is best.
Your 450 will probably work just fine. You just need to make sure you never connect more than one charger. IOW, limit your use to 100 watts max.
How is the BESTEK Dual 110V AC 300W power inverter? I found it on amazon and it has good reviews for $26.99
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I have a higher power inverter I use in the field. Powered 4 DJI chargers, two 2a USB chargers and a 27" flat screen for proofing.
http://www.wagan.com/wagan-tech/power-inverters/pure-sine-wave/elite-700w-pro.html
http://www.wagan.com/wagan-tech/power-inverters/pure-sine-wave/elite-700w-pro.html
I bought this one and it is not working with my inspire charger. This is the 3rd inverter I have purchased. Im starting to think that my trucks cigarette lighters are not cutting it. They say 120 watt, and 12 volts...any ideas why this isnt working? Thanks.
Most inverters have a "standby" mode meaning they just idle until something is connected. The better inverters have selectable search mode ie 5watts, 10 watts etc so they send out a little pulse every second or so to see if there is a load. Perhaps the charger is not able to provide this signal to the inverter? Try plugging in a small load, verifying it is working then plug in the charger...
Cheers
Tom
120watts is a little small for this application as well, get at least a 250 watt or better and read the posts regarding true sine vs modified square wave output
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