Car Power Inverter DC 12V - AC 220V Adapter

[Manotea]

Any experience of using this type of kit? Maybe to power a water boiler? Any issues here?

I imagine one would want to have the engine running whilst this was being used so its not necessarily the most efficient solution.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Loads.

I used to use them when I lived on a boat.

There are two main types - pure sine wave and square sine wave. Pure are expensive and only needed if you are running sensitive electronics - sometimes computer printers need them.

A car battery doesn't contain much power, so you do need to be running the engine. It's a really terrible way to heat water - incredibly inefficient.

Most of the portable inverters are pretty low-powered - only 300-500W. With good reason; even a 500W inverter will pull 40A from your battery, when running at full chat. That's a lot of current and you can flatten a starter battery in an hour.  Usually for this sort of power they will need to be connected directly to the battery, not via the cig socket.

A lot of the cheaper inverters don't have a cooling fan and will overheat very rapidly.

[Kim]

Efficiency sucks, waveform sucks, grounding sucks, extremely useful.  

Depending on what you mean by 'water boiler', an appropriately rated inverter will work fine.  A water heater designed to run off 12/24V would be a bit more efficient, of course, but might be unobtanium.  I'm hoping you mean the sort of thing one might dangle in a mug of water to make it hot, rather than an industrial tea urn^[1] or something.  There's a limit to how much current the alternator will supply - a substantial heating load is likely to exceed it.

If you're really serious about making hot water using vehicle power, you might be better off tapping into the engine coolant circuit and running a heat-exchanger.  Or writing it all off as a bad job and using gas like normal people.

Either way, a >300W inverter is an absolutely wonderful thing to own.  It'll run all manner of random electronics in random situations, including power tools^[3].


<sub>[1] I have a long-standing hatred of tea urns.  Apart from obviously not liking tea, they've been my electrical arch nemesis on a number of occasions^[2].

[2] The sort of occasions where you're running a ring main at near its rated load in order to run a lighting/sound rig.  This invariably works fine during rehearsals, and then on the opening night someone plugs an unanticipated tea urn in halfway through the first act and trips the breaker.  With hilarious consequences.

[3] Top tip: It's a good idea to pay attention to grounding when using an inverter to power a soldering iron in order to work on the vehicle's electrics.  Don't ask how I know this.</sub>

[mrcharly-YHT]

I have a 1600W pure sine wave inverter (24V)

[Si_Co]

I have an inverter in the motorhome, very useful for  a varity of things, depends on what you want to do with it.

For boiling water an inverter coupled with a low amp caravan kettle would do the trick, for a 12/24V cup heater check out


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[interzen]

They're handy things to have - just make sure that whichever one you get has a suitable rating to handle the most current-hungry device you plan to use (common sense, really)

I keep a 150W inverter in the car, mainly for charging up the iPad or similar when I'm on the move. Generally, you *will* need to keep the engine running if using it whilst stationary, and I never encountered any battery related problems as a result of doing this.

Think I paid about £25 for mine, although higher ratings and/or units with extra bling will be more expensive.

[Jules]

Not sure if this information is of any use but I've got one of those rechargable car starter things. Mine comes with a tyre inflator, worklight, selection of 12v power outlets and a conventional mains socket for plugging stuff in. If you wanted to keep a charged one of those in your car (for car starting reasons) you'd possibly get away with using the mains socket for boiling small quantities of water and would be able to use this away from the vehicle too.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Very very very small quantities of water.

You'd be lugging multiple kilos of gear around to do something that can be achieved by a couple of hundred grams of gas stove.

[Jules]

Don't get me started about my Coleman Peak-1 - it leaves gas stoves for dead and you can syphon fuel for it  out of the car

[mark]

A gas cartridge stove or alcohol stove (Trangia) will do a much better job of brewing tea, making a bit of soup, etc., with a lot less aggravation than an inverter. Inverters are nice, though, for charging laptops or whatever. I bring mine on camping trips to keep my laptop and kindle running.

I'll see your Peak 1 and raise you an MSR Dragonfly- drowns out nearby jet aircraft, leaves any stove for dead, and I can siphon fuel out of my car or a nearby diesel to run it .

[Jules]

Pretty -  looks a bit delicate though. My Peak 1 is 30 next year and as it cost only £22 new I think I've got my money's worth.

[Valiant]

So what's it for man of tea?

I have a 2000w rms pure sine

It's worth noting the difference between peak and rms wattage from invertors. Always always have the maximum draw you are likey to draw as the rms. The peak should only be there to help with startup initial surges like you get with PCs, TVs etc before they settle into their stride.

[Manotea]

The immediate need relates to powering an industrial tea urn! Or maybe its baby brother for audax control purposes where largish amounts of hot water are required in a short period of time.

I was asking, 'on behalf of a friend'.

But like Kim says, a cheapoid one does look like a useful bit of kit to have about the house..

[Martin]

The immediate need relates to powering an industrial tea urn! Or maybe its baby brother for audax control purposes where largish amounts of hot water required in a short period of time.

I was asking, 'on behalf of a friend'.

so when I don't pitch up at the start; try the local Burns Unit

[Panoramix]

To do this properly you need a small petrol generator but these aren't cheap (£500 mini)

[mrcharly-YHT]

The immediate need relates to powering an industrial tea urn! Or maybe its baby brother for audax control purposes where largish amounts of hot water required in a short period of time.

lol

No way are you going to run one of those from a car battery.

For a 1500W urn, you'll be pulling about 120A. A big car battery is 110Ah - so it would run your urn for less than an hour before being dead dead dead.

Even when running a T urn from mains, it take ages to get water up to boiling point.

You can get gas T-urns run off a big bottle of gas.  I've used one on school trips and wasn't over impressed.
See http://www.ascotwholesale.co.uk/servery_display/water_boilers_catering_urns/burco_bgas_manual_fill_water_boilers_catering_urns_20_litre_%28gas_powered%29_portable_use/cid_2186/pid_2185/

 
Sam, what do you use to feed your 2kW beast?

[Jules]

so when I don't pitch up at the start; try the local Burns Unit

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie 

[andygates]

Sam, what do you use to feed your 2kW beast?

I'm going to guess at a boot full of deep-cycle batteries isolated from the main drive battery: a leisure circuit, in campervan speak. 

(Run a line from the alternator to a relay available from caravan and car-mod shops; the rest of the relay feeds your leisure batteries and a shunt (to prevent overcooking).  Huge fuses and big fat wires everywhere.  Simples!)

Big inverters are not cheap, either.  150w is laptops bobbins; my 500w was regularly disappointing though, as things that run at a couple of hundred watts may take well over that when starting up (CRT TV, I'm looking at you!). 

[mrcharly-YHT]

My big inverter is a multi charger, mains-pass through and inverter. About £1200 worth of machinery. Runs with a 250A fuse  . . . .  The cabling to it is impressive.

I have a baby 300W chopped sine job that's fine for laptops.

I have a powerpack beast I've never installed - supposed to run directly from engine alternator and output pure sine wave 240V AC.

[Panoramix]

For this kind of money you can get this:

Honda Camping Petrol Generators

[Valiant]

Sam, what do you use to feed your 2kW beast?

I'm going to guess at a boot full of deep-cycle batteries isolated from the main drive battery: a leisure circuit, in campervan speak. 

(Run a line from the alternator to a relay available from caravan and car-mod shops; the rest of the relay feeds your leisure batteries and a shunt (to prevent overcooking).  Huge fuses and big fat wires everywhere.  Simples!)

Big inverters are not cheap, either.  150w is laptops bobbins; my 500w was regularly disappointing though, as things that run at a couple of hundred watts may take well over that when starting up (CRT TV, I'm looking at you!). 

I had a bunch of large (400ah) deep cycle batts.


Machine Mart have a bunch of small petrol generators for not very much.

[aidan.f]

For a 1500W urn, you'll be pulling about 120A. A big car battery is 110Ah - so it would run your urn for less than an hour before being dead dead dead.

Even when running a T urn from mains, it take ages to get water up to boiling point.

FWIW batteries stated capacities are  at  a 10  hour discharge, when down to a theoretical hour multiply  by  0.5

[Rorence]

Thanks for your post. The car power inverter DC 12v to AC 110v is the only tool I know. So I'm not familiar about DC 12v to AC 220v. Friend recommend a 300w power inverter to me in last year. The one I got on  is transfer DC 12v to AC 110v, it can meets my need to charge camera and laptop on car.

Text edited to remove likely strip of AstroTurf. Poster being watched..l

[LEE]

A Gas burner (or several) and some big kettles.

Plenty of pop-up food stalls do this. 

Search on "Cast Iron Large Gas LPG Burner Cooker Gas Boiling Ring Restaurant Catering" in Ebay.  Some are very cheap.  Borrow a Calor cyclinder if you don't already have one.

12v Electricity is not the way to go.

[Kim]

To be fair, even at 12V, the OP's kettle will have boiled by now.