Car powered inverter...

[Anonymous]

While looking over various battery back-up type threads I have noticed several people saying that they plan to use an inverter powered by their car to supply back up power. Has anyone actually tested it to see if it works?

I would only want to run one large return pump; and possibly a heater if it is an extended outage.

 

[Anonymous]

Shop around. The inverter I have will easily run a powerhead (7W) or an airpump. I doubt it'll spin a return pump, much less a 150W heater. I think it's a 40W inverter.

Unless you have a generator, whatever backup or emergency plans are probably going to require what I would call "rigging for reduced electrical power." Shut off all but the most crucial of things. Circulation is priority one. Heat isn't as critical--you've got blankets, right? Put 'em to use.

An inverter is handy, but it isn't going to be able to supply the loads that the socket on the wall can. Remember, it's a piece of gear designed to run of that little pip-squeak fuse that your cigarette lighter is on.

Ty

 

[Anonymous]

I want to plan to be able to keep my reef that will have a basement sump alive for several days in the winter. That will require a heater in my neck of the woods and would have to drive the main pump.

Another thing I have wondered is, if you have a inverter that runs of a marine type battery; could you recharge the battery using the jumper cables from the car? Will the battery fully recharge this way and how long does it take?

 

[Anonymous]

Beats me, but I suspect it would recharge it.

Why not shut off the main pump and run a powerhead or two in the display tank and one in the sump?

 

[Anonymous]

thats a possibility, although I would have to then run 2 heaters.

Check out this link- at the top of the page are 2 cigarette lighter inverters, 174 and 400 watt. Directly below that is one with a couple of clips, that I assume I could just attach to my car battery...

http://www.bestdarnparts.com/powerinverters.html

 

[john gallagher]

:lol: a small generator is your best bet. they dont cost that much and you can run a number of things. i have two, one for the house and one fof the reefs. when you live out in the sticks you have a lot of power outages. john gallagher

 

[Anonymous]

Hi John!
I guess this is just a measure of my paranoia, because I actually have a nice small honda generator. But what if it breaks? I need some redundancy here!

 

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing that your return pump will cost you around 150W (a Maxijet 600 is 7W for comparison) since a basement sump would need at least a 15 foot head. A 180Ah marine battery will run that pump for about 10 hours. Add a single 100W heater and that number drops to about 5 hours (lets assume it's winter and it's on all the time).

That's for a honking big battery. It'd suck my Honda Civic dry in half that time again.

You would probably have to turn off pretty much everything to recharge the battery (guessing 2 hours to recharge to at least 90% capacity).

That'd be a tough schedule to keep up with for more than 10 hours.

You and I obviously have different strategies. I would go with powerheads only, and wrap the tank in blankets. I can heat stuff with a campstove (or fireplace or whatever) and drop it in the tank for heat. I would be willing to accept a slow temp drop over a period of several days.

Ty

 

[Anonymous]

Nevermind. Just go out and buy a pair of 5 gallon gas cans and keep them full. :roll:

Ty

 

[Anonymous]

Actually, I also have a woodstove right by the tank and 3 cords of wood right outside the door :lol:

Still thinking about that inverter though....

 

[Anonymous]

A guy who likes to be prepared! Some more ammo may be a good idea too... You can never have too much ammo. . . :lol: j/k

I'd be curious to see how long it would work. I haven't had to try mine out yet (other than the time I drove from Seattle to San Fran w/ 2 coolers full of fish and corals).

Ty

 

[mgk65]

This past winter I was unfortunately able to test my car inverter.

We had a 23 hour power outage. The outside temps were in the 30s. The house temp was dropping. I lit a fire in my wood burner and hooked up my "400w" car inverter. What is not clear is that you cannot use 400w of equipment through the cigarette lighter. It maxes out around 200w. I could run a Iwaki WMD-30RLXT and that was it. If I added a 150w heater, it was too much. I was able to run a 50w heater.

After about 12 hours of that, we went and borrowed my fiance's brother's generator.

I'm planning on getting a generator before the fall is over.

mgk

 

[Sublime-1]

To charge a 2nd battery with your car you'd need a "battery isolator" to make the alternator charge the 2nd Load while still charging your cars battery. By hooking it straight to the battery in your car, all you have is a series load which will #1, probably blow up your 12v inverter by pushing somewhere near 24v to it, and B, probably destroy the power cells in your car batt.


Invest in a used generator from a pawn shop. OR, when the power goes out run to Home Depot and rent one.


--Brad

 

[reefland]

I have a 400w with 800w surge inverter I got new off eBay for $35. Works fantastic. I also use it to play my TV and DVD player in the car on long trips (wife can drive if I have my DVD player!)

It has no problems running a heater and two gemini (960GPH powerheads) on my tank.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a 1300W inverter made by PowerStar in my work truck. It is run from a seperate marine battery with an isolator. During a power outage recently, I ran my return pump, heater and power heads for 3 hours without starting the truck. These inverters are on the higher end and provide very clean power.

 

[reefland]

I have a 1300W inverter made by PowerStar in my work truck. It is run from a seperate marine battery with an isolator. During a power outage recently, I ran my return pump, heater and power heads for 3 hours without starting the truck. These inverters are on the higher end and provide very clean power.

What does something like that cost? And are the larger inverters like that loud? The inverter on my 3000KVA UPS system has a very loud BUZZZZZZ but my inverter for the car is silent.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Reefland,

The PowerStars are around $800 I think. The company also sells used ones. It runs silent except for a small cooling fan, which is quieter than the ones on my canopy. It does have a low voltage warning when the voltage in the battery drops. The inverter is wired to the battery with size 00 stranded cable and can be no longer than 9' long. The outlet side can be wired with romex into a standard outlet which is what I did in my work truck. When the power went out, I just ran a heavy extension cord to a powerstrip.