Inverter 12Vto 240v 300w Belkin £15.26 inc VAT

Premier_2

Good point Rufus!

My car is fitted with a 15A fuse, but that covers the Interior lights, Radio and clock as well as the cigarette lighter.

mike_paterson

RufusA wrote:

PROVIDED your car cigarette lighter can handle that. Most cigarette lighters are fitted with 10 or 15A fuses.

15 * 12 = 180W less a bit for the power loss of inverting. So if you try and draw more than 150W off it, you are liable to blow a fuse (or two). Fine for a laptop though!

You could rewire the cigarette lighter so that it draws directly from the battery with sufficiently heavy duty wiring/fuse. Not something for the feint hearted.

Also worth considering how efficient it is to convert 12V DC to 230V AC to plug in a transformer to charge a DC device. DC->AC->DC

A better option may be to look at buying an iGo Everywhere power i.e.

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=118661

Expansys regularly have this on their TodayOnly section for half price.

HTH - Rufus.

Yes Valid points thanks.
I just covered it very basically.

Pulse

Although we should say that if you are going to use this, then please check what amp fuse your cigarette lighter has, otherwise you might come into trouble. As only the 15a was detailed, you should also think about the 10a, for another example:

If it was 10(a) x 12(v), you are getting 120w max, with some loss with the inverting, so you're looking at 100w-ish.

gromituk

Regardless of what fuse is fitted, there is no way that a car cigarette lighter socket can be trusted handle 25 amps. I don't understand how they (Belkin - not Morgan who are merely regurgitating Belkin's text) can get away with claiming that it is 300W, when it has a cigarette lighter plug fitted. The only way you'd be able to get power easily is by crocodile clips straight to the car battery.

Pulse

Gromit, so you are saying that pretty much nothing can be used on the product then, or are you saying big draining products cannot be used on it? You will need to clarify your point for those people who simply have a car, and just want to use this product.

gromituk

OK. No, I'm saying that you can use a lot of things on it, but nothing that consumes more than the amount your cigarette lighter socket can supply, minus the inefficiencies of the inverter itself.

You could look in your car's manual to find out what the recommended maximum output current of the cigarette lighter socket is, although they may say it's only to be used for its intended purpose - the cigarette lighter.

As a rough finger-in-the-air guess, I'd say that you ought to be able to use it with appliances rated up to about 100W, which covers most of the things you'd want to use it with: laptops, video cameras, etc. If you are competent to do so, there's nothing stopping you chopping off the cigarette lighter plug and fitting more suitable connectors.

DO NOT, as some stupid reviewer on Amazon is suggesting, increase the value of the fuse that protects the cigarette lighter. If you do, you could well set your car's wiring loom on fire. As well as being very dangerous, this could easily write off your car.

gromituk

Another thing to note is that you can't expect to run a laptop for hours off a car battery without flattening it. You would generally need the engine running.

Pulse

That clears it up a bit better, although I knew where you were coming from anyway.
Like I said above, it's probably best to not be looking at anything over 100w for safety purposes more than anything, but as shown earlier, it would be sufficient for a laptop etc, so there are no worries there.
You may run into troubles if you do use this product and in the manual, like you've said, it says 'only suitable for the intended purpose' or something similar, then you will be in trouble if the car catches on fire because of this, then your insurance wont pay out (and they will use any reason not to!) - Of course this is just speculation, and extreme, so is unlikely to happen, but always something to bear in mind.

As for running your battery down... If you're stupid enough to think something can run off a car battery for too long without it dying, you're... more than a bit silly.

gromituk

You have to remember in this game that there's one born every minute! In fact, I've just talked to Belkin about it, and initially the person said that the cigarette lighter plug is not an issue because 300W is the output power - an awful lot of people don't understand things as basic as conservation of energy.

Belkin told me that in fact this device is only rated at 140W - 300W is the peak output value. So, their and hence Morgan's specs are simply wrong.

Moreover, I guess that this peak power is limited by heating effects in the inverter, meaning that you could run it at 300W for far longer than it would take the fuse in your car to blow. So in practice, this 300W is only an instantaneous peak.

However.... this doesn't change the fact that the device is still suitable for most of the things people here want to use it for, and I agree that it is still good value for money.

seth

The power rating of 300w is correct and this is the peak, the sustain able load is 140w. This is due to the nature of AC power the RMS power quoted on hifi works that same way it is Power RMS, these units are fine for Laptops.

Do not buy a 100w unit this IS NOT SAFER it will be rated at around 55w and will overheat, the thermal cut out on the unit will cut it.

I'm chip designer and also design car engine management systems so can speak with some knowledge about this.

If you want an inverter for a laptop get one of at lest 300w. You will have no problems with fuses on modern cars (<7 years old).

NEVER REPLACE ANY FUSE WITH A HIGHER VALUE ONE.

This can cause fires and melt the wiring loom as has been pointed out. If the fuse blows it is doing its job, replace with the SAME type of fuse only!

With low batteries most unit !!!! down when the volatage from the car fall below crank value (needed to start the engine) this is to leave enough power to start the engine should you leave somthing plugged in