Become a Site Supporter and Never see Ads again!

Author Topic: Using power inverter to charge batteries  (Read 5453 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline flphish

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 37
  • Gender: Male
Using power inverter to charge batteries
« on: April 12, 2010, 04:42:30 PM »
Has anyone ever used a power inverter in their car (ala cigarette lighter) to charge batteries? I am going to need to charge a couple of sets of RC battery packs this weekend using a 7.5 hour charger via the inverter. Was wondering if anyone has done so before and had any issues with starting their car?

Offline SmokinJoe

  • Trade Count: (63)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 4210
  • Gender: Male
  • "75 and sunny"... life is so much simpler.
    • uploads to archive.org
Re: Using power inverter to charge batteries
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2010, 10:20:44 PM »
It varies.  If you have a brand new large battery, you stand a good chance.  If you have an 8 year old battery in your car, chances are less.

Below is my experience.  If you are going to do this for one session of 7.5 hours, I think you stand a decent chance of starting the car afterward (depending on the car and battery).  Bring jumper cables and park facing out for good measure.

I brought a spare car battery to a festival with an inverter and charger thinking I could charge DVD player batteries out of the trunk all weekend.  I got 1 DVD battery charged and was part way through a second when the inverter kicked out because the car battery was too dead.  That was a 300 watt inverter with a fan to keep itself cool, and it ate the battery.

At another festival we ran off the car battery and charged about 6 DVD player batteries over the course of 2 days, before the car battery died.  That was a smaller, more efficient inverter.  We did have to get a jump to get the car going again.

Going from  DC > AC > DC again is just inefficient.  Now I have an adapter than will charge DVD player batteries from 12V, with a DC-DC converter, which is more efficient.  I'm expecting better life with that.

Mics: Schoeps MK4 & CMC5's / Gefell M200's & M210's / ADK-TL / DPA4061's
Pres: V3 / ST9100
Decks: Oade Concert Mod R4Pro / R09 / R05
Photo: Nikon D700's, 2.8 Zooms, and Zeiss primes
Playback: Raspberry Pi > Modi2 Uber > Magni2 > HD650

Offline taperj

  • Trade Count: (5)
  • Taperssection Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 917
  • Gender: Male
Re: Using power inverter to charge batteries
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2010, 02:52:28 PM »
At summercamp last year I lugged a car jump starter(car battery with cigarette lighter) which I plugged into an inverter and ran my laptop off of. I returned to my vehicle for a charge each night and it did ok for a couple days until it finally had depleted enough that it was going to take a full day on some real electricity to get it back to full. Definitely ineffficient but in a pinch it pulled through, I got a lot more music taped than I would have otherwise.

J
Rig: Neumann skm184 or Neumann skm140 > Sound Devices Mixpre > Olympus LS-10 or Korg MR-1

Just ask the axis, he knows everything.

 

RSS | Mobile
Page created in 0.046 seconds with 27 queries.
© 2002-2024 Taperssection.com
Powered by SMF