Hi all, I would like to fit a inverter in the cab, the problem I have is the company I work for will not allow wires direct to the battery this is because I load out of lots of different refinerys so they have put a ban on any of us using this method, would it be worth me buying a 24volt-600 watt inverter that I can plug into the 24 volt socket in the cab, doing it this way I know I’m limited to what I can operate with this small wattage.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated
What are you planning to run off it exactly?
robroy:
What are you planning to run off it exactly?
I think the biggest appliance would be a kettle or a toaster other than that it would be my tablet and phone the usual day to day things
Four things I would consider before even thinking about running an inverter off the cig lighter:
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The rating of the cig lighter socket. The highest I’ve seen so far is 15 amps (there might be higher ones) so that means the max wattage is 300W at 24v.
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The wattage of what you want to run. A toaster just isn’t going to work as those are 1000W often so would melt everything! Don’t bother with most 24v ones or kettles or toastie makers as they are too under powered.
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Whether you’re running basic electric stuff or things like laptops. Simple stuff can run off a “modified sine wave” unit which are cheaper, but laptops and other fancy electronics really needs “pure sine wave”.
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What’s the peak and continuous power of the inverter. Peak is the max fraction of a second blast from some items, eg: kettles, but must be a very short blast. The continuous is what it can cope with in theory all the time. However, most makers recommend not getting too close to the max all the time as it could make it very hot, so a 300W unit should maybe run at 200W or even 150 as standard. Oh and for microwaves look for the actual total wattage, not the one on the front of the unit, eg: a 600W microwave will probably use 1200W power.
Edit: If you’ve got the anderson option as mentioned in the previous post, I guess that’d work as long as you’re careful (don’t know enough about them). However I wonder if this would be banned or maybe only on the actual sites?
I bought a 24v 150w inverter from maplins last week. All I intended to use it for was to charge my laptop up which uses a 45w charger.
It lasted for 1 charge cycle and is now dead. Taking it back tomorrow.
danch4:
robroy:
What are you planning to run off it exactly?I think the biggest appliance would be a kettle or a toaster other than that it would be my tablet and phone the usual day to day things
You won’t be able to run s kettle or toaster off a 600w inverter!
trevHCS:
Four things I would consider before even thinking about running an inverter off the cig lighter:
The rating of the cig lighter socket. The highest I’ve seen so far is 15 amps (there might be higher ones) so that means the max wattage is 300W at 24v.
The wattage of what you want to run. A toaster just isn’t going to work as those are 1000W often so would melt everything! Don’t bother with most 24v ones or kettles or toastie makers as they are too under powered.
Whether you’re running basic electric stuff or things like laptops. Simple stuff can run off a “modified sine wave” unit which are cheaper, but laptops and other fancy electronics really needs “pure sine wave”.
What’s the peak and continuous power of the inverter. Peak is the max fraction of a second blast from some items, eg: kettles, but must be a very short blast. The continuous is what it can cope with in theory all the time. However, most makers recommend not getting too close to the max all the time as it could make it very hot, so a 300W unit should maybe run at 200W or even 150 as standard. Oh and for microwaves look for the actual total wattage, not the one on the front of the unit, eg: a 600W microwave will probably use 1200W power.
Edit: If you’ve got the anderson option as mentioned in the previous post, I guess that’d work as long as you’re careful (don’t know enough about them). However I wonder if this would be banned or maybe only on the actual sites?
Thanks for the advice, it’s all tank work I do so I don’t have the Anderson connection, I think I will just put it to the back of my mind and work with what I have, I appreciate your advice though
fingermissing:
Have you tried one of these.
Thanks for that but I would not get away with the Anderson Leads if I was caught with them n the cab they would know what I was doing, but thanks for your help
Terry T:
I bought a 24v 150w inverter from maplins last week. All I intended to use it for was to charge my laptop up which uses a 45w charger.It lasted for 1 charge cycle and is now dead. Taking it back tomorrow.
Thanks for the advice, I’m just going to leave it as it seems more trouble than it’s worth,
I hope you get your refund from Maplin without any problems, thanks again
Just out of interest if you could wire one directly to the battery what inverter would you need and what are the type of items you could run off it?
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If you can wire it in then buy one with the appropriate permanent connectors (screw on) not crocodile clips and buy as big as you can get, eg: 3000W. Just make sure it’s a decent quality one, not a cheapo one from Ebay and get someone who really knows what they’re doing to fit it so things stay cool.
I use two 400w inverters plugged into two separate 12v sockets.
danch4:
Hi all, I would like to fit a inverter in the cab, the problem I have is the company I work for will not allow wires direct to the battery this is because I load out of lots of different refinerys so they have put a ban on any of us using this method, would it be worth me buying a 24volt-600 watt inverter that I can plug into the 24 volt socket in the cab, doing it this way I know I’m limited to what I can operate with this small wattage.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated
Be very careful if your vehicle is “pet reg” to load out of refinerys, any change to the wiring, or any instalment of electrical equipment need to be approved.
Wiring on ADR vehicles come under a different regulations, and your boss and or you could end up with a bill and a refusal to load or deliver in refineries.
Even a small repair to wiring can make your ADR worthless.
Follow the instructions of your company.
I bought a 300w 24volt inverter two weeks ago from fleabay for £30 to run my laptop,(Through a hella plug) its working perfect for me since, only thing is the fan runs constant when the laptop is plugged in
where as I have a 12v 500w one I bought a few years back off fleabay imported from china and it runs same laptop perfect and the fan never comes on.