12v Inverter

Power inverters are a great way to power electrical devices in a time of emergency such as a power outage at your home or when other power sources just aren’t available like on a camping trip.  As long as you have a running vehicle and a power inverter you can harness the energy from your vehicle battery into AC power which can be used to power most standard electronic devices.  A 12v power inverter can be extremely useful during camping trips or when you want to use electronic devices in the car while you are a passenger.

A 12 volt power inverter usually has an adapter that will plug directly into your car power source located on the dash.  Often times this doubles as the cigarette lighter.  The inverter itself plugs into this port and you can then plug your devices into the inverter which will output standard AC electricity.  The downfall of this is that you can only run devices which use about 100 watts of power or less.  A 100 watt power inverter will be enough to power smaller devices like cell phones and laptops.

There are several things you want to look at when buying a 12v car power inverter.  It is not recommended that you buy a cheap one because they can easily fail and leave you in a bad situation if you are relying on it to charge a cell phone or something of that nature in an emergency.  Sometimes a cheap inverter failing can even damage your electronic devices connected to it.  Make sure the inverter you buy has a fail-safe.  The fail-safe is a fuse that will blow if the voltage becomes too high.  By blowing the fuse it will protect the complex circuitry of the device.  You should also make sure this fuse is easily replaceable.  A good inverter will also have a built in fan to keep the unit cool and prevent failure due to heat.  Also make sure that the no load draw is very low.  This means that when there is no load connected to the inverter it will not draw much power.  Some inverters even have zero no load draw.