to those of you who have power inverters in your max, what size did you decide to get? Best buy has a 400W continuous load (Vector brand) for $70, I was wondering if that was a decent price.

 

no one here has a laptop or video game console hooked up in their car?

 

Oh well.. I just ordered a Xantrex XPower 400 from amazon for $40 w/free shipping if anyone cares. 320W continuous so it will handle a desktop computer if needed.

 

Hmm, I have a Vector 400W continuous inverter that I've been meaning to install. Hopefully, I will get to it this summer.

 

i got one from canadian tire called "ELIMINATOR" it was 400W for 60 bucks

btw if your running a desktop pc id get the 400W cuz it will blow fuses or burn out your PC :/

 

he will be fine. as long as the power invertor can handle the AMPs that the cpu will draw. Which isn't much considering modern PC power supplies are 300watts to 400watts. But see the computer does not use that much power all the time. I even bet it won't reach that level ,unless he's overclocking. His power invertor is max at 400watts which is 3.3 amps. Continuous power is 320 which is 2.6 amps.

So I am saying he will be fine with what he has.
You look at the AMPs being drawn not the wattage. to find out how much amps you'll get the formula is Watts/120 = amps.

BTW I'm running a 750 watt invertor powering CPU and Xbox.

 

Just to note, I have a 175W Vector inverter (probably more than the capacity of the cig. lighter fuse) which I used to use in my old car with a laptop for playing MP3s. The inverter is nice, however below 25-30F it will not operate (until it's warmed up)

 

hmm, thanks for the replies. the cigarette lighter plug should be able to handle up to 400W continuous, but it's always a good idea to hardwire it to the battery with say, 8ga wire because you're limited to the cigarette lighter's wire which is only 14ga at most.