Club 80-90 Forums

Hi
Not posted for a while, but i read the site every day, Now to the point.
I need an inverter for mi van, lot's on flee bay but i don't trust what they are selling, is it up to the job.
I need to run a laptop, tv, and a pump for a blow up bed.
any help on whitch 1 to buy would be great.
Thank's in advance.

what is the wattage of the pump as that will pull the most? do you want to run em all together?

Check what voltage your TV & laptop actually run at. You might find they only need 12v so stepping the supply up to 240v & back down again is just wasting power. The pump for the air bed will be almost certainly 12v so will plug straight into a ciggie lighter anyway. If your TV or laptop are power hungry and do need to run off an inverter you'll probably find your leisure battrey won't run them for long via an inverter anyway.

billybigspud wrote:what is the wattage of the pump as that will pull the most? do you want to run em all together?

No 1 at a time, i will check my pump tomorrow, what i am after is a recomended inverter that people are using in their van's.
Cheers Phil

BOXY wrote:Check what voltage your TV & laptop actually run at. You might find they only need 12v so stepping the supply up to 240v & back down again is just wasting power. The pump for the air bed will be almost certainly 12v so will plug straight into a ciggie lighter anyway. If your TV or laptop are power hungry and do need to run off an inverter you'll probably find your leisure battrey won't run them for long via an inverter anyway.

Thank's for the advice, I shall check all the item's tomorrow, as you can probably see i am not good with some electical gadget's.
Cheers Phil

Most of the time you are far better of consumption wise to use a step up/step down converter rather than an inverter.

is that not the same thing?

No.
An inverter changes current from dc to ac, a converter changes dc to dc at a different voltage.

Oldiebut goodie wrote:No.
An inverter changes current from dc to ac, a converter changes dc to dc at a different voltage.

i thought that was called a transformer. or is that a giant robot from outer space

Transformer changes AC to AC at a different voltage.

you learn something new every day. you will never guess my occupation, quite embarassing really.

What's a transgender then?

what about a transverter on a conformer.

i run a 600w inverter it runs a colour tv playstation and lappy with no problems, i have 2 leisure batteries now just to increase the time i can use the inverter but can get a couple o days out of one battery, i have one of the lapop dc-dc conveters but i find the plug heats up so god knows what its pulling through my cig lighter socket, i know the socket has a high rating but cig lighters only work for maybe 20 seconds not hours on end