Posted: 11/30/2008 5:51:46 PM EDT
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Was wondering the aisles a few weeks back at Wal-Mart and came across apower unit that had a recgargeable battery in it.
said that it could power a number of electronic items such as electric coolers, tv's laptops, etc. etc. and gave basic time frames for some of those items. It was somewhere in the range of $79-$89.00 Of course, when I decide to go back this week to purchase it - I can't find it anywhere and none of the staffers recall what the item was that I tried to describe. Anyone on here that may have purcahsed one of these ot something similar. Can you give me an item number or link to something that may work instead of having a generator Thanks |
I noticed them earlier, in the Wal-Mart sporting goods section ( ). They're made by Schumarcher (the battery charger folks), but are roughly similar to the units that Xantrex makes - Basically consists of an AC power inverter hooked up to a smallish gell-cell rechargeable battery, packaged inside a plastic enclosure with a carrying handle and several AC and DC power outlets on the outside.
This type of unit isn't particularly useful as an alternative to a generator. The battery only has a capacity of around a dozen amp-hours - which means that it won't power small loads for very long, and won't power large loads at all. For example, a 12 amp-hour battery will provide 100 watts of AC power for only about 1 hour before it is completely discharged - at which point you'll need a generator or some other power source to recharge it. AC power inverters are wonderful as a supplement to a generator - They can operate smallish loads during the hours when you don't want to run the generator (i.e., after dark). However, in order to provide any useful amount of power, they require a good-sized battery (or bank of batteries) - many, MANY times larger than what Schumarcher installs in this product. |
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The one they had in the sporting goods section seemed a bit overpriced compared to what they keep in the automotive section.
There are some uses for this sort of thing and since they are small and portable they may make some sense for some uses. I kind of want one but I have an old jump start pack that has a bad battery and I am probably just going to crack its case and use the parts to make a home made setup with a small car battery or something so I get more capacity. I don't really care about portability much, I want it in my vehicle and in my vehicle it shall live. |
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Quoted:
I kind of want one but I have an old jump start pack that has a bad battery and I am probably just going to crack its case and use the parts to make a home made setup with a small car battery or something so I get more capacity. I don't really care about portability much, I want it in my vehicle and in my vehicle it shall live. Your vehicle's existing battery will have a lot more capacity than any portable battery pack - For example, a typical Group 27 size battery has around 110 amp-hours of capacity, compared to just 10 to 20 amp-hours for the typical portable battery. Consequently, it'll run any given AC load for 5 to 10 times as long as a portable battery. With this in mind, I permanently installed a 250 watt AC power inverter (cost: around $30) in my vehicle's engine compartment, connected to the existing battery. When the vehicle's original battery died of old age, I replaced it with a Group 27 Deep-Cycle "Marine/RV" battery - The deep-cycle design will survive many more deep discharges than a conventional battery without sustaining permanent damage. This arrangement makes AC power available whenever the vehicle is parked - just pop the hood, plug an AC extension cord into the inverter, turn it on, and that's it. |
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I don't really want to put the invertor in the engine bay since I want to be able to use it while inside the jeep.
I have not bought anything yet, I am still figuring out what size invertor I want and I will probably buy a deep cycle battery to mount in the back of my jeep. My goal is to have the ability to do a lot of stuff with the invertor over a few days without having to worry about draining the jeep's starting battery. To some extent I am thinking I might get a small invertor, like the 250 watt size you mentioned, and then something a bit larger. Right now I don't know if I would use the larger one but in thinking about it I realized that if I had the power available I probably would use it. This stuff would be useful to have right now but I am finally to the point where I want to do it right the first time so I don't spend a lot of time redoing stuff or buying other stuff later because what I bought the first time around is not doing what I want it to do. |