If it plugs into a cigarette ligher in the car, then if you do the math, you will be let down. 15 amps (what most cigarette lighters are fused at) * 14.6 volts (about the max voltage you will have) = 219 watts. Now lets be nice and say 80% efficiency, that gives us 175.2 watts. So you bring up a good often overlooked point, their is no physical way to get what those cheap inverters say they can put out.Originally Posted by jollyeskimo
I had either a 300 or 400 watt inverter which plugs into the cigarette lighter (and just as described above, this is an impossible to achieve number), went to run my laptop, and it could not power my supply (I have a 135 watt power brick for my laptop). Now I know according to the above math, it looks like anything in the 60% or more efficiency range should easily drive this, but if you look at the input, it says 100-240v @ 1.5 amps. So using our 80% efficiency, you do the division of 175.2/110, and you see it only puts out 1.59 amps, which assumes 80% efficiency at 14.6 volts... So you can see how these inverters do not put out nearly what they are rated for, and you do not want to use even half of the rated power.
-Matt



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