NEWB inverter and power questions

**Riverdale** · 11-18-2004, 07:36 PM

First off, i want to say yes i searched for this, and yes i found some stuff, but it was mostly half a dozen one way half the other.

I am going to run my old hp desktop in a custom box in my 96 caprice 9c1.
It is an athlon processor(1ghz), and i will also be running a video card, a sound card, hard drive, and a dvd drive.

As you can guess, my question is about powering it. I would like to go with an inverter and an atx shutdown controller, but have heard some negative stuff on using an inverter. The one I plan on using is the vector like they sell at wal-mart. It will be hard wired to the batery, and i believe the shutdown controller i am looking at will actually disconnect it from the battery when the car is off

Is anyone else running a similiar setup??? Is it working??? You guys that say inverters are bad, list some good reasons please and also some examples.

Also i see people talking about survivng the crank. Does this just mean that the computer stays on without rebooting while the car is cranking. Does that even make a difference if you wait until the car is running to turn on the computer??

Thanks in advance for helping a new guy out with his questions----GREAT FORUM

**hd54321** · 11-18-2004, 07:52 PM

Originally Posted by Riverdale

Also i see people talking about survivng the crank. Does this just mean that the computer stays on without rebooting while the car is cranking.

Yes

Originally Posted by Riverdale

Is anyone else running a similiar setup??? Is it working???

MANY people are running the same exact setup and it's working for them. If you did a search like you said, you would have seen that many of us also use the vector inverter. Some use a coleman, etc. etc.

Originally Posted by Riverdale

You guys that say inverters are bad, list some good reasons please and also some examples.

1. You can run other 120V AC devices off the inverter
2. Since you won't be using a DC power supply, you can also easily unhook the computer from the car and perform maintenance/repairs/upgrades and be able to turn it on at home without having to switch out the power supply
3. It's also cheaper for an inverter when compared to the OPUS 150

Originally Posted by riverdale

Does that even make a difference if you wait until the car is running to turn on the computer??

No, it doesn't make a difference. If you wait until the car is on for a few seconds, voltage should stabilize.

Wow, I answered all your questions without being an *** - but seriously, all these answers could have been found with a few searches. I was a newb as well and utilized the search function to confirm these questions you have. You must repay my time now by posting pics of your setup...

-HD

**Riverdale** · 11-18-2004, 07:58 PM

i appreciate you not rippng me a new one because of the repetitive questions. My point was, that i did search, and when i stated list some good reasons, i was trying to get some of the guys that dont like inverters to give good reasons why not. (my wording was confusing,sorry)

This was because when i searched, all i found were guys saying inverters were bad, but no specifics. I did see all of you out there with inverters that were saying they worked fine, i was just trying to compare

As far as my searches went on surviving the crank, i did find about a milliona rticles using the words--"yes mine survives", or "no mine does not survive". But i didn't ever find the definition of it, so i took a guess and posted to see if that was correct. And i was.

Thanks for taking the time to answer guys, and please know that i did search and found, but i wanted more specific details than what my info had pulled up.---Thanks again

**Tidder** · 11-18-2004, 08:24 PM

If I had the money, I'd get a DC-DC psu. I run a 140watt inverter from radioshack. So far, no problems. Running it a little over 2 years now. I didn't use a shutdown controller, I've built my own out of a cube timer and some relays. Works great, disconnects power from the battery to the inverter and all. The inverter powers itself up after the car is started, it does wait for voltage to steady, which I think most do. Mine does not survive crank, but I don't care. I shut my computer off when my engine's off anyway.