Seattle Area Meet Saturday, Sept. 25th at noon - Page 3

specsix · 09-28-2004, 12:14 AM

Yeah ...I use a more powerful alternator. Its a Pheonix Gold that puts out about 150 amps continous and 200+ peak. They are expensive, but you do not have to buy a high end one. I see some people just getting a high output GM alternators. Also, a company called Stinger sells them also for specific cars. I use a high output alternator with a battery isolator to seperate the stereo/carputer batteries from the vehicle system batteries. The best way for you to figure it out is to find out how many amps your alternator is and then see what amps your invertor draws. Just do some research first and it might save you a lot of work. You first can just try to get a second battery like an Optima Red or Yellow top.

Yuriy · 09-28-2004, 10:41 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by specsix

Yeah ...I use a more powerful alternator. Its a Pheonix Gold that puts out about 150 amps continous and 200+ peak. They are expensive, but you do not have to buy a high end one. I see some people just getting a high output GM alternators. Also, a company called Stinger sells them also for specific cars. I use a high output alternator with a battery isolator to seperate the stereo/carputer batteries from the vehicle system batteries. The best way for you to figure it out is to find out how many amps your alternator is and then see what amps your invertor draws. Just do some research first and it might save you a lot of work. You first can just try to get a second battery like an Optima Red or Yellow top.

That sounds complicated. At least I know I should now wait and do some reading before buying an amp. Could my problem be due to the fact that I'm drawing power from the cigarette lighter socket? I heard that those things only support up to 120W, while my inverter is a 140W one and I have reasons to beleive I'm pushing it to its limits. Do you think I should try hard-wiring the thing to the car's battery and put some switches and fuses?

specsix · 09-28-2004, 12:53 PM

Well your cigarette lighter is simply just a 12v positive and shares the same wattage as the rest of your electrical system. I wouldn't be too concerned about the wattage on your inverter, but I would worry about how many amps it draws. I know you need to know the wattage for the computer, but if your charging system is not putting out enough amps for your stereo and computer equipment, that would be a bigger problem.

Hard wiring would be a good idea because your cigarette lighter is probably only 20 amps or something. Just find out how many amps your inverter draws and get fuse that big. If the inverter already has a fuse, then just run a wire straight to the battery. I would go with 8 gauge.

Jake

Yuriy · 09-28-2004, 05:01 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by specsix

Well your cigarette lighter is simply just a 12v positive and shares the same wattage as the rest of your electrical system. I wouldn't be too concerned about the wattage on your inverter, but I would worry about how many amps it draws. I know you need to know the wattage for the computer, but if your charging system is not putting out enough amps for your stereo and computer equipment, that would be a bigger problem.

Hard wiring would be a good idea because your cigarette lighter is probably only 20 amps or something. Just find out how many amps your inverter draws and get fuse that big. If the inverter already has a fuse, then just ran a wire straight to the battery. I would go with 8 gauge.

Jake

Oh, now it makes sense

Thanks, I'll check it out.
I'm fairly confident that my alternator provides enough juice to power an ancient laptop system and some smaller devices like radar and a Pocket PC. Sometimes, however, the laptop may stop receiving power for brief moments when I try and open all four windows simultaneously, or turn on my headlights and the fans to high. But that's only for a second and then the inverter picks up again. That is no use for me because the computer is already frozen by then. By standby battery is just that - for standbys. It is not capable of running the entire system for even a second. If I ever wanted to survive a crank, I would have to turn off the monitor and the hard drives (and I can do that). Sometimes I am able to survive a crank without the laptop freezing. This is confusing, but now I beleive it's the lighter socket that makes my inverter think that the main battery is low on power.
Anyways, thanks for your advice, I'll make sure to look into it as soon as I get some spare time