What can I plug into the back of truck?

Well..I am taking the two nieces for a weekend camping trip! We are just going to tent it by a lake and do a little swimming and fishing.What I am wondering is what can my inverter(?) in the truck bed handle?..Can I plug in a kettle to get my morning caffine fix? Should the truck be running?..I was also thinking of bringing a portable flourescent lamp ( a 3 ft tube one I use for work) ..would I be able to use that without running down the battery? Or should I just spring for an electrical site?Can I hear your experiences of using the inverter? Thanks in advance

 

you can use lights, radio, even TV, i dont think a coffee put would work. it will not have enough juice to power anything with 2 stage motors like a saw, drill, air compressor. i think coffee pots kinda a 2 stage or whatever its called

 

bring a perculator,and make a camp fire.

 

400W / 120 VAC = 3.3 Amps. Look on the appliance info tag somewhere to see the watts/amps output. You can do 400W or 3.3 Amps with the engine on and in park/neutral.

 

Thanks,guys..I guess the kettle is out..1000W..well..I may have to find a campfire perc....it's good to know I can use it for other things..the light will come in handy.Thanks for the input!

 

it powered my jigsaw and small shop vac jsut fine. not that either of those are usefull to you in this situation , but that's an idea of the power. i have a ryobi 18 volt powertool set that cam with a really bright flashlight that uses the ryobi rechargable batteries and i charge them up all the time with the truck.

 

Blender for the drinks?

 

Thanks,Colin...but a battery charger won't make me coffee..j/k...Good to know about those other things tho.I just checked the inverter in my work truck..only 600W..damn..should have went full boar with the corporate card and bought a bigger one..lol.

 

FWIW - You can run the inverter at full capacity for over an hour with the truck off before you need to be worried about a dead battery. I used it to plug our pop-up camper in for 3 hours a day while on a 16 day road / camping trip. It provided every bit of power to charge the rv, and from the rv battery, we ran our pump, lights, inverter(for DW's hair dryer...), phone chargers, everything.

 

Hey Colin B17 - The outlet is cool. Just cn't figure out a real reason to use them, I don't think I could let the truck run in idle while charging batteries. Anything else? And how long did that take?

 

Hey Isthatahemi - thanks for your answer. Would you clarify though? I am sure I misunderstood when yo usaid we can run the inverter for an hour with the battery OFF. By inverter you DO mean what charges the outlet in the bed? If so, I thought the truck had to be running to use it? I just want clarification because I'd like to use it sometimes but who wants to let the truck idle, killing fuel. Thanks!

 

I can run a Dremel but it trips the breaker if the cutter bogs down

 

Wanted to bump this cause i was wondering if anyone else used the outlet without the truck running and if so how long?
Thanks

 

The "reserve rating" on the battery in my truck says 165 minutes (that's pretty big actually....) What we really need is the amp/hour rating for the battery. I've found three different formulas:
RC x 0.3 = Amp/hours from http://www.whistlergroup.com/faq-inverters-answers.asp#04
RC x 0.4 = Amp/hours from http://www.speedace.info/car_batteries.htm
(RC/2)+16 = Amp/hours from http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/bat.html

Using these formulas, we have an amp/hour rating of 49.5 to 98.5 amp/hours. I'm more inclined to go with the first or second formula.

Let's take the second formula, which gives us an amp/hour of 66. A general rule of thumb is that an inverter will require 10% of the rated wattage in amps from the battery (400W x 10% = 40, so 40Amps per hour to run 400W continuously). Taking our 66 amp/hours divided by 40 amps is just under 2 hours before the battery is no longer able to run the inverter (66/40 = 1.7 hours.)

As has been mentioned, 400W gives you a maximum of 3.3 to 3.6 Amps at 110/120. Not a lot. A circular saw usually draws close to 15 amps. We'd need a 2500W inverter to run any sort of serious power tool. And of course, the amount of time to run a 2500W inverter goes way down.... (I figure 15 minutes of continuous use before the stock battery is depleted.....)

 

I used a little MR. COFFEE maker (the 4 cup version) on it. Brewed hot water with it and made hot chocolate (with truck running).

 

I could not get power to the outlet in my 2011 TRD offroad with the engine off. The owners manual also says the engine must be running.

 

My 06 lets me run it if the key is in the on position and the button has been pushed in

 

You can run Christmas lights

 

I use mine to inflate a 9' pontoon boat...works great.

 

I went tailgating and used a SMALL george foreman grille... it worked well, but would trip off every once in a while. Made some damn good dogs though