Power Invertor - External

Anyone install an extra PI in the back of their truck. Going to build a new drawer system and wondered how I could mount a new one in there. I am a photographer and have a drone. So creating a charging station would be helpful.

 

I saw some guy put one in a toolbox on youtube. Just make sure you fuse the wire you run close to the battery!

 

Good quality wire from the battery to your inverter location (with a fuse/circuit breaker at the battery)
I personally would recommend a battery isolator right behind the fuse/circuit breaker that is tied to a key'd signal. Power inverters can draw lots of power and unless you have a dual battery setup, you'll kill your starting battery pretty fast. For example, the factory 400w inverter pulls over 12 amps when at peak draw. This amount of power draw is enough to drain your battery below cranking voltage in 2-3 hours. And some of these new drone chargers need some serious power. Same with camera battery chargers.

 

How do you get 400 Watts with 12 amps in a 12 volt system? That's only 135-168 Watts according to my physics unless the factory 400W inverter isn't actually 400 watts. Maybe Toyota used the wrong ohms law. Just keep in mind if you use a battery isolator that you're going to lose 0.6-0.7 volts from diode drop on the output of the isloator. So you will burn power on the isloation circuitry, but I'll leave it up to you as far as deciding if you care about that power loss.

 

I have no earthly idea how I typed 12 lol. I meant 33. Which is why I was saying it’s a ton of power!

 

I. Installed a Dewalt 1000w inverter on back wall of my DC that I took seats out of and constructed a carpeted wood rear mounting piece. I mainly use to charge lithium batteries for my cordless air compressor and other tools for various projects. Though I mainly use while running and on the move, this unit has an auto cutout off when the battery is being drained below a certain level.
Used 6ga wire with a 150amp inline fuse with 12" pigtail from battery. Wire/fuse from InvertersR Us.

 

Following. Great info. Thx