Using car batteries as portable generators

xevioso · Post by **xevioso** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:34 pm

My friend told me that he has used a car battery with a device that connects to the terminals and ends with a car lighter outlet. You can then buy an inverter and hook up a two-prong regular outlet on the other end. He mentioned you can connect the car battery to a regular generator and recharge as necessary.

I was wondering if anyone has done this before. It seems like it would be a great way of lighting anything necessary in a tent for long periods of time, and I wouldnt have to use one of those long extension cables. Not that I need a huge amount of electricty, but it might be nice to have a facn in my tent, among other things.

Bob A · Post by **Bob A** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:07 pm

xevioso wrote:My friend told me that he has used a car battery with a device that connects to the terminals and ends with a car lighter outlet. You can then buy an inverter and hook up a two-prong regular outlet on the other end. He mentioned you can connect the car battery to a regular generator and recharge as necessary.

You can buy an inverter from many warehouse stores for 20 - 40 bucks. Some come with alligator clips that will connect right to the battery no mystery devices or extra connections. Clip to the battery turn it on and plug your ac gadget into the plug on the inverter.

That said, If your are running a lot of stuff or running it for a long time. A car battery is not the best choice. It will work but a deep cycle battery is better you can find them in auto stores wall mart etc. pretty cheap. As for charging it you could plug the battery into a dc circuit of a genny (slow) or buy a battery charger and run that on the ac side of the genny.

Bob A

Tancorix · Post by **Tancorix** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:02 pm

I agree with not using car batteries, you really need to go deep cycle. That being said, why buy new? Here in the midwest I picked up the phone book and found several industrial battery suppliers who had refurbished deep cell batteries....I've never paid over $20 per battery and I've bought 6 of them. Even at Wal-Mart prices I was looking at $60 per battery, so I saved $240 by going with slightly used stuff. For my first year on the playa 2 batteries took care of me with an inverter, a fan, and even an electric blanket. I have a genny now but those batteries will be on their 3rd trip to BM this year...just in case I need them.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:25 pm

http://www.ae-zone.org/

shaunbarney · Post by **shaunbarney** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 10:31 pm

Look into Deep Cycle batteries. These are better for your use. The more ah (Amp Hours) the more power they store. But also the more ah, the heavier, bigger and more expensive the batteries get. Good luck. Also I saw that some one pointed you to the AE Zone site. This is a really good site to look into. They are more into solar and wind to charge their batteries, but the concept is the same.

SB

Post by **actiongrl** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:55 pm

Check it out, just got this : a whole page on this kind of info....

http://www.templetons.com/brad/burn-power.html

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:20 pm

Brad Templeton invented the *dot* btw.

Using car batteries as portable generators

Using car batteries as portable generators

Re: Using car batteries as portable generators