power inverter for batterie charger

paul b

Pedelecer
Apr 20, 2014
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I am a hgv driver and wondered if a cigarette lighter power inverter would be ok for charging my battery pack a currently have a 300/600 watt and would put my batterie in the passenger footwell
 
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Deleted member 4366

Guest
600w at 12v is 60 amps. If you plug your inverter into that socket, you'll probably blow the fusr or melt the wire. An inverter like thay should be wired directly to the battery as close as possible with thick 50 amp wire.
 

paul b

Pedelecer
Apr 20, 2014
56
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Thanks for the reply dave the inverter i bought was from aldis advertised as for cigarette lighter 300 or 600watt but the max power written on my lorry socket says 240 Would the 300watt option be sufficient for a ping battery charger do you know ?
 
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Cyclezee

Guest
We have 12v 2amp smart chargers for Li ion 36v batteries that plug into cigarette lighter sockets.

Aluminium case, fan cooled.
 

haggis

Pedelecer
Aug 3, 2015
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Fife
The size stated for your inverter is the max that it can cope with therefore if for instance you were charging a 36 volt battery at a chargers full capacity of 4 amps that would mean that itwas putting roughly 40 volts x 4 amps into the battery which equals 160 watts. To supp ly that you would need 160 divided by 12 volts,say 15amps to allow for losses.
Therefore thesupply has to be capable of feeding the size of the load plus some losses not the size of the max that the inverter is capable of supplying.
 

Alan Quay

Esteemed Pedelecer
Dec 4, 2012
2,351
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Devon
I'd say that's right on the limit, when you take into account inefficiencies from both the inverter and the charger.

It might work or it might blow the fuse.

I'm not sure I'd want to be pulling 15 amps through a cig lighter socket for long.

If you had a 24v inverter you'd be in a better position, as the current through the socket/trucks wiring would be halved.
 

trex

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 15, 2011
7,703
2,671
that cigarette socket will be OK for a 42V 2A charger.
the 300/600W is the maximum output of the converter, it will only output what is drawn by the charger. If your charger is not a fast charger, you will be OK. Read the label on the charger, you'll see something like max output 42V 2A. Add 15% for conversion loss, you get to the maximum power draw of the charger, typically about 90W-95W. Well within the specs of your cigarette socket (360W on 24V).
 

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