Hi, I want to purchase an inverter for my Toyota Carolla to use small appliance's to boil water, heat and cook food. I need to learn about the wattage capacity the inverter will accept and the wattage of the appliance itself. I don't want to blow the electrical system using the 12V in car while connecting to inverter. Some appliances would be Amazons Portable Car/Truck Kettle, Topwit Electric Hot Pot which run off 12v, so I wouldn't need an inverter. But for the larger items like a small refrigerator, Instant Pot or small microwave. These are bigger and would need an inverter. It would be for day trip or camping use. Thanks
boil water, heat and cook food.
not gonna happen. It's a commuter car, not a kitchen.
Get an RV/Camper/Van
I don't know if it's the case here but due to rampant inflation and bad economic conditions more and more people are having to live in their cars. They're even being priced out of mobile homes.
@chucktobias
I'm no stranger to life struggles. Political, economic, you name it. Many that most people will never know.
I have not been spared the rampant inflation. I live it every day too.
This owner says it's for "day trip or camping use", in which case my advice is "don't".
If it's for other purposes, then he should be honest about it. But regardless, my answer would still be "terrible idea. Find another way". It's not worth the effort, and the result is a high chance of disappointment and mechanical problemsin the best case, and electrical fire or injury at worst.
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And I mean honestly ... cooking in a car??? Having food and fumes and wires all over the place ... and fitting a microwave and fridge in a small passenger car?? And running them on a small engine and alternator? This has "wrong" written all over it. Just no.
If you want to run a number of different electrical appliances, you would want to get a "Power Supply" like the ones used for camping. They include a substantial deep discharge batter and an inverter. You can charge it off your car's system, a solar panel or from 110V. Then you can run a variety of things without running your engine or you car battery down. Here's a review (I used one for camping and emergencies - they are very handy.)
https://www.territorysupply.com/portable-power-camping
Hi, This is super helpful in directing me to purchase a portable power unit instead. It will be used for day trips/camping.
I agree with @mmj on this one. The corolla is a small car, with a small battery, and a small alternator.
The topwit you mentioned pulls 250 watts minimum, that exceeds the typical cigarette lighter outlet power of 15amps or 180 watts. At that power it is going to take a long time to boil.
Pulling 250 watts off of a corolla battery would likely drain it completely in just over an hour, unless you ran the car the whole time, which I would not want to demand that much from my car.
The only realistic option to be able to run a setup like that would be having a generator. Even having a huge power station would be sucked down in no time even running 250 watts. I have one with a 26 amp hour battery, it is a big power station, but even it couldn't handle a system boiling water. Even a marine battery at like 120 amps wouldn't last too long.
Exactly . I don't think he has thunk this through.
Simple physics tells you that with only 250W, it would take half an hour to boil a quart of water!
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If you can afford to buy gasoline to run the car, then you can afford to put fuel in a camping stove which is the obvious solution that is cheaper, simpler, and more realistic.
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This whole idea is absurd.
This is super helpful in directing me to purchase a portable power unit
FYI, units like the Jackery in the link don't have enough capacity for what you have in mind. It only has 240 Watt-hours. Things that get hot (hot plates, kettles, etc.) consume huge amounts of power and it'll die quickly. Fridges require huge peaks of current to start the compressor that these units will not provide. I think you need to rethink your strategy. Learn to cook on a fire. If you're bringing your kitchen to the wilderness then you're not camping.
Find out how many watts each appliance consumes and go from there.
watts = amps x volts
