Has anyone used there 110 plug on their converter. I was thinking of powering a lap top. Do you have to run the truck and if you don't how much does it run down the batteries? Is there anything that prevents you from taking the batteries so far it wont start? I'm cluless.............

 

I have used mine a few times. Very nice. Does not have power when key is off. I used it for laptops and other consumer electronics, and for charging cordless drill batteries. I really like it. It is awesome when on the road.

By the way, from my experience, Ford seems to have a battery protector built in to most all vehicles for years including this one that turns off the power before it can drain the battery too much. I am sure somebody out there knows the specifics,but I have had it save my bacon (or battery) when I left the dome light on and left the truck sit for 2 weeks.

 

I've used it a lot for phones, laptops, battery charging. It works great. Unfortunately, I can't tell you about battery drain on the truck batts. Ive never used it without the motor running.

I use makita Lithium ion batts for my tools and on cheap power inverters the battery charger will not work. They Do work on the ford inverter thoug, so it's decent quality power.

 

I want to use it with the engine off and key on like listening to the radio.

 

It does have power when the key is in accessory mode. If you are powering a laptop or other similar item, it would take a very long time to drain the batteries. If you really want to be an engineering geek you can calucalte the ampere/hour draw and know just how long you can do it for any given device, but practially speaking, a laptop or other device would take a long time to draw down even one of your two batteries.

 

Most 14.1 mid-range laptops use a 65 watt power supply.
Some well built 15.4's with the Intel i7 may come with a 90 watt PSU.
My Latitude D830 uses a 90 watt PSU (19.5v x 4.62 amps) but of course that's max.
Most PSU's aren't 100% efficient anyways.

If my truck has 1,400ah (700 x 2) I would have a max of 303 hours [ish] at 4.62 amps but that doesn't factor in battery quality, powering the truck in accessory mode and leaving enough amps to power the glow plugs and turn over the engine plus other factors.
My laptop could draw 23.1ah at max load within 5 hours.

In other words, it would take awhile as the others mentioned.
What I don't know is the minimum required to start our trucks in cold weather.

 

FYI, the manual says the outlet is rated for 150 watts, and will only operate for 13 minutes at a time in accessory mode, and you will need to cycle the key for longer periods. 12v ports are rated for 180 watts according to the manual.

 

Good find. 13 minutes is a strange limit.
The 12v DC plugs stay powered 24/7 so it would be better to use a small inverter that can power the laptop.

 

Its over my head. It was always hard to find and very expensive to get a 12 v supply to power the laptops. I was thinking the 120 should power more, like power saw or something useful.

 

Just a note here, I see someone pointed out the time limit already. I camp in my truck and when I was on my drive home with it (1300 mile trek) I stopped for the night at a rest stop somewhere in Arkansas I think. I had a fan running on the outlet in the truck and it was a PITA keeping it running with the timer.

I ended up going to a Pilot and picked up a small 300w inverter that plugs in to a cigar plug/12v outlet. No more time issues and it runs with the key off.

I have a 1000w sine wave inverter that I use also, but it isn't permanently installed in the truck. I just have it when I need it.

I agree. Though, it would cost too much I'm sure. If you want to power some tools: 1000w minimum, 1500w OK, 2000w better option. My 1000w inverter will run a 6" bench grinder, jig saw (on low power, it won't crank it very hard), and a drill (drilling works OK except when it gets tough, running screws can get tough).

 

A Sawzall, circular saw, chop saw, etc. tend to top out at 15 amps (so they don't blow residential breakers when they're used). A larger portable contractor's compressor tops out at 20 amps for pretty much the same reason. If you want to use these, the better solution isn't an inverter, even a big one, but a small gasoline generator. Cheaper and more energy efficient.

As pointed out by others, the onboard SD inverter will easily power a notebook charger (or practically any small electronics charger for that matter). You can't power two or three items -- the SD doesn't have a sophisticated regulated inverter so you can damage equipment if you try to plug multiple items into the one outlet or use an extension cord of any length. Also, as far as I can tell it isn't a pure sine wave inverter, which means it tends to have irregular spikes. Those are ok for a lot of uses, but you may want to get a pure sine wave inverter rated at 200 watts or so and use it through the cigarette lighter. Good ones come from Power Inverters and Solar Inverters for Home and Businesses - The Inverter Store at good prices. Amazon also. Expect to pay about $100-150 for one you can trust your expensive electronics to. Just plug it in, or you can wire it into your truck -- it fits nicely in the little hidden center console compartment under the cup holders, with a short pigtail and plug down on the side of the console or in the storage compartment. My notebook stores vertically in the thin map pocket on the side of the console so I just have the pigtail a few inches away.

 

Here's an idea. Fomoco should steal a page from the motor home business and offer an onan diesel or gas (depending on your truck) gen installed on the chassis that eats fuel from the truck tank and can run most electronics as well as provide maybe 3kW of wattage. That would be real nice.

 

Had that on a flat bed 450 CC Lariat. Built up the chassis with a Protech aluminum bed and extensive storage. Basically a F450 Super Duty Lariat done better. And Protech built one large aluminum storage box that contained a marine genset -- small but gave about 3500 watts and was very fuel efficient. Had outlets wired around the flat bed plus a lead to run extension cords. Very nice setup. When you think of what a pickup is and consider how much more you can do with a chassis cab and some good equipment vendors, it offers a great set of alternatives.

 

Well for my laptop I use one of these. It cost $29 when I ordered it through my rep but when you look it up online it's listed at $98 for some reason.

It's a OEM branded Comarco product. I haven't personally had an issue with the tip breaking off, but I have seen users break them.



I also had it work in a pinch with a HP Elitebook which was 19V and had the same connector. It's not supposed to work because the computer is supposed to "authenticate" the PSE.

And yeah for anything else I use the 2500W inverter, but it causes a bit of electrical noise back into the vehicle power system, and affects my radio reception.