The other issue is that a non deep cycle battery does not like to be charged and discharged. It will shorten the life of the battery. You may want to consider dropping some money on a deep cycle battery and charging it and not the car battery.
Using inverter to charge battery!
- Thread starter charlie999
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I have a 7 year old Vector VECO60 175W power inverter I plug into either my cigarette or power outlet on my 1997 Nissan Pathfinder. I drive around in the boonies in the Colorado mountains and plains and have charged my P3 batteries numerous times with the P3P charger. Charges in the same amount of time as if I had plugged the charger in the wall. Never a hiccup and never drained my car battery since I charge while I drive.
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Leaving the car in idle is better than being off, but may not be good enough. At idle speed it only generates a low power output form alternator.
If the power it puts is less than the power consumed, the battery of the car would still be discharging.
Overall, there are many factors in play:
The quality of your car battery, how well it holds its charge;
The amount of charge available in the car battery;
The alternator specs at idle;
The charging time required to charge your phantom battery;
The amount of power consumed while charging;
But there is another way of looking at it. A phantom 3 battery has a capacity of 4480 mah, or round to 4.5 Ah. If it was fully empty, and it would charge at 80% efficiency, we would need 5.625 Ah, or an energy of 5.625x 15.2 =85.5 Wh. A typical car battery has 85 Ah or 1020 Wh. If you only charged one phantom battery, you would be depleting 8.3% of its energy, which is not insignificant, however not something that would prevent your car from starting. Of course if your battery was not full to begin with, this added consumption could cause an issue.
If the power it puts is less than the power consumed, the battery of the car would still be discharging.
Overall, there are many factors in play:
The quality of your car battery, how well it holds its charge;
The amount of charge available in the car battery;
The alternator specs at idle;
The charging time required to charge your phantom battery;
The amount of power consumed while charging;
But there is another way of looking at it. A phantom 3 battery has a capacity of 4480 mah, or round to 4.5 Ah. If it was fully empty, and it would charge at 80% efficiency, we would need 5.625 Ah, or an energy of 5.625x 15.2 =85.5 Wh. A typical car battery has 85 Ah or 1020 Wh. If you only charged one phantom battery, you would be depleting 8.3% of its energy, which is not insignificant, however not something that would prevent your car from starting. Of course if your battery was not full to begin with, this added consumption could cause an issue.
A healthy battery should be a given. Allowing for draw down conditions while also reducing your power, radio off, A/C off, lights off, other systems off that would place a drain on the electrical system, all of these things will see an inverter be much more successful without killing the main vehicle battery.
If there is ANY question as to the ability of the battery to hold a charge, then keeping the RPM's up to 2000 to 2500 will see the Alternator able to keep the battery charged as long as no load is placed on the battery by using headlights and such. Keeping the inverter going isn't difficult even for a used battery as long as these things are kept in mind. Zero load with RPM's will see the alternator able to keep up with the draw and it only requires 10 minutes per hour of engine running to keep the vehicle battery charged in my experience.
Great post BenDronePilot. I have conlsidered using a 57w charger to be on the safe side as car cigarette-light fuses are not very robust.
Is it a Sealey by any chance? Just been charging with mine all day for the first time, worked flawlessly. I was too nervous to leave it without the engine running, so I kept the car running to charge one battery while flying a second battery.
Make sure you are using a pure sine inverter and it should be fine. My socket is rated as 140w, ran the 100w charger just fine.
I charge my Heli batteries in the field. Get a couple of deep cycle batteries and use them. Problem solved with starting the car
When you charge your car battery fully, before left/park your car turn off light, stereo and other electronic equipment that are connected through battery.
I just tried using a marine battery and a Cobra CPI 490 (400 watt) inverter to charge a Phantom battery. The battery doesn't light up or do anything. It'll charge the controller though, but I'm not likely to need to charge that. Will this not work with a Cobra inverter?
Some inverters will work while others wont-- something to do with the sine signal-- whatever that means-- I have one that worked-- 1300 watts-- however-- it shorted out, so I haven't replaced it yet.
You should be ok using the car battery, but there are a lot of unknowns such as how large a batter you have and what shape it is in. Just get one of the emergency car jump starters in case for some reason your car won't start. Or you could probably use the jump start battery to charge a couple of batteries as they have the 12 vote cig plug on them.
Did you try turning the battery on while it's connected? I've tried several different inverters and they all work but if the batteries are above 90% capacity they won't automatically charge. You have to turn them on while they are connected...
I have 3 different inverters.
1 is built into my GM SUV and it works great, but not when ignition is off, it is part of the package in my SUV. No problem at all running with all electric systems going.
I also have 2 stand alone inverters, one made by AntonBauer a very respected video battery company. Another No Name inverter made in Canada it was cheap. The AB will shut down before draining a battery to low to start a car 12.5v I think, the other one will drain a better all the way, could leave you stranded.
Both of these work perfectly either plugged into my wife's Subaru or using my 3 Marine lead acid batteries I use in the field for lots or RC flying. I get about 6-8 charges out of each marine battery, before it is drawn down.
I also have the aftermarket cigarette lighter charger for P3P Lipos, it works great as well, I often use that as well as the AC in my SUV at the same time w/o any problems. I use many other chargers as well with these inverters both for video cameras/lights/monitors as wells RC gear.
1 is built into my GM SUV and it works great, but not when ignition is off, it is part of the package in my SUV. No problem at all running with all electric systems going.
I also have 2 stand alone inverters, one made by AntonBauer a very respected video battery company. Another No Name inverter made in Canada it was cheap. The AB will shut down before draining a battery to low to start a car 12.5v I think, the other one will drain a better all the way, could leave you stranded.
Both of these work perfectly either plugged into my wife's Subaru or using my 3 Marine lead acid batteries I use in the field for lots or RC flying. I get about 6-8 charges out of each marine battery, before it is drawn down.
I also have the aftermarket cigarette lighter charger for P3P Lipos, it works great as well, I often use that as well as the AC in my SUV at the same time w/o any problems. I use many other chargers as well with these inverters both for video cameras/lights/monitors as wells RC gear.
Oh that could be it... I knew it wouldn't charge if it was at 100%, so I drained it to about 90%. Maybe that's not enough! D'oh! I'll go fly it tomorrow to drain it most of the way and give it another go.
I have to check but I think it is 70w (somehow I remember that from the manual or web page) it is a bit slower then the standard AC one.
Link to charger:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010MOYACC?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00
