AC inverter from Gold mount batteries solution?

[Bryan Fowler]

It would be great to be able to use a gold mount battery to power a small 100-150watt AC inverter.

Is there already a solution out there for this? Just to run small things like a laptop, or tiny fan, etc?

[Ed Conley]

they exist

https://tethertools.com/blog/what-is-a-d-tap-battery/

 

 

[Ed Conley]

https://savageuniversal.com/products/tech-accessories/gold-mount-power-voltage-inverter/

[Phil Rhodes]

It's not really a solution, particularly, it's just a cable.

One thing to be aware of is that 100 to 150 watts represents quite a lot of current at the sort of voltages output by camera batteries. If the battery is at any less than 15 volts, which it very soon will be under these sorts of circumstances, 150W represents more than ten amps. Many camera batteries are internally fused at 10A, and there's a distinct possibility of blowing those fuses with a 150W inverter fully loaded.

Also, a lot of inverters are supplied with those rather inadequate connectors designed to fit car cigarette lighters. They're tremendously unreliable, but worse, I have seen at least two instances of 250W inverters running 150W loads melting those connectors to the point of creating a cloud of smoke, so any reasonable solution to this requires better engineering.  High-quality XLR connectors tend also to be rated at no more than 10A.

I've re-terminated all of my inverters using Anderson Powerpole connectors which are widely used in automotive applications, and made adapters to suit various film and TV industry batteries and connectors. Even the smallest of them is rated to handle fifty amps, which comfortably handles most small inverters that would be used for portable equipment.

That doesn't alleviate the battery problem, of course, and mostly I've used large wet-cell lead-acid batteries, leisure batteries, for that sort of thing. This ends up being massively less expensive than camera batteries, if much bigger and heavier and slower to charge. Still, if you really do want more than 100 watts or so from camera batteries, either get the very big camera batteries or look for an inverter in the 24v range which will tolerate two more conventional batteries in series, for higher voltage, and thus lower current. Bear in mind, in that case, that lithium-ion camera batteries typically measure up to 18V each fully charged, so the inverter needs to be able to handle up to perhaps 36V. Check the documentation.

 

[Bryan Fowler]

Great Options Ed. Thanks for that.

And yes, realized after the fact that I should have said 100w max for my 12A batteries. But it's ideally for charging a laptop, which I think mine is a 60w power inverter.  (I do realize it's converting DC to AC then back to DC... I wonder if there is a way to direct charge a laptop?) Although I can see powering a small 45W fan I have for the summer months of hell.

[Ed Conley]

18 hours ago, Bryan Fowler said:

Great Options Ed. Thanks for that.

And yes, realized after the fact that I should have said 100w max for my 12A batteries. But it's ideally for charging a laptop, which I think mine is a 60w power inverter.  (I do realize it's converting DC to AC then back to DC... I wonder if there is a way to direct charge a laptop?) Although I can see powering a small 45W fan I have for the summer months of hell.

https://tethertools.com/product/onsite-d-tap-to-usb-c-pd-adapter/