Thread: christmas lights

Tweet

I need to light my 51 delivery up for the Christmas parade but need a power source for my lights. I don't have anywhere to put a generator or want to tow one. How much can I plug into an inverter in my cigarette lighter with out blowing my car up. I'm running a 12 volt system with a good new battery. Any suggestions would help.

I don't know how to help you...but be sure an post a pic or two when you get it done! That's gonna be real cute!

You can get power inverters with the capacity for large amounts of wattage. The larger units (under $150) will have the ability to plug in three power cords.

I keep a 700W, 2 plug inverter in my Ranger and it powers a HP deskjet and a laptop computer.

I have a 140w in my city truck that runs my laptop &speakers seems to work fine , i cant imagine cristmas lights pulling that much power

It depends somewhat on the fuse size for the lighter circuit. Let's say its 10 amps on a 12 V system. The maximum steady DC power to the lighter is then 120 W. If the inverter is 95% efficient you could expect to run about 114 W of of it without blowing the fuse.

Be careful about just bumping up the fuse in the lighter circuit as its wiring may not be rated for that steady current. The worst thing that could happen then is a fire which is plenty bad ...............

My 750W inverter cables directly to the battery and has somewhat healthy DC leads ...........

Good Luck, Kitz

How much razzle-dazzle do you want and or need? I use battery operated Christmas lights on my Buick for Christmas cruising. You can get them pretty much anywhere. I have a wreath on the grill wrapped in lights (I hide the battery packs behind the bumper), I put them around the inside of the opera windows and rear windows then run them on the outside of my running boards. They seem to work pretty good and they are fairly inexpensive. The ones I have run off of "C" size batteries.

Have fun however you decide to light'er up!

Greg