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How best to charge Red Bricks from car 12V?

D

David Wilson

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With the 12V lighter cable currently not available, how are folks charging their Red Bricks when only a car 12V system is available?

We will be shooting in some more remote parts of Russia and Georgia where power is not available without a generator but with a car. If I have an inverter rated at 400 watts will I be OK or are there other/better approaches?

Many thanks in advance,
David
 
I would recommend an inverter that plugs into the 12v power for the car, or connects directly to the battery, and then charge the batts off of the 110v coming from the inverter.

Nick
 
Thanks Nick - I think that's the route we need to take. Does anyone know if 400 watts continuous/1200 watts peak should be adequate? I think the charger weighs in at 220 watts.
 
Just to be safe, I'd run something more like 800watts. If you have time, rig cables directly from the battery to inside the car so you can charge while driving, and don't have to worry about blowing the cars fuse. I have charged 4 x AB hytron 120's at once with an 800 watt inverter, any more than that blew the car fuse. If you are using a well used cigarette lighter plug, clean it out very well, wire brush or sand paper, the crud can seriously reduce the amount of volts you can pull, which jacks up the amps, which equals blown fuse.

Nick
 
Most cars have a 10A fuse for the cigarette plug. This means a max of 120W...if you want to use the max capacity of your 400W inverter you need to attach directly to the battery with the clamp leads.
 
Beware that idling a car while charging stuff could kill your battery. The bigger the engine, battery, and alternator the safer you'll be. However, a moving car shouldn't give you any issues if that is what you are looking for.

I had to replace a car battery once before, on a car with a small 4-cylinder 2 liter engine. It had a laptop and external hard drive plugged in for about half a day straight. It cost as much as the rental of a small Honda quiet generator would have and we weren't driving so the generator would have done the trick.
 
digitalfx said:
why?
Click to expand...

Email from RED :
According to our records, you have been delivered one or more 12v CHARGER CABLES (ie, car cigarette lighter adaptor cable). It has come to our attention that a batch of these units is not responding properly to under-voltage scenarios. This condition has been reported to occur when the cable is plugged into the 12v port on the vehicle and the car is started. The result is overheating of the adaptor cable unit. While RED continues to investigate the root cause for this overheating condition, we ask that you immediately discontinue use of this adaptor cable and return it to RED for analysis.

I still owned it and havent send it back yet...i hope RED will remedy this issue
 
I never received this notice...when did you get it?

we have actually never used ours...but its one of those things you only need when you dont have it.
 
In a pinch one time, I used a 75w cigarette lighter type inverter to power the RED battery charger. It worked fine. I think you should be safe with your 400w inverter.
 
Larry McKee said:
In a pinch one time, I used a 75w cigarette lighter type inverter to power the RED battery charger. It worked fine. I think you should be safe with your 400w inverter.
Click to expand...

Now that's an interesting piece of news... Thanks to all for the thoughts and experience.
 
digitalfx said:
I never received this notice...when did you get it?

we have actually never used ours...but its one of those things you only need when you dont have it.
Click to expand...

You should contact RED about the notification. I got the notification on 3rd July.
 
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