Episode 14 120 Volt plugins for your car

Dave is going to show you how to install 120 volt plugins for your car or truck. Here is the inscrutable Dave wrote for this. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-install-a-cool-looking-power-panel-in-your-/ Make sure to make it a favorite if you like it we could use the publicity on other sites as well Follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/mechmashup, http://twitter.com/behnt, http://twitter.com/davesonfire Here [...]

Dave is going to show you how to install 120 volt plugins for your car or truck.

Here is the inscrutable Dave wrote for this. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-install-a-cool-looking-power-panel-in-your-/ Make sure to make it a favorite if you like it we could use the publicity on other sites as well

Follow us on twitter

http://twitter.com/mechmashup, http://twitter.com/behnt, http://twitter.com/davesonfire

Here is the file to download if you would like

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12 Responses to “Episode 14 120 Volt plugins for your car”

  1. Michael May 31, 2010 at 9:30 am #

    Great episode. Used the ideas myself for various cars. Two things to help improve on the install.

    1. Put a fuse near the battery. This is to protect the battery and not the inverter. If the power lead gets grounded for any reason you can start a fire or cut somebody very badly (like a hot wire cutter thru foam). Take my word on this and install a fuse next to the battery. It can be higher rated than the inverter fuse.

    2. If you are worried about a shock hazard, install a GFCI next to the outlets. You can either use the wall mount version or they make a service panel mount version.

    Keep up the mashups. Love Sketch up, mocked up a prop for a photo shoot.

  2. Dave Spencer May 31, 2010 at 1:27 pm #

    Thanks for the tips. Another reason to put a fuse near the battery is so that when a certain friend asks you if you can finish the shoot by having a pop tart pop out of a toaster while driving, you don’t have to pull the dashboard apart because you didn’t find the power rating on the toaster and it blew the fuse.

  3. Ben May 31, 2010 at 1:42 pm #

    Hehe…. Sorry Dave :) you didn’t tell me that…

  4. Cliff Prince June 2, 2010 at 11:19 am #

    I just watched ep14 and Loved it, I wanted to try and let Dave know about the fuse needs to be at the battery or a circuit breaker and that way you could have just unplugged the toaster oven and once the CB cooled down you would have had power restored. Also the ground wire puts more resistant’s in the circuit and it would have been better to have found a nice medal spot and grounded it as close to the inverter as possible. I am not trying to say I know more by any means because I have learned something in all 14 videos and LOVE them all. I would love to help out in anyway possible but I live in SC. I use to install car audio and well I wanted to point out what had already been pointed out along with me saying something about the ground wire. Again I LOVE your videos and please if their might be something that I can do shoot me an email.

  5. Dave Spencer June 2, 2010 at 12:29 pm #

    thanks again for the tips. I’m curious if our audience prefers one project per episode with more time to go into detail, or two projects but with half the time for each?

  6. mike kirkeberg June 6, 2010 at 4:25 am #

    This is a great video (from a fellow 3rdTriber. I am almost tempted to try it myself.
    Mike

  7. ThePwrSerg June 19, 2010 at 9:31 pm #

    I too have done custom car audio installs here in Cocoa, Florida and even have taught classes for the same, since 1989….”I am THE 12volt specialist”, lol.

    A fuse must be mounted to all circuitry added, no more than 12 inches from the battery. Insurance WILL NOT cover an “ACCIDENT” in electrical nature if this is not adhered to!

    I think tthe videos you have are GREAT and am glad I watched this one as my first! Keep up the GREAT work!

    -Sergio
    Orlando, Fl

  8. Tom August 3, 2010 at 8:18 am #

    Great video.

    I am going to install something like this on my van. A friend of mine who is an auto mechanic cautioned me that the inverter will continue to draw power from the battery even when the inverter is off. He thought the car battery would be continually going dead from this type of install. Do you find this is the case?

    Thanks.

  9. Dave Spencer August 3, 2010 at 8:37 am #

    The inverter will draw a small amount of power if you leave it on, even if nothing is plugged in. Mine has an automatic shutoff to protect against draining the battery too far. If I have mine turned off it does not seem to draw any power ( i have not stuck a voltmeter on it) and I have never had a dead battery from it in well over 1 year of use.

  10. Tom August 3, 2010 at 5:40 pm #

    Thanks Dave,

    Is the auto shut off a feature of the inverter or something you added yourself? I think I have the same inverter you used. B&D 400W.

  11. Dave Spencer August 3, 2010 at 6:59 pm #

    auto shutoff is a feature it just happened to have. It should say on the box.

  12. Mark August 10, 2012 at 3:37 pm #

    How do we combat the 90 degree temps as well as the freezing temps of the weather as well as are little friend called condensation Im sure you’ll concur with me when I say these all are potential problems That might need to be looked into. I am looking to do this to my car but, the above mentioned is preventing me from doing so. Any help would be welcome. By the way I am new to mashup and I love it! Keep it up :-) )

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