Car Inverters

Small 12V inverters that run off a car, truck or boat battery and give you 230V.

Both of these are modified sine wave, not pure sine. That is the right choice for a laptop charger, a phone charger, a light, a drill or anything with a universal motor, and the wrong one for a transformer, an induction motor, or medical gear like a CPAP. If what you want to run is fussy about its waveform, buy a pure sine inverter instead.

Size it on what you are actually plugging in, not on the number on the box. The 120W runs a laptop and a couple of phones off the cigarette lighter socket. The 400W will do that too, but 400W at 12V is over 35 amps, which is far more than a lighter socket will pass, so anything near its rating has to go on the battery directly. That is why the 400W comes with alligator clamps and eye terminals as well as the lighter plug.

Surge matters as much as the continuous rating. The 120W surges to 160W and the 400W to 800W, and anything with a motor in it pulls several times its running current for the first second.

Both have USB charging at 5V 2.1A, low voltage shutdown so they will not flatten the battery you need to start the engine, and a 12 month return to base warranty. For anything bigger than this, or for a house rather than a vehicle, go to the pure sine wave inverters.