How many power inverters can be put on one battery?

Question

I am looking to run several tools out of my truck / van and I can get a seperate battery (auto battery) put into the van to do this. I was thinking about getting one really big inverter or 2 smaller ones. I would rather get the 2 smaller ones, but I dont know if it possible to connect both to one battery. Any ideas. Thanks RLM

Answer 1

You can hook as many inverters as you like to one battery but.....
the real question is......... how long will the battery last while using these inverters? I don't know what you are trying to run off the inverter(s?) or for how long. A good setup would be 2 deep cycle batteries(do NOT use regular starting batteries, they will not last) wired to a battery isolator and your truck/vans battery. This would allow all the batteries to charge once the engine is started, but would prevent the inverter batteries from draining your starting battery if you did not have the engine running. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

If you used a car battery to power a 12 volt lightbulb, it'd be about like leaving your domelight on. It'd work for a few hours, but the battery would be about dead if it was all night, or two bulbs half the night. Discharging a car battery too much is bad for the battery, might want to get a deep cycle battery if you're doing this often. putting the 12 volts through an inverter would just add a little more waste to the system, as power losses in the inverter. When you put electrical energy into a battery then take it out again, you are converting electric power to chemical energy and back again . there's a lot of waste involved, especially at high charge/discharge rates. I think the whole electric car idea is very wasteful, and actually produces more CO2 - it just hides it elsewhere. If your local power company uses mostly just natural gas (like in california) to generate electricity, it'd be way better to just convert the car to burn nat. gas

Answer 3

I don't think it really matters, one big or two small. It's the current drain that matters. Can your alternator handle the load? There are devices that allow you to connect two batteries to a car and the second battery will not drain the first one, but it will still assist the first battery if it's voltage is below the second battery.
I hope this helps a little.

Answer 4

It's best to checkout the input & output capabilities of all the devices used. It is all about input & output performance & calculations to find out how many devices can be attached to the battery without stressing & causing damage to it.

Answer 5

How are you going to maintain/charge your "separate battery"?

Will you be able to safely run your truck/van for hours at a time without worrying about it overheating/theft?

I hope you don't plan on running anything larger than a drill......