Basic Power Questions for a Noob

JKJenn

Adventurer
Brand new to all of this, so forgive my ignorance.

To charge my cell phone, laptop, and camera battery I have the invertor in my JK plus a nice Igo vehicle charger for my laptop. I deep cy am looking for some basic power on the cheap for times where I might be doing a day or two of dry camping. Looking to run possibly a 12v electric blanket or Coleman 12v cooler. I am not in a position to go the the dual battery route yet (too many other mods hit the budget this year).

Can I use a 12v deep cycle and charge it with something like this Duracell charger using the 115 volt invertor built into my JK while I am driving?

Also open to entertaining other ideas, but need to keep total cost to a minimum.
 
I wouldn't waste any money on the little charger. At 2 amps it would take a long time to charge a battery.
What kind of battery do have in your Jeep? What does your alternator put out? How many amps per hour does that stuff your wanting to run require.
There was thread on here some where about people using those little portable jump starter/compressor things for doing exactly what your looking for. You might could also do just a 12v battery if you wanted to an tie it into your charging system with dome QD cables that you'd use for a winch. That's just an idea though.
 

JKJenn

Adventurer
I don't know for sure what I would be using (real helpful, I know.) i wondered about the jump starter things. I will be connecting a winch, so maybe the dome QD cables is a thought. Thanks for the feedback. I will try to locate that other thread.
 

wrcsixeight

Adventurer
You are vastly underestimating the draw of the devices you wish to run, and vastly overestimating the energy stored in a battery.

Coleman coolers draw 4+ amps 24/7
12 volt mattress pads pull about the same but cycle on and off depending on the thermostat setting.
The laptop is 2.5 amps upto 7.5 depending on the task

If you are lucky, you have an 84 amp hour battery in your vehicle. Keeping the battery over 50% charged will be stressful.

Alternators and original wiring do a poor to fair job of recharging the battery up to 80%, that last 20% takes hours and hours.

Get the biggest marine battery you can fit under the hood, and get a jumper pack and keep it fully charged and use it only for starting your engine after you kill your marine battery in a surprisingly short amount of time.

After prematurely killing your marine battery, you will be looking to do the auxiliary battery thing and wish you did it right the first time.
 

Andy@AAV

Old Marine
An inverter is really inefficient, just feel how hot it gets when running. All that heat is lost power. You would be switching from DC in your 12V system to 120V AC in the inverter then back to 12V with the charger. It could work, but the length of time to actually charge that battery would be huge. And not giving the battery a full charge before discharging it again will kill it fast (aka it will no longer hold a charge at all). You can do a poor mans dual battery system cheaply with a starter relay. The big $$ hit is the battery mounts and the batteries themselves. But in the end, it will be cheaper to buy it all at once and do it right with dual batteries than to keep replacing your starter battery when you overload it.

Mount-$120
Battery-$220
Solenoid-$25
Not being stuck buying new batteries all the time: Priceless!
 

wrcsixeight

Adventurer
You can recharge batteries within power/jumper packs without the grid/110 v ac.

The best way is leave the alligator clips connected to the engine battery with the engine running, well above idle speed.

Obviously not very convenient or practical.

Male Ciggy plug to male ciggy plug will also work, but slowly, and can blow fuses as a weak battery can suck more amps than the circuit can handle.

Most jumper packs have a 12, maybe an 18 or rarely a 22 a/h AGM battery. In most cases you can buy this same battery by itself for 1/3 the price or less, of the jumper pack. The extra 2/3 is convenience.

While AGM batteries do not self discharge nearly as fast as flooded, you can buy a 2 year old jumper pack whose battery has a significantly reduced capacity. For the price of a jumper pack, you can get another battery which has equal, or more capacity than your engine battery.
 

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