[virgil283]

Low cost, powered with your car so you can have a few devices during an outage...

Read Instapundit

[JRandomFreeper]

It's not quite as easy as all of that, and it takes practice.

I've spent 2 years living with, and one year relying on an inverter.

It's not plug and play.

/johnny

[RobertClark]

I have long been prepared with alternative power sources (four to be exact) and recommend that everyone place at least a small inverter in the emergency supplies. A 400 to 500 watt inverter can be the difference between insanity and a semblance of normalcy in a crisis. Keeping a laptop, a cell phone, or an e reader charged and possibly a modem running is critical.

One word of advice: you get what you pay for with inverters. Don’t expect a Dollar Store device to be reliable when your life may depend on it. Spend $50 and get a decent small inverter.

[PMAS]

I tried to get one here on Long Island right after Hurricane Sandy - these was not one to be found anywhere.

[Paladin2]

Cheap inverters run incandescent lights just fine.

Strongly consider getting a sine wave inverter to run motors (furnace, refrigerator). Sensitive electronics may need something better yet.

[Bubba_Leroy]

If you shop around you can get a good 1200 watt inverter for less than $100. I have a couple of them and they are good to have around in an emergency. You are not going to be able to run any appliances with it, but it is good for charging any batteries, and powering floodlights, a TV or home computer or even a microwave oven.

I wouldn't recommend any inverter over about 1500 watts. You will not be able to power it off of your car battery without heavy cables and even then you will have to keep your engine running. If you are looking for 2500 watts or more you are better off buying a generator.

[yldstrk]

what is that?

[WakeUpAndVote]

Although a small 400 watt inverter will not power much, it has bailed my ass out more than once.

[mountainlion]

People around here that live off the grid use propane refrigerators. Propane lamps can be used also. Lots of RVs and campers have Portable power and light.

[hamboy]

Why just go buy $129 900 watt gas generator at Harbor Freight or Home Depot?

[Drango]

Goal Zero is the acknowledged leader in personal solar power systems. Most (some?) of their systems com with inverters.

http://www.goalzero.com/

Thinking of getting a medium system for when anarchy comes knocking.

[FLAMING DEATH]

I have a small 100w inverter I keep in my laptop bag to run it in a vehicle.

I got a 12v socket “pigtail” that attached to the battery with round terminals. Plugged the inverter in, and plugged the 26W CFL lamp in in the living room during last week’s power outage. According to the numbers on the battery and lamp, this could have powered the lamp for around 75 hours, or about 12 days running it only from 6PM-midnight. I ran it for two evenings and it showed no sign of going dead.

Amazing what “normal” light can do for your morale, rather than huddling around a candle or LED lamp. We were able to read, play board games, etc.

Another thing mentioned on that site, in the comments, is having an alcohol stove on hand. Safe to use indoors...no carbon monoxide, not explosive and can actually be cut with water to make it burn more evenly and last longer. In a pinch, you can even use ethyl rubbing alcohol from the drugstore (isopropyl doesn’t work so well).

Got my Trangia alcohol stove for about $18 from eBay.

I run about 75% denatured alcohol and 25% water in mine, which gives a good simulation of an electric stove set between medium and low. Higher alcohol mixtures burn hotter for boiling water and lower is better for simmering, but harder to light and keep running.

Each ounce of 75/25 mix will run the stove for about 8-10 minutes. Two ounces will run it long enough to heat up food then heat up water for washing the pan.

A gallon of alcohol can be had for around $10 and using a 75/25 mix will run the stove for about 25 hours.

[norwaypinesavage]

"Low cost, powered with your car"

Your car burns about 2 gallons of gasoline per hour, yet the alternator puts out only about 1000 watts. That's not enough to run much. This means that your battery would likely run dead, too. Then you're left with no electricity, no car, and no gasoline.

Why not buy a cheap 1000 watt generator. They cost about the same as an equivalent power inverter, and only burn a quart, or so per hour.

[Nowhere Man]

I've seen alternator you can put in you car driven by the engine that some amateur radio operators use. I saw one in a 1969 Montgomery Wards catalog and one in the 1959 issue of The Radio Handbook. As long as you have gas in your Nash Ramber or Ford Galaxie, you can get about 3500 watts power at 120 V, 60 cycles. B-) I wonder if they still make them? I also saw a Korean War vintage jeep that had the same setup as well but it only produced 28 Volts at 400 cycles, probably used for aircraft since aircraft systems run at 400 cycles.

I've heard of setup where you can run things like heat and A/C but you need a huge bank of batteries as well as a large inverter.

If I hit the powerball, I'd love a house set up like that, I'd study the power systems for the old Skylab space station as well as the ISS, but in the former, I think that ran at 28 volts, 400 cycles, IIRC. I was at Cape Canaveral in 1999, you had both 50 and 60 cycle systems on the ISS from the modules I've seen.

Lastly, back in the day, until they electrified rural areas, many farms had 32 volt DC battery system where a windmill and backup generator charged huge banks of batteries. The U.S. Government had requirements for companies to make so many 32 volt appliances until even the early 1980's. You had 32 volt DC washing machines, dryers, refrigerators and even A/C units. Zenith even made a 32 volt version of their late 1970's and early 1980's System 3 TV set. (We bought a 1982 System 3 TV that we have used everyday for the past 30 years and still in use)

[Tainan]

ping of possible interest...Using inverters for emergency power

[CrazyIvan]

I have a 1500W inverter and an Optima yellow top battery in my Jeep. Before we got a generator we lived in one room for 3 days using it to power some essentials. One other advantage is having portable AC. I do a lot of pruning with Sawzall.

[HiTech RedNeck]

You got to keep the engine going with those huge inverters, which will otherwise suck the battery down within minutes. So basically you’ve made your car double as a generator. Why not just get a generator. It’s more fuel efficient.

[cymbeline]

An RV is a help when the electricity is out. Propane heat and refrigerator and water heater, 12 volt lighting and the 12 volts runs the furnace blower.

We lived in our trailer for about four days when our electricity was out due to snow storm. Kept the battery charged with the car. Since the natural gas was still available, we took hot showers in our totally cold home, and we slept in our home bed with a ton of blankets.

[Elderberry]

After hurricane Ike, I was out of power for two weeks.
I first powered lights and the tv with an ancient 500 watt inverter. That gave me time to set up an old 1500 watt 1800 rpm generator that I had switched over to propane. I could power most things. My dryer was gas and I would power the washer then the dryer. I couldn’t run them both at once. My range and oven were electric, so I cooked outside on a 2 burner propane setup.

I had a 100lb propane bottle and when it was down about half way, I went on a quest to find a place to fill it. I had to drive about 40 miles to find a propane place running a diesel generator.

Later I plumbed it to the natural gas bbq tap and retuned it for NG.

My 53 Willys Jeep is also converted to propane. I was just thinking of running it on NG to power inverters as well.

[JDoutrider]

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