Hi, I was wondering if anyone had a converter mounted on their truck? I rehab houses and sometimes it's a real pain to stretch an extension cord or ask a neighbor to plug in for the day.

A converter in the engine bay of the truck would be nice. Any recommendations? I was figuring if I got one it would be a 3000/6000 unit as it would be for power saws, etc.

I do have an inverter - but next time around I am going with one of these. A bit pricey but from what I understand you can take them from truck to truck.

http://www.aurasystems.com/

The inverter I have now is a Xanatrex 1750. Enough for the tv, sat, and dsl modem and computer when the power goes out, and also comes in handy for tailgating during football season.

A couple of things... If you are gonna install one that is that large you will absolutely need to install it right next to the battery and even then you will need 0 guage cable (Maybe 2 of them.) Another thing is if you will be pulling that much power you will have to set your truck for elevated idle (what a cool feature). And even then I am not sure that the alternator will keep up. If you were pulling full blast off the batteries with the engine off I think you would have maybe 45 minutes of power and then you would be dead. I wouls also suggest that you switch your battieries to deep cycle ones (I believe they would still be able to start the truck adequatly, I have heard the yellow optimas are great.) I have actually installed 2 simple cheapo modified sine 1000 watt inverters with my 5ver and I have installed 4 6 volt batteries and I have a good Onan genny (very quiet) but I like the inverters for power when it gets to 10 pm and the genny goes off at many state campgrounds. I took them and opened them up and remote mounted the switches. I will be doing the same with the new 1200 watt colman inverter I just installed in the truck, I ran wire through the gasket fromthe door and then in under the sill panels to back behind the back seats. I went to Wall Mart and bought a $24 amp install kit (Actually 2 of them) and they came with a 5 gauge wire that I ran 2 runs of it to the inverter. I did this because with a run that long you really need about a 0 gauge even for 1200 watts as it is about 12 feet of wire. But a 0 gauge would be very hard to work through the doors ect. This is gonna work great but it is just for running laptops etc. Most inverters out there these days are modified sine. For 90% of devices out there this will work just fine. I will run the PS2 and my laptop with mine and have with no problems. One of my tvs shows a little interferance from the inverter but the other works with no problems at all in the trailer. Remember laptops are really DC anyhow and worst case you may fry your external converter iff there ware a real problem. A motor (Saw) would probably even run off a square sine inverter. Good luck with this but please really try to calculate your loads in advance. I would also suggest looking at the little Honda 2000 gen set.

Drew

A couple of things... If you are gonna install one that is that large you will absolutely need to install it right next to the battery and even then you will need 0 guage cable (Maybe 2 of them.) Another thing is if you will be pulling that much power you will have to set your truck for elevated idle (what a cool feature). And even then I am not sure that the alternator will keep up. If you were pulling full blast off the batteries with the engine off I think you would have maybe 45 minutes of power and then you would be dead. I wouls also suggest that you switch your battieries to deep cycle ones (I believe they would still be able to start the truck adequatly, I have heard the yellow optimas are great.) I have actually installed 2 simple cheapo modified sine 1000 watt inverters with my 5ver and I have installed 4 6 volt batteries and I have a good Onan genny (very quiet) but I like the inverters for power when it gets to 10 pm and the genny goes off at many state campgrounds. I took them and opened them up and remote mounted the switches. I will be doing the same with the new 1200 watt colman inverter I just installed in the truck, I ran wire through the gasket fromthe door and then in under the sill panels to back behind the back seats. I went to Wall Mart and bought a $24 amp install kit (Actually 2 of them) and they came with a 5 gauge wire that I ran 2 runs of it to the inverter. I did this because with a run that long you really need about a 0 gauge even for 1200 watts as it is about 12 feet of wire. But a 0 gauge would be very hard to work through the doors ect. This is gonna work great but it is just for running laptops etc. Most inverters out there these days are modified sine. For 90% of devices out there this will work just fine. I will run the PS2 and my laptop with mine and have with no problems. One of my tvs shows a little interferance from the inverter but the other works with no problems at all in the trailer. Remember laptops are really DC anyhow and worst case you may fry your external converter iff there ware a real problem. A motor (Saw) would probably even run off a square sine inverter. Good luck with this but please really try to calculate your loads in advance. I would also suggest looking at the little Honda 2000 gen set.

Drew

Oh, P.S. one reason (even if I could find a place to put an inverter under the hood) I did not do so as there would be real problem with water... Those things are not waterproof... Other than that I think you are stuck with the behind the seat. Then it is tough to get enough cable to run back there to support an inverter that big. Besides... Are you really gonna idle your truck all day? With my 2001 there was no engine hour meter.... with the '05 the warranty is tied to hours as well as years and mileage... It may be better to get the little honda or a little subarul genny.

I have a 750W installed in mine to run the PC, and have a little spare. Mine is inside, and under the back seat to keep it cool and dry. I have 4 GA cable and a 75a DC waterproof circuit breaker in the engine bay.

Figure on 1A of 12V power for every 10W of invertor load. They are not 100% efficient at converting power.

For 3000W, you would need a 300A supply, about 3x what the alternator could replace even with a high-idle.

You can get invertors that size in marine stores (for yachts). The cabling and circuit breaker would be huge.

At that power, I'd definitely look at dedicated systems like the Auragen, or a genset, like the Honda, which I also have. The Auragen system is big $.

The Honda gen sips gas, and is whisper quiet. Move it 15 feet away, and it's silent. You can parallel the 2000W units for twice the power. BTW, the 2000 model is 2000W peak, 1600W continuous. You can also get much cheaper Chinese gensets.