Portable Power

by smit6089 | June 5, 2013 | (24) Posted in How To

Want to be the new popular person at the flying field? Well use this 12 volt power inverter to power all your friends glue guns, soldering irons, lights, well... you get the picture. This uses a 12v power inverter meant to be plugged in to a car cigarette lighter. With very few modifications you can make it able to use almost any 3cell lipo battery to deliver 110volts AC. If you are not in the US 220v power inverters will work under the same princeaple and would work just as well.

 

 

The inverter I used, at the time this was released, was less then $10 USD shipped. If the link is inactive the eBay seller I used whom I highly recommend is solarwindplus

75 Watt Power Inverter

 

Using this setup it would be extremely easy to unbalance your lipos or drain them to the point it could cause damage if you are not monitoring them. So either leave you cell checker or watt meter hooked up during use, or spend $2 on a low voltage alarm and save your batteries. I recommend the one linked below, even though it's cutoff voltage is pretty low, it will still serve it's purpose.

Hobby King Low Voltage Alarm

 

 

The basics that you need, plus some epoxy

This is the inverter that I used. It purchased from eBay seller solarwindplus. I imagine just about any 12v inverter will work, but this one was very cheap, less then $10USD

Removed the end to make the assembly as small as possible

Rout your wires carefully to avoid pinching and possibly damaging the wires. As you can see, there isn't much to the inside of the inverter. A transformer, a few capacitors and some heat sinks.

It may not be very pretty but if you wanted to you could hit your connector with some black paint but eh, the beauty is on the inside.

Easily powering a 40Watt glue gun with no issue at all

Make VERY SURE you monitor your battery voltage to avoid damage to your batteries and you know, that whole nasty LiPo fire thing.

 

Thank you all for taking a look and watching the video. If you have any questions or comments please let me know. I love to hear the feedback from the FliteTest community.

 

As always, Happy Flying!

COMMENTS

NoUsername on June 7, 2013
Sounds like something everyone should have in their tool box! Outstanding article.
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smit6089 on June 7, 2013
Thanks a lot!
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leadpipe58 on June 7, 2013
My 2 cents,You can get power ports male and female at marinas and rv stores.buy a female and wire your connector to it and plug the converter to it.easier then taking the converter apart..
great idea i am making one of these..
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smit6089 on June 7, 2013
I've seen that done but I like that this is juat one peice to keep up with.
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Zatoichi on June 7, 2013
This is killer.Thank you sir.
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smit6089 on June 7, 2013
Thank you!
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thejosh108 on June 8, 2013
Very cool, I adapted a 14v drill to run from my 3s batteries, but most of the time i keep them at storage capacity, so I picked up a 5ah lead acid battery (amazon $15). Weighs about a pound but, it's always charged, has a lot more capacity and, it's much safer. I use it for 12 volt applications like charging my phone/iPad, running a car cooler, as well as the drill. I think it would be perfect for your inverter too. Thank you for this idea.
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smit6089 on June 8, 2013
Great ideah. Thanks!
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Wow that was brilliant!

Now why didn't I think of that =)

ATB Malc
Silly Fokker RC
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smit6089 on June 12, 2013
Thanks. Works great.
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earthsciteach on June 7, 2013
Great article! Thanks for posting!
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smit6089 on June 7, 2013
Thanks!
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sailorJohn on June 7, 2013
Thx,something I can use
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smit6089 on June 7, 2013
Great. Thanks!
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ProjectFlightDesign on June 11, 2013
Thats awesome!!!! Great idea man
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smit6089 on June 12, 2013
Thank you!
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Jake Wells on June 11, 2013
5 stars. Now help me make a potentiometer for it!
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smit6089 on June 12, 2013
Thanks. What do you need it to do and I'll try to help.
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Jake Wells on June 12, 2013
I actually need an electronic pot for a battery powered device like a light using 12v. I was thinking about using an arduino as the pot but I don't know how to do anything over 5v with it.
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Jake Wells on June 12, 2013
For example. I want to push a button to make the light brighter. Then push anouther button to dim the light running off a lipo.

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smit6089 on June 13, 2013
Are the lights going to be on a plane?
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Battershell on June 7, 2013
I would suggest using a lipo cell checker that beeps when it hits low voltage. Instead of a watt meter which is considerably larger. You could Velcro it to the side of the pack you are powering the inverter. That way if you lend it to someone, who is no where near you, and has no idea the state of charge of the pack. You or they then will be alerted when to unplug. I have several for different purposes. They are cheap protection. Some are mounted by Velcro to my fuselage. Others I simply put Velcro on both sides of my packs so it can piggyback wherever the pack goes.
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smit6089 on June 7, 2013
That's exactly what I recommended above and that's a fantastic idea with Velcroing to the battery, didn't think about that. I was just using the watt meter for demonstration purposes.
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Portable Power