In car 12v tool charging

[L5wolvesf]

So I had a thought. It didn’t hurt, much, but I do have a question or 2.

We race, when $$ permits, an off road car (Class 11). For longer races we may want / need some tools for road side repairs. And, quicker would be better than slower (assuming it will not effect the quality of the repair), so a powered tool might be in order. That said, can 12v tools be charged in a 12v car? I know there is a DC vs. AC thing, so can that be easily over come?

Not an electrician, but we might stay at a Holiday Inn some day.

Thank you,
L

 

[jim2664258]

A power inverter, if your cars have a standard 12V outlet somewhere, would work fine.

 

[hicketts]

I installed a 2,000 watt inverter in my work truck and it works great. It charges my dewalt 18V stuff on their regular wall chargers. I can run a circular saw, sawzall and a small compressor, just one at a time though. When I helped film a couple episodes of the TV show "Viva La Bam". We ran the whole production of it.

 

[nehog]

When I was off-road racing we used an inverter and standard 120 volt tools. The answer to your question is no, you cannot charge ni-cad batteries directly: you need a charge controller or the batteries will be damaged. Use the proper charger and a small inverter if you want--that will work fine (I have a 70 watt inverter that works just fine for this purpose.)

 

[theoldwizard1]

I installed a 2,000 watt inverter in my work truck and it works great... I can run a circular saw, sawzall and a small compressor, just one at a time though.

Kind of surprised. Heavier motors don't usually work well with pseudo-sine wave inverters.

 

[jamesc]

some tool companies make 12 volt car chargers designed to run off of the cigarette light plug. I know milwaukee does for sure.

 

[Danglerb]

Almost all service trucks have some kind of inverter and a power strip and use the normal 120 vac chargers. Many of the better inverters work fine with 120vac power tools, if you go that way make sure the inverter you buy is one that does work well.

***** IF you were an electrical DIY type person the RC hobby guys use 12v input RC Hobby chargers, they are like $20 shipped on ebay and will charge ANYTHING you can hook up to them, pb nicad, liion, single cells or packs, but you have to make the adapter to hook up the packs. I have a Imax B6 which is a common model.

 

[bobcatdan]

I have a 12 volt car charger for my service truck tool batteries. I always have a battery cooking on the charger and never had it run the batteries on the truck down. I have an inverter on the truck and it runs a angle grinder or the laptop charger fine. For just charging a tool battery, I bet one of those inverters that look like a soda can the fit acup holder would work fine. They are like $50 for SO so they have to be pretty cheap eleswhere.

 

[cheechi]

Milwaukee makes one but for all around use an inverter is best.

It's not as simple as just hooking up leads anymore, these batteries are smarter than just voltage. Don't do anything dangerous.

 

[05firecatf7black]

If you use an inverter on cordless tool battery it will void the warranty. Inverters don't create a true sign wave it's actually square. This square wave has a longer peak voltage and this is what hurts the battery. I lost 4 new dewalt batteries from using an inverter. Not knowing this was the cause, the first question dewalt asked is if I ever used an inverter when I said yes that was the end of my warranty claim. Get a proper charger that has a 12v plug