How to survive an ice storm power outage using your car!

Ice Storms are some of the worst bringers of Power Outages. They rank right up there with Hurricanes in just the sheer amount of damage to the infrastructure and power grid. It could take days and weeks for your power to come back on after these events.

Being without power can really put a damper on your life. Having to rely on flashlights to find your way around at night or even to just use the bathroom.

Having to keep your food from going bad by buying huge bags of ice or bringing in snow. Even charging your only means of communication, your Cell Phone, can become a hassle.

Not today. Without having to rely on a noisy gasoline generator, you can actually use a powerful engine you most likely already have in your posession: Your Car. As long as your car has gas, you should be able to power some household appliances. I have a solution for those of you living in Apartments and High Rise Buildings too!

Starting with this 800W Power Inverter with Alligator Clamps you will be able to (with your car in the on position) to power things like some lamps, your TV, cell phone chargers and laptops. Might even be able to keep your cable or satellite modems up and going for internet service.

Connecting this is really easy. Just like jumping a car battery. On the back of the interter you have two cables, a red and black cable. On the ends of these cables you will have a set of Battery Terminal Clips.

Step 1) Turn your vehicle on. Make sure it is running. Do not run anything else (heater, lights, AC, radio) as to give your inverter the most power. There's no need to rev your engine.

Step 2) Using those supplied clips, clamp the ground wire (black cable) onto the negative side of the battery (- side or black side). Do this first as to avoid grounding or shorting out your battery.

Step 3) Next, connect the positive cable (red cable) to the positive side of the battery terminal (+ side or red side) of your battery.

Step 4) Turn your inverter on. Wait for it to beep and go into diagnostic modes. Once it is ready, you'll see the lights turn on.

Step 5) Plug your appliance in to the supplied electrical outlet on the AC (Alternating Current) side of the inverter. This will provide you with usable 110/120 Volt AC power for most of your appliances.

Step 6) Do not exceed 800 Watts for this particular inverter. If you need a bigger inverter, I'll list some recommendations below.

And you're done!

800 Watts will run the following stuff without a problem:

2x - Lamps with Florescent Bulbs

1x - 55" LED LCD Television (32" TV's are most likely to be okay)

4x - 5W Cell Phone Chargers

1x - Laptop Charger

1x - Cable/Satellite Modem

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If you need to run more stuff, below are some examples of what you can run with each inverter:

1250 Watt Power Inverter (Largest inverter for 4-cyl engines)

*Use 4 AWG Cable (4 Gauge Cable) or larger. Anything smaller won't provide enough power.

1x - Small Refrigerator (Energy Star rated)

2x - Lamps with Florescent Bulbs

1x - 32" LED LCD TV

2x - Cell Phone Chargers

2500 Watt Power Inverter (Use with Medium Sized Vehicles Only; 6-cyl or 8-cyl Engines Recommended)

*Note: Use with 1/0 AWG Cable rated for 3500 Watts. Anything smaller won't provide enough power.

1x - Medium Refrigerator (Energy Star rated)

4x - Lamps with Florescent Bulbs

1x - Television of any size

4x - Cell Phone Chargers

1x - Laptop Charger

1x - Cable/Satellite Modem

1x - WiFi Router

1x - 12.5 Amp/1500W Space Heater (Only with nothing else running)

3500 Watt Power Inverter (Only connect to larger vehicles like Heavy Duty Trucks, Work Vans, RV's or cars with Multiple Batteries and big alternators. V8 or V10 Engines minimum!)

*Note: Use with 1/0 AWG Cable rated for 3500 Watts. Anything smaller won't provide enough power.

 

1x - Large Refrigerator

4x - Lamps with Florescent Bulbs

1x - Television of any size

4x- Cell Phone Chargers

1x - Laptop Chargers

1x- Cable/Satellite Modem

1x- WiFi Router

1x - 12.5 Amp/1500W Space Heater (Should be fine to run this constantly at medium setting)

1x - 1200 Watt Microwave (By Itself)

1x - Coffee Pot (By itself)

8000 Watt Power Inverter (Not recommended for Vehicle Use. Must be used with an external battery bank of Deep Cycle Marine Batteries [Information Provided Below])

*Use 4 sets of 1/0 AWG Cable to 4 strings of batteries.

1x - Most Everything (110V only, no 240V appliances)

Now this bad boy is going to do some serious power production. You'll be able to run your microwave, lights, televisions, Coffee Pots and a Space Heater without issue. Run a freezer and refrigerator too. The only drawback is the sheer amount of batteries you're going to need. You will literally need a ton of batteries for this to work right and for any length of time.

The batteries will be Deep Cycle Marine Batteries with a minimum of 8 of these for the 8KW inverter listed above. That will provide a ton of power and electricity for a sustained period of time.

To recharge them, you can use a Smart Battery Charger when the power grid comes back on, or using a set of Heavy Duty Jumper Cables (and a lot of patience) you can use your vehicle to charge those batteries back if the power grid hasn't come back on.

You can do the same thing with the batteries and smaller inverters as well, if you don't want to keep your vehicle running the whole time.

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If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in the comments below, or e-mail me Here.

Thanks!

-Joe Clark

The guy who knows stuff about this stuff.

How to Survive a Hurricane Power Outage with your Car

Remember Hurricane Sandy? Remember Hurricane Irene? I'm going to show you how to survive and thrive in these power outages. Those of you in the North East can't seem to remember the total bull you had to go through when you couldn't charge your iProducts. You were willing to stand in line for hours and hours just for a few dribbles of gasoline for your car [translation English to New Yalkanese: Kah (n); A means of conveyance]. But what have you done to prepare? Absolutely nothing for the vast majority of you. Time to get your heads out of your butts and get ready to survive and thrive in a power outage!

Those of you who were smart enough to fill up before the storm hit; there's hope for you when the power drops out. You won't have to worry about not being able to charge your phone, turn on a couple lights or charge your laptop. You can use any car as a generator as long as it meets these requirements:

1. Has an engine (This is the most important part)
2. Has a good battery (or an old one that still works)
3. Has at least a few gallons of gas (without this, you know, your car won't run)
4. Has a working cigarette lighter port (check your fuses if it doesn't work)

If you want to run anything more than 200 watts of power, the last one doesn't matter, as we will be hooking directly up to the battery.

So lets start with the simple, low wattage solution.

This is the AIMS 180 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter. You need this if you intend on using a smart phone, tablet or touch pad laptop. Don't go with a cheap Modified Sine Wave inverter as it's not guaranteed to work. This inverter mimics the type of power you get from the power company, which is a good thing. This little inverter is barely bigger than your iPhone. It comes with a USB cable as well as a 120 Volt Wall-style plug-in. What this will do is allow you to charge your phone, and run one other appliance like a laptop charger or a lamp with a CFL Bulb.

Low Wattage Consumption CFL Bulb

Simple Directions

• Turn your vehicle all the way on. Meaning starting your car so the engine is running. If you don't do this, then you'll kill your batteries faster than if you had left your headlights on. 
• Plug this little inverter in to the cigarette lighter adapter, flip the switch and wait for the green light to turn on.
• The fan on the inverter will be blowing to keep the internal components cool. This is normal.
• Plug in your phone via USB cable to the USB adapter on the inverter. BAM! Your phone is charging.

• Plug in whatever 100 watt appliance (Laptop, Lamp, Sub 32 inch Flat Screen TV, Etc) you want to run into the plug in.
• You can use an extension cable if you don't want to sit in your car the whole time and risk getting Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.
• DO NOT RUN your car in a closed garage. Open that garage door and park with your exhaust pipe out of the garage. If you don't follow this direction; I won't feel bad if you die from asphyxiation. Darwinism at it's finest.
• If you try and go over the 180 watts this inverter can handle the inverter will shut down, or you will blow a fuse in your car. Again, not my fault if you screw that up. To be sure, look on the back of your appliance or on the power brick. It should tell you how many watts you're running.

And now you've got your essentials going. You've got light, entertainment and communication. What more can you ask for?

I know, I know. There are a lot more things in your house that you wish you could power. There are those of you who can't live without your coffee. Then there are those of you who want to run your refrigerators, 80 inch plasma TV and thousand watt 7.1 Surround Sound system. Or space heaters if the temperature drops below a comfortable 70ºF (an alternative would to be to wear more clothes). My Next Article will help with these solutions.

Feel free to ask any questions below, I'll get to them as soon as possible.

-Joe