You forgot to mention the biggest advantage of this method. You probably already own a vehicle, even if you don’t own a generator!! Love it :-)

This idea is the best, now I don't have to buy an expensive generator that is noisy and heavy!!! Thanks a lot for this video, save myself hundreds of dollars!!!!

cool video dude .. I dont understand why so many people buy generators and spend so much money .. I did what you showed here .. we had a power outage during a storm, so I bout a 1000 watts inverter .. it did a pretty good job.. we had lights, tv, internet and fans going.. then I bought a second one .. a 5000 watts and I can run basically anything with it. and yes it much more quite than an actual generator.

I have several generators and am about to also have this in my diesel at all times. Thanks!

Your average car alternator doesn't put out much power at idle. To get more than 800w-1000w you need to at least Fast idle. If you aren't going to sit with your foot on the pedal holding 2000 RPM or make a block to hold the throttle open on modern fuel injected vehicles? Then at most you need a small inverter, just large enough to handle your surge load. As an example, my Cobra 800w (880 surge) inverter would just run my 6 amp 1HP shop vac. Inverters are sometimes useful but they aren't the answer. A use case I could see would be running a small 700w window unit AC to get that load off a small generator. If you really need AC, you need it all day, the fridge or freezers can probably go 3-4 hours between running if you aren't opening the doors all the time. Suppose you wanted to run a window AC low power computer/modem OR TV/ cable box, maybe 1000w running watts(at fast idle) would get you there. You won't get 2000 watts at idle, you will get a low battery shutdown of the inverter if you are lucky. 2000w of 120v will cost your battery and charging system dearly. A good inverter is about 88% efficient so if you are producing 2000w you are pulling 2240w out of the 12v system. 2240w divided by 12 (volts) is 186 amps. That's why the leads to his inverter melted. Edit. The leads that came with the inverter, as short as they are would probably work at 1000w at 13.25v = 75 amps.

Just buy an old car or a wrecked new one and you can make it a generator. Use a three to four cylinder car and you'll have air conditioning and heat. All you need is the front from the dash to the engine compartment throw the rest of the car away. Build a shed around it and you can have all the power you want for 20 years or more for less than the cost of a brand new Honda generator. Put it all inside of a little shed with the exhaust pipe straight up, talk about quiet.Then you can add a couple solar panels/used for cheap and you're off and running no more worries mate. Been there done that. know what I'm talking about. One must use their head for more than a hat rack. 💡🛠Age 65.

If you leave you vehicle idling for long periods of time, over time the top end of the engine doesn't always get enough oil and that will create problems. Buy a few more deep draw batteries and charge them one at a time with them hooked up to the alternator in the vehicle and drive around while charging them

BRILLIANT! -Guiness beer commercials

Thanks for this. I bought something similar, but I'd like to note that sleeping in your car while running it is not a good plan, due to incremental carbon monoxide poisoning. Your body can't break it down, so it accumulates over time. At least when we are driving, we have more ventilation.

Great video thank you - would love a bit more detail on how to attach it - and which one to buy - I am a moron and no nothing about this - thanks again

Worked like a Champ !! Thank you !!🫡🇺🇸

You do have to watch your power draw. On 4x4's that have a dual battery set up and an inverter, it is often the case that the alternator will not be able to handle large current draws and will quickly fail. (Especially when a winch is hooked up to the vehicle as well) When using a vehicle with an inverter, it is a good idea to upgrade the alternator as well....unfortunately the cost of a heavy duty alternator and a powerful inverter is much more than a comparable generator......but being able to plug fridges and lights into your car is great for camping!

Can you safely run a portable A/C like this? It it hard on the car or the battery while its running? This is very interesting and useful information!

If your car battery is 800cc or 850cc can you use a 1,500w power inverter to use a electric oven that's 1,500w leaving the car running ?

I save all my good car batteries in case of an emergency. I have ways to hook all my batteries with the car battery, all in parallel, with 1/0 or thicker copper so that I can use at least two large inverters off if it. In emergency situations, one will not use a large amount of power for a long period of time; the many batteries I hook up in parallel acts like a buffer or power bank, while the car’s engine constantly insures all the batteries are at good levels. If one wants to draw a lot of power, one can use another vehicle to hook up to the same bank to provide more juice temporarily, which is the same concept of leaving two vehicles in a jump starting configuration.

What kind of inverter are you using? Can I run a fridge or freezer? Can I run my gas furnace?

I wonder if this still kills the battery. I talked about this today with 2 of my co workers (we are all engineers, mech and electrical) there was no consensus if this kills the battery or not. It will kill the battery 100% if you run it while the engine is off but will it still kill it while the engine is on ?

Should you get a carbon monoxide alarm if you plan on sleeping in your car while idling?

YOU CAN ALSWO COOK AND PUREFY WATER BUY BOILING IN TINFOIL ON YOUR ENEGINE BLOCK

So I've been kicking the idea of pure sine wave inverter around for like five years. No one would answer if I could just run my engine and the battery will just constantly be recharged by the alt. Like, my little Crosstrek can idle for 4 hours on a gallon and half of gas so why can't I just park my car on the edge of the field, run my 22w tube amp and the PA off the inverter and rock the hell out?

Emergency electric vehicle. You can charge it via wind, solar, creek nearby, an oven or whatever else. You can directly use 230V or in the US 110V from the vehicles battery, it´s completely silent. You need less stuff everything is electric you don´t need any gas and your car is a huge battery storage.

Well sir. It's very bad on any engine to idle it for hrs and u will use about a gallon an hour

Too long winded

Holy crap this guy talks slow