how to have 230v outlet housing from 12v battery
 

Hi

I appreciate that Joachim Gjølberg post out the article about bring electronic gadget on the road, http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tri...nics/index.php

But i still cant get how to have a 230v outlet housing instead of 12v cigerette outlet. This is due to all my electronic gadgets are dealing with 3pin plug 230v (as I use at home, location Singapore). I do not intend to change all the charging plug to cigerette plu as this will add problem tring search for the cigerette connector, and may need another set of charger when i stop over such as at motel which sure not using the cigerette plug outlet

Kindly provide me how to convert the 12v to 230v output. And as i know that housing power supply is AC while our bike battery is DC. So how to make DC12v become AC230V 3 pin outlet i really no idea.

And, as we add on some (or many) electronic gadgets on the bike (or along the journey), will the battery cant cope with the demanded power? As the bike running, the alternator keep charging the battery, will it become 'unlimited' power? I point out this because my bike's voltmeter show increase from 12.5v (at idle speed) to 14v (when riding). How to explain it?

I wish my bike may have self-sufficient power supply along the road as i can foreseen that part of the place may not have electric supply or not compatible with my ones. Thus this modification is important to ensure safe and enjoyable journey?

hi ahkeong_m,
go to a dealer of motorhomes or caravans, or a good electrical dealer perhaps, and look at a thing called an INVERTER. these convert 12v to 240v and you can even get ones with USB sockets (search for E:can inverters, they are quite small and neat).
the problem is the more Watts you need the more expensive they get, 150W is about 25GBP, 2000W 8A is 250GBP. they also get bigger and heavier as you go up the ratings.

and will your bike electrics manage to power something like this, or will it fry something?

Inverter
 

As Dave says, and inverter will convert 12 volts DC to 230/240 volt AC, but a motorcycle battery has a small capacity and will not run a high power 240 volt item for long.
The inverter uses power just to do the conversion, some small inverters even have a cooling fan built in - which uses power, there is the extra weight to carry, and even with your bike running to recharge the battery as you used it, I would not think it very practical.

12v > 230v > 6/9/12v ?
 

ahkeong_m
Most of the gadgets you're likely to take with you, run on low voltage. Most come with a converter/inverter to put in a 230/110 wall-socket and power the gadget with 6/9/12volts or whatever is required. Using a inverter (as suggested) is rather pointless and consumes quite a lot of power which will only be turned into heat and will drain your battery quickly (especialy a motorcycle battery) when your engine is not running.

There a few options to solve this:
a. only buy gadgets which comes with their own cig-lighter cable (standard or as an extra option).
b. buy a AA or AAA battery-charger with a cig-lighter cable and only use gadgets with those kindoff rechargable batteries (take some extra batteries and only charge them when your engine is running).
c. buy a "multi-cig-lighter-powerinverter-thingy" which can take input from 6-32v and has an scaleable output (1-24v) and comes with different connectors. But be aware with this thing not to burnout your gadgets, and double check the polarity of the connectors and plugs (different gadgets uses the same plugs but with different voltage and/or reverse polarity! ).

When you're planning to take a laptop take extra care and buy a dedicated laptop-cig-lighter converter.

And d. offcourse, don't bring any gadgets! why taking loads of stuff you probaply will never use while on the road? (you can allways power them when you are in a more practicle place, like a hotelroom)


good luck

Thanks to all above suggestion

Regarding the battery power, wish can get more info from you all as well.

If the battery is 12v 8.5amp, thus is the total max power supplied is only 12 x 8.5 = 102w?

If does so, our total electric consumption at one time should not/could not over the max limit? if intend to power up the battery, can we just add paralle anothe 12v battery to it and double up the total power while remain the 12v?

For cig-lighter plug wise, i not really understand how it works. wish you all may provide me some info/link for it. As my understanding, like Bart mentioned, actually most of our electronic gadgets do not need 230/240v to charge it. It may only require 12~30v (with different amp).

Just for example, if i have the voltage adjustable plug, and my laptop required 20v 3.5amp, is that i need to adjust the voltage to 20v, but how with the amp? will the plug have automatic fuse/resistance to block the excessive amp (if any) from entering my laptop? Or if the balance power is too much, should we increase the voltage in order to suite the amp? power = voltage x ampere

If in such as way, it is looks like quite massy in worrying the power supplied and keep adjusting/calculating the balance power. Wish that somebody may correct me if i am on wrong track

Which bike do you plan to use? .

Your alternator will charge at a fixed rate. The rectifier regulator unit will not charge above that rate. So if you fit all manner of gadgets - laptop etc, you may well wind up discharging your battery completely, and be left without horn, then lights, if the RR unit cannot supply enough current. Bikes which have AC lighting usually have miserably inadequate RR units.

Much better you buy a multi pin plug/s and do all you recharging at the hotel.

Else you will have to carry bulky adapters to allow charging using using the cigarette lighter assembly (How this works - please use google). Really, makes sense only if you plan to be cut off from civilization for several days at a stretch.

Only the gadgets that will be in use on the road (cellphone/GPS) need to be charged/powered on the go - the rest including your spare cells can wait for the hotel unless you are planning an extended trip in the wilderness.

alarn

my bike is Honda CB400 vtec III

Could you provide me what is the charging rate of my bike's rectifier regulator, or how to confirm the charging rate of my bike? So you mean not matter how power our battery or how many battery we have, if the usage rate is higher that the RR charging rate, eventhough the bike is running, our battery also may get drained?!!

i have a voltage meter on bike, if the battery is getting discharging, what will shown on the volt meter?

You'll have to check with a Honda dealer to find out the rating of your RR unit- these bikes weren't officially imported into Europe, so there aren't many about. I bought one of the earlier non-Vtec CB400's as my first bike a few years ago - they're a very nice bike.
I'd look at fitting a 12V socket onto the bike and just use it for essential low power stuff, eg cell phone, and maybe a camera battery charger. On a small bike like a 400 you're not going to have much spare power to play with.
You voltmeter should give you a pretty good idea if you're overloading your system. A healthy battery should read around 12.8V, with the engine running you should be seeing 13-14 Volts. As you increase the load on the system the voltage will drop - if you get down to normal battery voltage then your alternator isn't producing enough power and you're drawing from the battery as well.

I understand that cig-lighter is much more practical in having electric plug on bike. But i still unclear with how to connect my gadget plug onto the cig-lighter plug

As the AA battery charger normally using 2 pin plug (or said as radio plug), so how i gonna to charge the battery thru cig plug

Even though market have all sort of hand phone cig-plug charger, but i don see for my camera battery charger. As AA battery charger, the camera charger also have a adaptor to convert the usual 230v to required voltage. Then again, how to change my camera battery

Please refer to pic for more clearer explanation

As you can see MarkLG has shown you the best way to check if you are drawing more current than your RR unit can put into the battery.

As regards fitting the cig lighter attachments to the gadgets that you have, you will have to go to the shop that you bought your gadgets from (or search the net) and ask them for a cigarette lighter attachment for the same (compatible with your gadgets). If not available, an equivalent. And the gadgets should have a 12V port for attaching the cigarette lighter attachment.

No way you can connect the 2 pin plug directly into the cig lighter.

If there are none, you will have to charge them at the hotel, or buy new equivalent gadgets which DO have a cigarette lighter attachment (which you can attach to the bike). Of course, the old gadgets would then be redundant.

You can always send your cigarette lighter less gadgets to me, I'll find some use for them:tongue_smilie:. Just kidding!

Alarn

I understand that no way we can charge the 2 pin battery thru the cig-plug. So any one of you can share how is your AA battery charger look like?

I really wish that my digital camera, which using non-AA battery may get charged on my bike (just to avoid any un-willing condition happen that run out of battery on the road), and i beleive there is difficult/cant get the cig-plug type charger. So anyone got idea to solve it instead of using the inverter as it will drain out the bike battery

12-volt AA charger
 

I have Camelion AA charger (similar to this one but older model) and you can use either wall adapter, 12v cigarette socket or charge from computer USB port. It comes with separate wall adapter (heavy) plus short USB and cigarette lighter cables. Without wall adapter it is very compact and lightweight and can be used on a bike or in a car.

About your camera battery -- you never mention what brand and make is your camera, so it is difficult to suggest anything.

I don't agree that it is not practical to use an inverter.
My own 350 has a 190w alternater and a 14 amp/hr battery.
I use a 150w invertor from 12v to 240v, which is enough to recharge my laptop and the battery cell for my camera or mobile phone when I need it.
I don't use the headlight when I'm using the invertor. You can also save some power by replacing indicator and stop/tail bulbs with LEDs. If you want daytime running lamps you can use a 20w bulb as a pilot light instead of dipped beam.
I have thought of rigging up a backup battery in a pannier or topbox to be charged when not using the invertor and disconnected when using it so I always have a fully charged battery if I do run the main battery down, but I haven't done it yet.
Perhaps I should also point out that my bike has magneto ignition and a kickstart as a backup to the electric start.
The main thing to check is that you are getting a reading of at least 13 volts at cruising speed with your electrical load on, by using a multimeter or voltmeter.

Do a search on Ebay - you'll find inexpensive 12V chargers for most battery types. I got one for my Nikon D50 batteries that came with a 230V and 12V leads. Most electrical stores sell models of charger that come with a 12V lead, as well as a seperate adaptor for 230V.

Would you consider carrying a couple of spare batteries for you camera along? Can't get cheaper and lighter than that!

Maybe this: MAHA / POWEREX MH-C777PLUS-II Universal LCD Charger / Analyzer / Conditioner
can help if you are hell bent on charging from your bike. You'd have to check, though.

Could you further elaborate on step to step to install the inverter to the bike. Would really appreciate if can add with photo

COuld you describe on you going to do it as i got not much idea on the bike wiring and connection....
My bike does not has kickstart.....

I'm sorry I can't do photos at the moment as I'm in the middle of installing some new panniers and top box, however it's not difficult to explain.
The invertors are available from Halfords, Maplins and I'm sure ebay as well. They come in various sizes, I chose a 150w which is about 125mm x 30mm x 50mm. It comes with a car type cigarette plug which incorporates a fuse. I bought a suitable connector plug and socket from maplins. I wired the socket direct to the battery via an inline 15 amp car type fuse. I chopped off the cigarette lighter plug and fitted the new connector plug after passing the lead through a hole in the top box (via a grommet). You need to be careful to check the positive and negative connections on the new connectors match that used by the original cigarette lighter plug.There is an on/off switch on the invertor and whenever it's switched on there is 240v available at the units output socket.
If I was to use a back up battery I would use a similiar system of connectors to connect both batteries in parallel, ie +ve to +ve and -ve to -ve. Then I'd connect them when I wanted to charge both batteries and disconnect them to conserve the spare battery. A switch would make this a bit easier.

Thanks harleyrider

i think i get what mean by you. I will buy an inverter as mentioned by you. Keep update when you finish you bike modifiction especially on the battery system

Inverters
 

Maplin > In-Car Power Invertors

here's a selection of inverers to give you an idea of size and power output

thanks for it

British 3-pin output socket
 

Be aware that the inverors bought in the UK will have the UK 3-pin square 230/240V ac socket

or you build it yourself... :beta1:

warning! messing with high voltage could result in fatal accidents! :angel:

500W low cost 12V to 220V inverter

compact inverter
 

Here is the smallest inverter I've seen

In Car Power Inverter - BuyPartsBy

handles 100 watt (so it says)

160 grams