I recently purchased a Bug Out Vehicle. Admittedly it is a 1990 Jeep YJ/Wrangler. It was clearly the base model. However, it has a lift kit, bigger tires, and a few amenities you might want in a bug out vehicle. But one thing it lacked was the proverbial cigarette lighter to power my low voltage devices… So, one of the first things I did was to research putting a cigarette lighter in the Jeep. That quickly gave way to low end inverters, which quickly gave way to what I will call mid range inverters, so that I could power multiple devices. I decided on, at the time, what was a 1000 watt inverter (See the unit I bought and installed here) with a couple unique features, and what I will call requirements. The first requirement became a/multiple USB ports. The second was obviously a few three prong 120 volt outlets for basic appliances that might require charging, such as the air pump for my air mattress for camping, or my small cooler which has a small refrigeration unit built in to keep items cool. Not to mention running small power tools if I had to or to charge their batteries. The bonus plan was the remote unit that you could also mount elsewhere in the vehicle. That was a realvalue add. So if you want to mount the inverter unit in the trunk of your car, you could run the remote unit to the back seat and mount it somewhere. In my case I mounted the inverter itself under the backseat of the jeep, and the remote unit in the center console between the front seats.
The good: The inverter works flawlessly, thus far. I primarily use the remote unit since it is between the seats. Second, the remote unit runs independently of the inverter itself, so I do not have to turn it on and off to use it. It primarily has a USB cable plugged into it so that I can run my phone off of it. I also just purchased an AC to DC inverter so that I can mount a 3 or 4 port cigarette lighter type power unit inside the center console as well for my handheld CB and/or a portable Ham Radio unit.
The bad: It’s mounted under the back seat, and I need to find a way to cover it and waterproof it so that if I leave the soft top off the Jeep that it does not get wet and ruin the unit. Also, I have not “tested” the unit against the battery yet. So I am not sure how long the unit will last with the car not running. My buddy John suggests hooking up a deep cycle battery or two as well, and I have thought about adding another battery under the hood, and eventually beefing up the alternator as well in the future with a larger/heavier duty one to run more power in the event I am pulling a lot of power and running the vehicle simultaneously.
Thus far however, it seems to be a good purchase. If anything adverse happens, I will be sure to update this post.
