115 Volt Power Outlets

[Wakesnowb]

I think the 115 volt power outlets are rated for 400 watts? Curious as to what everyone is using these outlets for. I think they would come in very hand for power tools but I also assume the car will need to be running to use these outlets for the battery to hold up? I think it will be fun to see the different ways people are utilizing these outlets.

 

[tortugapir8]

For me, I love the fact I can have my laptop charging and fully operational it in. 400 watts is a big draw and I'm almost certain they only function when the vehicle is running but I'll give it a test later today and see.

Other options (besides tools / fans / lights ) would be portable media players (DVD/BluRay), game systems, portable coolers, small electric griddles (tailgating!), and a stick vacuum (beach goers helper).

 

[tortugapir8]

Looks like as long as the Accessory (or Run) is enabled on the ignition, the outlet is hot and had enough watts / amps to power my laptop which draws a good 90W / 1.6 amps

Not sure how long I'd do this as I know the battery is taking a good hit but it's nice to have.

 

[Tom488]

Not sure how long I'd do this as I know the battery is taking a good hit but it's nice to have.

Well, look at it this way. You're putting out 90W at the inverter - since nothing's free let's say the Ram's inverter is 85% efficient - that means you're sucking out 106W from your battery. At 12V (nominal), that's just under 9 amps. Our batteries have a reserve capacity of about 130 minutes - meaning they can discharge 25 amps for 130 minutes until the battery is down to 10.5 volts. We shouldn't run them that low, so let's call it 90 minutes - but that's still at a discharge rate of 25 amps... you're only drawing 9 amps. So, you could draw 9 amps for a good 3-4 hours before you'd start to worry - assuming you started off with a full charge.

If you do this a lot, go pick up an el cheapo digital volt meter (the Harbor Freight giveaway ones will work), wire it up to a cigarette lighter adapter, and plug it into your 12V accessory outlet. When the battery voltage drops to 11.5, it's time to start the truck.

 

[slimchance]

i plugged a 12V converter into the inverter ... this gives me a source for my CB radio without letting a wire dangle down over the dash all the time ... it is on for acc and run

 

[Billet1500 4x4]

I think the 115 volt power outlets are rated for 400 watts? Curious as to what everyone is using these outlets for. I think they would come in very hand for power tools but I also assume the car will need to be running to use these outlets for the battery to hold up? I think it will be fun to see the different ways people are utilizing these outlets.

You don't have remotely enough current capacity to use it to run power tools. My guess is Ram has these limited to 3 - 3.5 amps of current draw, Ohms law: 400 watts at 115V is 3.47 amps. Typical power tools pull anywhere from 8 to 15 amps. Your typical household outlet is a 120 Volt 15 amp circuit. Don't make the mistake of thinking the ac outlets in the truck are anything like the outlets in your house. They can run laptops and most portable electronics but that's about it. To run power tools off of an inverter you need 1500 to 2000 watts capacity.

 

[jdmartin]

I would suspect I will probably mostly use mine for recharging my lithium ion cordless drill batteries that ride in the truck with me. Super handy for that especially on a job site. I can't see trying to use any power tool on this, it would draw way too much current for that. Maybe recharge my laptop, but these days I use the phone for most everything except typing.

 

[Edwards]

I plugged in a circuit checker and all three also have a floating ground, i.e. not grounded at all. Probably obvious to most, but may come into play with wilder things being plugged into them.

 

[VictoriaFarm]

We had to go to a party the other day an hours drive from the house. My wife said that the food she was cooking needed more time. We took the crock pot and put in on the back floor, plugged it in, and finished the cooking on the drive over. The crock pot was rated for 300W. Never though I would use my truck for that.

 

[jdmartin]

We had to go to a party the other day an hours drive from the house. My wife said that the food she was cooking needed more time. We took the crock pot and put in on the back floor, plugged it in, and finished the cooking on the drive over. The crock pot was rated for 300W. Never though I would use my truck for that.

That's awesome!

 

[Rich]

We had to go to a party the other day an hours drive from the house. My wife said that the food she was cooking needed more time. We took the crock pot and put in on the back floor, plugged it in, and finished the cooking on the drive over. The crock pot was rated for 300W. Never though I would use my truck for that.

I'm not telling my GF about this idea!

 

[tlowc34]

We had a power outage yesterday and I ran our household refrigerator off the outlet in the RamBox. Ram saved the day again, helping me to further justify the purchase to my wife!

 

[KWKSLVR]

Being the yuppie outdoorsman that I am, I recently started swapping away my gas powered stuff for electric. Now I have a chainsaw, mower, hedge clippers, blower, hopefully a pole saw too. I'm hoping to rig up a charger bank in my rambox where I can just wire in a few of my battery chargers to keep things going when I'm out on my property taking care of things.

Gas rules the roost, but I do like not having everything in the garage smell like oil and gas.