Need Continuous Power

[Drew1204]

I need to be able to plug in an item that takes a regular wall outlet. I know they have cigarette adapters => wall adapters, however the M3 shuts off power to the whole car in about 10 minutes. I was wondering how I can directly tap the battery and create a wall unit so the item can draw power straight from the battery without getting turned off.

Thanks!

OR

Is there something like a big battery backup that has an internal battery that holds a holds a lot of power that I could place in my car which could be easier to do then tapping the cars battery?

Something that is rechargeable that I could place in the car (like a battery backup) that includes a wall outlet plug on it... I don't know how long a battery backup will last

[M3RMA]

Depending the current draw required by what you are trying to run you really
only have a couple of options.

1) would be an enverter which plugs into the lighter port and then you would
plug your 110v device into the enverter. With this it would require the car to be running.

2) A booster pak also sold as a jump start pak is a self contained power source with cables attached to jump auto batteries. They also have a 12v lighter port. They are a small self contained deep cell battery and I don't know how long you could run an enverter on it before the unit would need to be recharged.

[osteome]

I'll bite....

So what are you trying to run continuously? It may help to disclose that to best refine the advice on how to proceed.

[Drew1204]

A camcorder with a draw of 5 watts

[Bosna]

I use a 120w inverter which seems to work perfectly fine. I use it to charge my laptop as well as some of my camera gear.

[Georgeair]

Many of the inverters now also come with battery post clamps. Those should work if this is a once or occassional need. If you want it well intergrated and always available you'll probably want to find something more elegant than that.

[kibosh]

Not Cheap, but looks like what you are thinking of?

Can use it to jump your car should your battery die, can recharge it at night, powers three outlets...

Oh, and you can charge it from the plug in your car as well. Seems like what you are looking for.

[///My5UV]

Originally Posted by Drew1204

A camcorder with a draw of 5 watts

I bet you can find a 12V adapter for it that would be easier to set up.
It's probably got a standard 5V, 1A wall wart, possibly with a funky cable that I bet you could hack onto a standard auto/air adapter, which then just needs the plug chopped off and hardwired (with a fuse!) into a continuous power circuit on the car.

I assume this camcorder has motion detection or compression to actually be able to store more video than you could normally shoot on one charge?

If you want something more purpose-built they make game cameras folks set up to see what animals visit the watering hole at their ranch...they're usually even equipped with infrared/low light capability.