In response to a question posed on a Burning Man email list, Pat Mackey (aka Pat/Juke/whoever) made the following helpful reply. Chris chimed in with additional helpful information. Louise and I asked for and received permission to Webify the answers and put them on the Web.
Juke first:
All,
There are lots of types of power inverters out there that can be hooked up either to your car's battery or a standalone battery. These can be great tools, but you need to do a little planning before buying a power inverter.
First and foremost, what wattage do you NEED for the appliances you will be plugging into the inverter.
There are a lot of inexpensive lower wattage inverters (75-100-300 watts) but there is nothing more frustrating than to get somewhere and find that your funky little braun coffee grinder uses just a few more watts than your inverter supplies (happened to me at BMAN '96). Check any device you plan to use and look at the power rating.
Inverters can be incredibly handy as long as they provide enough wattage for your uses and you don't totally use up their power source.
Remember that given the option, you will always get better performance by using 12 volt devices than by using AC devices with an inverter.
If you plan on powering a number of AC items via a battery/inverter you may want to purchase a battery separate from your car's battery.
Remember that devices that use a constant drain (such as lights) will drain your power faster than higher wattage devices that use power for a short time (like power drills, etc.).
Personally I would not suggest an inverter smaller than 600 watts. What you will likely find (I did) is that with smaller inverters, you will constantly find you want to use some appliance or radio that uses just over the inverter's capacity.
At the Bistro last year I ran everything up to my heavy duty cuisinart (albeit a little slowly) on a marine battery and my 600 watt inverter. It was the best value/power I could find, costing approximately $100.
If you want to really go hog wild and want to use electric power tools to build your theme camp, then you would want to look for a minimum 1,000-3,000 watt inverter with a set of 2-4 batteries. I have used a setup like this to build a vending booth. It was a little red rider wagon with 2 marine batteries hooked up to a 1500 watt inverter. We ran circular saws and power drills off of this power setup all day for 10 hours and the battery charge only went down from 99% to 96%.
Not bad.
Here are some links for Power inverter information.
Product List from StatPower inverters
I bought mine through SPORTSMAN'S GUIDE (which has a handy 4 payment plan letting you split the cost over 4 months).
-Juke
More about Juke at http://www.chefjuke.com/burnman.
Now Chris:
Heya peoples..
Just a few additional comments to Juke's wize words...
If you plan on powering a number of AC items via a battery/inverter you may want to purchase a battery separate from your car's battery.
This is *extremely* wize to do.. Costco has deep cell marine batteries for like $56 bucks a pop. Pretty cheap, and they work just fine. One thing also to note. Any inverter rated over say 300 watts, you really should *NOT* run through a cig lighter. Instead you should have the inverter right next to the batter(ies)y running some serious gauge wire between the battery and the inverter, also as short as possible. Its better to run your distance with AC wiring instead (the output of 110) DC does not run well over distance. An example... I have a 1k watt inverter in my truck, but I have been too lazy to mount it in the truck. So I run it through the cig lighter... I have MELTED 3 cig liter cords so far... I *need* to mount it close to the battery, with very thick wire! The Chef's red cart idea is super cool...
Another thing with power and actually with any and all things for the playa, is TEST it PRIOR to the event!!! Actually use this stuff for a week or 2 before the event! 2 years ago I picked up an $85 water pump from West Marine, and I tried it out.. I loved it! But it was *really* nice to know that it will pump a 60-gallon drum dry in 35 minutes! That helped me plan my water needs for the playa. My generator.. Same thing.. I have run it for a week solid with full load so I know exactly how much gas I need. Its really good to get your stuff early, and test it, heck.. USE it way early before the event.. that way, also you're very familiar with the inner workings on all your stuff..
If you plan on using batteries at the event, and have no way of charging them, bring a charger anyways, and that way if you need to recharge them, you can make friends with a neighbor that HAS a genny, and will let you charge up..
One last thing.. Like Juke says lights will drain batteries.. On that same note, I would think if you plan on using only batteries, and you need lights at night, set yourself up with DC lights, not AC lights, because the conversion of juice will equal some power loss that you cant recover. No need to convert power for plain lights.. Go to an RV place to check out 12 VDC lighting.
Oh.. the statpower stuff that Juke mentions ROCKS! Thats the brand of 1k watt inverter I have , and also a smaller 400 watt one also.. Never had a problem yet in the year I have had it.. (1k) or the 3 years I have had the 400 k one..
Take it easy!
C.
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