Duracell Modified Sine Wave Power Inverter - 800 Watt - 12V

Video Transcript for Duracell 800 Watt Modified Sine Wave Power Inverter Review

What's up everybody It's AJ with etrailer.com Today, we're going to be checking out this 800 watt power inverter that uses modified sine waves. So this is going to be good for taking your DC current from your vehicle, with a plugin, with this or hooking up some clamps to the batteries making an AC like the ports at your house, so you can run some power tools, charge your laptop, anything you need to do on the go you can do with these outlets. Let's check it out. Up here towards the front of the vehicle, we're gonna go ahead and plug it into the 12 volt port. Get that plugged in. Then I'll head to the back and plug in some accessories.

So just have a few things back here. We have our camera battery. So this would be useful, if we're shooting off site, we need to charge our gear, we can't exactly plug it into the vehicle. You know, maybe we're not by any outlets or anything. This is going to help us keep our batteries charged so we can keep the shot going.

Another thing, would be like a battery block charger. Got the USB port there, you can plug that in. You can see it's getting powered and it's charging up, another way to have power with you on the go. One thing I want to point out about this I should have said before I plugged anything in, is when you flip the switch, if it's green, it's okay to plug stuff in. So you'll, you'll turn it on, you'll hear the fan kick on for just a second, it'll be green, that means you can plug things in.

I like that it has that warning because if there's any kind of over power surge or something like that it'll turn red and let you know that something's not right. So don't quite plug things in just yet. One thing to keep in mind is no matter what you're using, so if you're charging your laptop or charging the batteries for a camera, you should always stay under 175 watts, because that's what it offers when you plug it into this 12 volt outlet. But if you want a little bit more power we're gonna go up front and put the other attachments on there that clamp onto the battery. I'm going to show you how to attach those cables.

It's pretty easy. You just undo the knob. That's here at the end. Remove the washer, put this back over, reinstall the washer and that hand knob. That easy, swapped out the cables. Now we can go hook them up to the battery. Connect like that. Come back up here. And going to flip it on. We got the green lights, so we're ready to test some more power tools. So we have a few more things to test out. First up, is this light, just in case you don't have enough light in your garage and you need some more directed right down here maybe you're working your engine bay or something like that. And powers that just fine. No issues, it's not dimming at all. And you got the green light. So you know, it can handle it. Now, come up here and hook up a couple of power tools. Those usually take a little bit more to keep going. We did this with the 400 watt one as well, and this saw worked just fine. So it should work just fine with the 800 as well. Seems like it moves even faster with this one. So maybe it was even going a little slower on the 400. So that works. We'll set that one aside. Now we'll try the drill. Now this didn't work with the 400 watt one, it shut it down. So it does have that protection feature. If you plug something in and it can't handle it's not going to feed back to your battery or damage your vehicle or whatever you got to plugged into. It will stop it from working. So when we did on the 400, this green light turned red to let us know there wasn't enough power but there should be enough with the 800 here. Drill seems like it runs just fine. Last time we would pull the trigger, it would just barely move. It didn't get much out of it. Plus the red light let you know it's not going to work. So that's a good thing with this 800 watt one because you're going to have 800 watts of continuous power. So it's not just the starting watts of that. This is going to be, you get a full on run at 800, no problems. As you can tell you can plug a bunch of different stuff in here. So whether you're using it here, connect to the battery for more heavy duty applications or using the inside but just to charge your laptop or keep that powered up on the road, it'll work for either way. Now, there are some drawbacks to having the modified sine wave versus the pure sine wave. And we discussed that with the rider earlier today. What's up guys Today me and Adrian have been working with a few different power inverters. I got the 800 watt one here right now. It's plugged into the cigarette port on the 12 volt outlet here in my car just to give it, so you can show what we're talking about. I guess first question is do you ever need one of these or use one yourselfAdrian No, I've never actually used one, uh, um, but, I was kind of wondering, just like in general how this one was, this one's a little unique in our offering just cause it's, it's not real high wattage but there's no, nothing else around this wattage that comes with the battery clamps and that little power plug. So the other, the other ones are just kind of like you just wire them up. Um, so that kinda makes this one a little bit more portable in my mind, I guess, uh. Okay. Adrian I mean as far as like, so, I mean it's pretty simple plugging it into the, uh, like a cigarette lighter, but like with the battery clamps and stuff, is that pretty easy Does it, is it cumbersomeNo, it's, it's. just as easy. You just, uh, undo these here. These knobs just screw off. You can remove it there and then you just get the clamps which I guess I don't have it here with me right now but they go on the same way this does. So you just put the ring terminal back on to reattach that end of them. So you don't have to do any wiring or anything complicated. Just use these knobs to reattach it. So that was pretty easy. Adrian Yeah. Yeah, it's just hook it up and go. Um. Yeah. So I, I guess to me something like this, I mean it's got a little bit of wattage to it, uh, but it seems like it's probably a good for, you know, tailgating, camping, uh, temporary kind of use, you know what I mean Uh. Yeah. Adrian But I, I would say, you know, if you had an RV, maybe a small camper that you took out every now and then it would probably be handy to have, but and it, kind of a cheaper option too. But I would say if you had an RV you're probably looking at a little bit higher wattage something more permanent install, I guess. Um. But yeah, it seems like this one's a little bit more versatile than some of those, some of those other ones, plus it's got a little bit of a wattage. I mean, you might be able to run a coffee pot on this. I'm not a hundred percent sure but it depends on the coffee pot. Yeah. We'd have to get the watt reader out or whatever a test to see how much it actually. Adrian Yeah. The heating coils, those spike pretty hard. Adrian Oh, for sure. I mean maybe probably connected to a battery you'd have a better chance. Adrian Mm hmm. But with the, in the cigarette lighter or the 12 volt port, probably not. I don't know. Adrian Yeah. Well. I don't know. Adrian Yeah, I think I've seen some of those coffee pots get up to like 800 or a thousand watts. Like. Dang. Adrian Yeah, it's kind of crazy that it takes that much for a coffee pot but I guess it's a heating element for some reason, but uh. Uh, yeah, so, I mean, I think this seems like a good thing to have, you know, for just like a more portable option, more temporary kind of thing. Oh yeah, for sure. You mentioned that they have to hard wire some of the other ones in. Adrian Yeah. Like this, like um, more of a put my mind at ease, like I don't need it for extreme amount of stuff but I don't want to hard wire anything. And I'd much rather have this option to where I can plug it in here or I can handle some clamps on a battery. Like that's easy. I can do that. Adrian Right. Nothing permanent and I don't have to worry about like, where am I going to mount this If I was too attached to a battery somewhere where would I like store this This wayAdrian Yeah. Leave it out when I'm using it, plug it in and then put it away when I'm done. It doesn't need to stay here in the back seat all the time. I don't have to worry about it being in the way, this is what I, you know. Adrian Yeah. For sure. Yeah. It was something like this. That's totally the case I think. And yeah, cause those other things, I mean there's so many different options to wire and something into your RV. You can make it as simple as you put, you hook the terminals to the battery, then you run an extension cord from that, from the inverter into the RV. Or you can just actually tie it into the, to the electrical system to where it's going to a transfer switch. And then that switch is going to a panel. And you can just use the outlets in your RV as the power whenever you're not using shore power, I guess. So you can make it, I guess you can make it as complicated as you want, as you want to. Right, yeah. Adrian Uh I think the only other thing I wanted to mention, um, well, a couple of other things but, so this one and I think all the Duracell's are modified sine wave and, uh, from the research I've done, and I think it doesn't hurt to charge things like you said like charging your laptop, battery charging cell phone, uh but like running stuff, and this is kind of my, my opinion based on the research but like running sensitive electronics, like if you want to hook up your TV and your Xbox or your PlayStation and run it for six hours it might run a little hot compared to a pure sine wave inverter. So. Yeah. Adrian Dropping the, I guess if you're going to use it consistently with, with stuff like that, dropping the extra money for the pure sine wave it might be the way to go if that's what you're looking for. Okay. Adrian But yeah, I'd say, yeah, like say a coffee pot, you want to be able to cook some, you know, or, you know make some coffee in the morning and you're in your little camper. This, this would be perfect for you. All right. Yeah. Because the inverter, I think if, if it works the same way the generators did when we did the generators couple of years ago. Adrian Yeah. The inverter one was the one that you could plug sensitive electronics into. RightAdrian Right. Right. They suggested you don't do that because the power goes up and down all the time. Adrian Yeah. It could ruin electronics that way. Adrian And I guess, yeah. It can get confusing because that's called an inverter, what you got, but it's making it the sine wave is different. Like the way the electricity is being, uh, inverted, I guess or generated. Okay. Adrian I guess not generated it's being inverted but the way that's working is different. Yup. Adrian That's what makes the modified ones a little bit cheaper. And I think some people end up going with that because, you know, they don't have to pay as much. So, but that's kind of the trade off it'll work with everything, but that stuff might run hot. So it's like if I'm going to use this TV consistently and you we're using one in the other, your TV is going to last a lot longer, probably. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Adrian With a truer sine wave. That's awesome to know, though, I mean, because especially if you're bringing that TV out there, you don't want that thing to burn out. Adrian Yeah. That all set up. Adrian Buying a new TV on top of your. Watch 30 minutes of something you're going to be using it for a while. Adrian Yeah. I don't know, if it's an old tube TV, that, that I don't know, if it's an old tube TV. It's one of those. Adrian Yeah, that might work. Yeah. That, that could work. Yeah, uh. The other thing I was going to ask is just like the build quality of it. Is it, I mean, feel pretty solid and everything like thatOh yeah. It's got a nice weight to it. So I'm not worried about being just like a hollow plastic thing. You know, you might be able to hear it a little bit. There's no loose or moving parts on it. So I liked that part too. Adrian Cool. It's event got grips here at the bottom. That way, not only if you set it on something smoother like the center console, for whatever reason it's not going to just fly right off of there easily. It's got some grip and elevates it so that the fan can get some hair in there too. So hopefully help against overheating and whatnot. Adrian Right. I guess he probably didn't plug it in enough to like see that fan, did it kick on at all for you when you were, when you we're messing around with itI don't think we pushed it hard enough for the fan to come on. We didn't have a whole lot, like we use the the camera battery charger and kind of said, you know if we we're not here in the studios if we we're shooting offsite, it'd be awesome to have this and we can charge our camera batteries on the go, you know. Adrian Yeah. For sure. But that's, I don't think this is going to push that to kick the fan on. It's not going to run it hot enough. Adrian No, no. Aidan's power block here that we plugged in and showed that for the USB port. And we did it at the same time. But again, I think those are still pretty low. They're not going to cause that fan to kick on. Adrian Cool. Participant I did fit. I think I heard it, the fan like just kick on when we first flipped it on but it just stopped right after that. So when you first powered on it sounded like it may be ramped up a little. See if I can kind of get close to it. Okay. AJ Oh yeah, there it is. Participant Very faint. Adrian Yeah, just powering on basically. Participant But yeah. Working with the other ones, uh, the lower power we didn't have any issues with them. Like I don't think the fans ever really kicked on on those. No. I mean, I guess I missed it when we turn on this one but I didn't hear it on the other ones, for sure. Participant Yeah. Adrian I'd put like a coffee pot in, see what it does. Participant Yeah. Or a toaster was on the website too, which I, I don't know kind of thought was funny. Adrian Yeah. Back of my car. Adrian I think that's what they say about the modified sine wave. I guess anything that has like a heating element or, uh, uh, I guess, it's resistive loads. That's what they call it. That's a resistive load. And I guess that's how, uh, you know like space heaters, uh, coffee pots, and stuff like that. I think that's how it works. And I guess that doesn't affect it as much because it's like, I guess it's like a gradual thing but I'm not a hundred percent sure. It takes more time and slowly amps up the power, I guess, the port's using. Adrian Yeah, and maybe that's, so that, that kind of square block, uh, whenever you're looking at it on like a graph or whatever, that kind of square wave, uh, I guess it doesn't affect it as much. Light bulbs are the same. Like incandescent light bulbs, kind of same way. The only other thing I was gonna say was the indicator lights are nice too. Adrian Oh yeah. We did hook it up to battery up front and it was red or like, uh, what's that mean there's something wrong with my battery. It just meant I had a bad ground. So it's good to know before you plug anything in here that there is an issue. So you don't accidentally short, I mean it's got the protection against shortening stuff out but I liked that it let me know before I even plugged anything like, hey, this ain't right. Might want to double check your stuff. Adrian Oh that's awesome. So I want to check the green lights. So that part was pretty cool to see that. Adrian Yeah. Actually in a situation when I needed it. Well, it's good, yeah. Good to see that it actually works rightMm hm. Adrian Well, right on. Yeah. That's definitely good to know. But, uh. Yeah. I appreciate you guys taking the time to walk through it with us and, uh, yeah, I guess we'll, uh, see you next time. Yeah, thanks for sharing your info. Adrian Yeah, no problem, man. You guys have a good one. Well, I hope that conversation and the whole video has been helpful for you. I think that does it. Thanks for hanging out and hope this helps..