Is it possible to use your car as generator?
I'm going to a campground with my 30ft long trailer and my car and there is no electricity in the campground at all.
I was thinking of buying a generator to run it one hour a day to use the shower, recharge my laptop batteries and the fridge battery, but then I thought if I run my car with some kind of adapter, wouldnt that be the same? What do you think, do you have any experience? How many watts is a car able to produce. I have 98 Nissan Altima and I saw some trucks have power outlets. Not this car. How do I get an electric outlet for my car and where do I attach it?
the electricity that a car will produce will be 12v direct current.
direct current is different from normal household electricity which is alternating current. alternating current switches its polarity and so things designed to work off direct current will not run off of alternating current and vice versa.
an inverter would be the way to convert the electricity produced by your cars alternator into alternating current ( if indeed the trailer is intended to be run off of normal alternating current.)
bear in mind that a car alternator is designed to run some lights, car stereo and trickle charge the battery so the ammount of power it can supply is limited , also the wires that connect to the cigarette lighter are relatively thin, the more power you are using the thicker the wires should be so that they do not become hot .
the cigarette lighter should be protected by a fuse , so take extra fuse or two just in case ( if you decide to get an inverter).
the problem i anticipate in your situation is that you want to run a shower which in my opinion due to it heating water will probably demand a fair ammount of power and so may overload an inverter or the cigarette lighter circuit or drain the battery.
the battery should hold a relatively large amount of power but once it had been depleted you would need to keep the car running to re charge the battery. you dont want to be in a situation where the starter motor will not turn.
you might consider buying an extra battery just in case and or testing out how the battery, cigarette lighter and alternator hold out to running the shower. the laptop and fridge should not be such a big problem , but you would need to make sure the inverter you purchased can handle the wattage you inted to run.
you might want to work out when the fuse in the cigarette lighter will blow ( what current drain) i.e what wattage. say for example that the shower is 1000 watts. that means that at 12 volts (car system voltage) the drain will be 83 amps , im pretty sure no car fuse is rated that high. you work out the current by dividing the 1000watts by the 12v = 83.333
a lot of inverters will not support 1000 watts either
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