12v power, that is! 
anyone reading my posts has probably heard me bitch about living in the swamps of south louisiana and constantly having power outages due to this geographic location being a hurricane magnet. well, i recently built a portable power station using a wheeled tool tote and a 280ah lifepo4 battery. i spent a week cutting out holes for different charging ports and wiring everything together and all that. turned out to be a nice build and works extremely well.
we just went thru a Cat 2 hurricane, francine, and lost power (again). step-daughter was staying with us out in the detached apartment and needed to run a fan. i already had my resources committed to me and i knew it was just of matter of time before her mother heard of her daughter's plight and would reallocate my resources...i had to act fast. all i had left out in the shop was a 100ah lifepo4 battery, a 300w inverter and a 110v box fan that was useless without grid power...or was it???
the battery was a LiTime mini. a 100ah battery weighing 19 pounds with a footprint of 10"x8". very light and easy to move around. i hooked the inverter to the battery and in seconds, had plenty of 110vac to run the fan and the inverter even has usb ports for millennials to charge their phones even when there isnt any service!
so just a thought, but instead of building any more power boxes...i'm just buying the lightweight batteries and mounting an inverter on top with velcro and calling it good! quick and easy and something i can use boondocking and easily move around where needed. if friends join us and they need a fan out in their tent, i can easily hand this to them and theyre good to go. even found an inverter that is 110vac with usb ports AND cigarette lighter port for running a 12v fan or 12v cooler. wish i caught on to this earlier and i would not have even bothered building that rolling battery box. the inverters are very compact and even have circuit protection that i dont have in my homemade setup. the inverter in the pic is $60 on amazon. $60 and DONE! way too easy.
its been a while since i bought an inverter and back then, they didnt have the usb ports and i had never seen one that had the cigarette lighter port built in. i usually had to wire that in separately
anyone reading my posts has probably heard me bitch about living in the swamps of south louisiana and constantly having power outages due to this geographic location being a hurricane magnet. well, i recently built a portable power station using a wheeled tool tote and a 280ah lifepo4 battery. i spent a week cutting out holes for different charging ports and wiring everything together and all that. turned out to be a nice build and works extremely well.
we just went thru a Cat 2 hurricane, francine, and lost power (again). step-daughter was staying with us out in the detached apartment and needed to run a fan. i already had my resources committed to me and i knew it was just of matter of time before her mother heard of her daughter's plight and would reallocate my resources...i had to act fast. all i had left out in the shop was a 100ah lifepo4 battery, a 300w inverter and a 110v box fan that was useless without grid power...or was it???
the battery was a LiTime mini. a 100ah battery weighing 19 pounds with a footprint of 10"x8". very light and easy to move around. i hooked the inverter to the battery and in seconds, had plenty of 110vac to run the fan and the inverter even has usb ports for millennials to charge their phones even when there isnt any service!
so just a thought, but instead of building any more power boxes...i'm just buying the lightweight batteries and mounting an inverter on top with velcro and calling it good! quick and easy and something i can use boondocking and easily move around where needed. if friends join us and they need a fan out in their tent, i can easily hand this to them and theyre good to go. even found an inverter that is 110vac with usb ports AND cigarette lighter port for running a 12v fan or 12v cooler. wish i caught on to this earlier and i would not have even bothered building that rolling battery box. the inverters are very compact and even have circuit protection that i dont have in my homemade setup. the inverter in the pic is $60 on amazon. $60 and DONE! way too easy.
its been a while since i bought an inverter and back then, they didnt have the usb ports and i had never seen one that had the cigarette lighter port built in. i usually had to wire that in separately
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