[afellows]

I am fairly new to electrical work but I am just looking to be able to run some LED lights and maybe a phone charger while my truck is off without draining the battery. Does anyone have a recommendation on a power inverter size that could do this. If it is possible at all to do with the truck off.

 

[me78569]

The inverter is going to drain the battery regardless of truck on or off.



you are better off running directly from 12v to 5v for the phone and 12v to 12v for LED rather than converting 12v to 120v then back to 5v and 12v for lights.

 

[bigfish95971]

You can run both, charger and LED's, off the batteries off of the lower power outlet below the cigarette lighter plug. It is powered all the time. You can run a phone charger or a few led's lr bulbs for many hours or even days without running your battery low. I have ran a fridge for a day or two without problems. on a large invertor. But using the direct 12v source uses even less juice.

 

[andytruck]

Inverter changes 12 volt DC to household AC current. Then you probably plug in a converter (phone plug) to change that 120v AC current back to the DC current the accessories and lights use. Inefficient.

Look up mechanical solenoid switch for 12 volt DC
Get a third battery. If power needs are small use a small battery like a building Exit sign rechargeable battery, if big, then an RV size battery. Connect wiring through the solenoid to the 3rd battery (internet search that, never google). When truck is running all 3 batteries are connected together and all get charged. When truck is off the 3rd battery is not connected to the Truck's battery and you can use and deplete your 3rd battery all you want and still be able to crank the truck. A dead battery will suck the life out of your other two batteries when the truck is running again and the alternator, so know that. Try to not run it dead.

I had this set up with a 3rd and 4th battery (two 6 volt golf cart batteries) when I had a slide-in camper. It worked great. I still have the wiring in place, but no camper anymore…

 

[NCC74656]

i run a 5kw inverter in my truck, on my bank of 3 secondary batteries i can run a fridge, computer, and lighting for about 5 hours before i need to start and charge.

if you are lookinng to just run led's id look into getting 12v led's rather than 110v and converting a bunch of times. every time you convert you loose energy.

if your just looking for reading lights the cig socket would be fine but if your looking to light a job site get your self a modified sine wave inverter. if you want to run more sensitive electronics get a pure sine wave (they are expensive). for either of these get a deep cycle battery in isolation to run with the truck off

 

[Monstermaker]

This is too vague, what do you mean by running some LEDs?
What exactly do you want to run? The phone charger is insignificant, that you can run from the lighter plug about half of forever without worrying.