DC to AC inverter at a picnic.

[ThreePhased]

I have a 12 volt DC input, 230v 50hz AC output, 180 watt inverter that I use in my car occasionally. It plugs into the cigar lighter socket and has a short 12 volt flex so I gaffa taped it onto the passenger carpet. I have tested between the heatsink case and the earth on the 13 amp socket with my Halfords multimeter and they seem to be equipotential, but I still think I might sense a slight voltage when I touch it. There is a fuse in it, and I got it for only ten quid at the closing down sale of a local computer shop.
These voltage change inverters are very handy bits of electronic wizardry.
If we go to the seaside for a picnic and use a 230 volt extension cable from the inverter inside the car to a drinks cooler and a ghetto blaster is this an exception from BS7671, as in 110.2 iii, and is it safe for the kids ?

 

[Adam W]

yes, and yes.

 

[grantr37]

you aint going to be able to power a fridge and a cd player off the back of that....and also if you had a bigger one it would need the engine to be left running all day, also these inverters dont get on well with fridges, so you would need a pure sinewave one, these ones are a ramped trellis squarewave to give a rough approximation of a sinewave(the way the cheaper circuits work) unfortunately a pure sinewave one costs about 400 pounds upwards....but you can rent one from a tool hire shop (a top of the range bells and whistles all singing all dancing one) for about 5 pounds a day or you can buy a cheap petrol mini generator for about 80 pounds which would be no use for industrial use but would be ideal for using for days out etc....you can get them online and in just about every tool hire and decent hardware shop...will give you about 2Kw of nice mains voltage power...

 

[Adam W]

Depends how big the CD player and drinks cooler are, Shirley? I was imagining maybe 10 watts of CD player (the kind of thing that has provisioning for powering with 1.5v batteries) and a 4 can cooler.