Working from your van, what is your electricity source.

[pcbear]

Generator or inverter, if it is an inverter do you need an extra battery or whats the format, sorry for being thick i just dont know.

[quicklocks]

it all depends what you are running . if its a key machine a small genny is probably best as the cost of a inverter to run the key machine wound be as much anyway. then you have the thing to carry about as you need. the small 200w inverters are good for things like recarging batterys ect from the van.
beleve me this has been spoke about before and can get very comlicated

[Shrub]

Have a seach around this site for inverters etc but just quickly,

I have a 3500 watt inverter, its suitable for motor startup currents and has all the required cut offs, you would need a split charge system and a second battery.

Ive got mine on a converted sack barrow in the back of the van, what this means is that i can unplug the charge wireing and then wheel my mains power to anywhere else the van cant go.

Having a long extension cable is not the way to go with an inverter

I run all my key machines off it (laser, tibbe, mortice+cylinder) and also use it to charge my battery drills and run my transponder equipment, not all at the same time though

You need thick charge cableing and short runs of mains cableing comeing out from it.

There are 2 types of inverter, pure sine wave and modified sine wave, a modified sine wave will clip the tops and bottoms of the ac current form and not be suitable for motors etc (inductive loads) a pure sine wave inverter will output a pure ac current and run anything in the suitable power range.

Modified sine waves are the cheaper ones and pure being quite expensive.

That said ive had a pure sine wave for running stuff on my rally support van and when i came to get another for my lockie van i couldnt find a good one at the time so opted for the modified one as i thought if it blows up ill just by a pure one then, i got it as the seller said it would run a microwave and angle grinder etc, ive had no problems from it but i think if you was to drop below 2500watts you wiull be having problems on a modified sine wave unit.

Hope that helps.

[NKT]

There are some neat little gennies on the market now. I just got a 750W one for £50+VAT. I haven't fired it up yet, as it's now far too cold to do car boots outdoors!

I also have a little booster pack thing that runs the little key machine I use. I nearly bought a 240V version of it, but went with the gennie instead. The booster pack saves me wrecking the car battery, which isn't designed for that sort of thing, as well as acting as a back-up in case the battery dies on the van.
Of course, it's only gone dead once, randomly after a 20 minute job last week, no lights left on or anything, and the booster pack was sat in the hall at home! Very odd that it just died.

[toomush2drink]

Go down the inverter route as some of the gennies wont put out enough power for some of the key machines and the machine runs slow.
Ive just got my extra battery today for a split charge setup for my inverter (this way you dont kill your van battery) I have a modified sine wave inverter and ive been told by an marine inverter supplier its is fine for this sort of work, this supplier has been fitting them to dynolock vans so it should be sound advice.Get the biggest inverter you can though and only run a drill etc thats a third of the power of your inverter otherwise dont bother or you could kill it.

[NKT]

This is true, but you can run a drill off a gennie no bother. Even my £50 one is 750W, which will run most gear fine (a little over 3 amps output for 5 hours). However, invertors are a lot quieter, and smell a lot less too. My 200W invertor draws about 17 amps from the battery, so it kills a car battery in a short time at high load.

Horses for courses, really. If you want the power for a short time, the inverter wins, and if you want it for a long time, the gennie wins. Of course, the gennie is always a pure sine, too, and is capable of near continuous running, as long as you are (or rather, it is!) outdoors.

[toomush2drink]

This is true, but you can run a drill off a gennie no bother.

The gennie i have wont do this as it doesnt put out enough power and i think its at least 750watts. Im not sure if there is something wrong with it as even my sks tempest runs slower with it so be warned. I tried a jigsaw on it and that was fine but no joy with a drill. Its not a major problem as i have a 18v dewault anyway and this works fine with the morticer if there is no power.

[Shrub]

Yes the dewalt is one of the few batt drills on the market with the 13mm chuck, keep this in mind if planning to use the dbb morticer with one as it wont fit in a 10mm chuck.

Toomush, does your genny surge when you try to use it with the stuff it wont run? it may be the voltage regulator thats gone, this is common on the cheaper ones and the symptoms are surging power and a dieing engine when you try to run things, be careful if it is as it can very easily burn your equipment out.

[toomush2drink]

The gennie has been sacked in favour of the inverter now and yes it did slow up etc with certain loads.

[Shrub]

It would surge up and down with no load as well if the regulator had gone.

i dont like the noise and fuss with gennies myself hence the inverter.