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Has anyone run their charger from a car inveter?

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Yes, and it works quite well. I charge my laptop and camera (D200 and D70s) batteries that way often when traveling.
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Norm

 
I prefer to use 12V chargers for everything, especially laptops. I have my doubts about the efficiency of laptop power bricks. The invertor needs a healthy rating to drive them and power consumption is high. Not necessarily an issue when driving, but can be an issue when stationary. My experiences with invertors in remote areas have sworn me off the things forever.

Nikon makes 12V chargers for their batteries.

Cheers
 
I was just little worried because of the smart chip. I plan on only using it while driving between stops.
 
I've used an inverter quite a lot, with no problems. I don't use it for my laptop because I was able to get a 12V cable to plug that directly into the car's power outlet, but I haven't seen any such thing from Nikon for charging their batteries. If anyone knows of such a thing I'd like to see it.
 
Your engine burns gasoline (or diesel) to turn the engine.
Your engine turns an alternator that create AC power.
The AC is converted to DC and stored into your car battery
You plug an inverter into your cigaretted lighter which converts to AC
You plug your battery charger in, which converts back to DC

I really don't have anything to add, it just struck me as odd about all the conversions
 
dad_of_four said:
I really don't have anything to add, it just struck me as odd about
all the conversions
Click to expand...
In my job we do a lot of data collection in the field, powering stuff from batteries - sometimes from a vehicle, sometimes from 12 volt marine batteries.

I am constantly grossed out by colleagues who will take an instrument with both 12 V DC and 120 V AC inputs, and power via an inverter and AC input, rather than run a DC cable directly.

FWIW, I've never had problems powering DC stuff from a car, running or not, but for luck I try to avoid starting the car while something like a laptop is plugged in.

Ken Plotkin
 
All the cheap inverters produce square wave AC power, which can damage sensitive electronic equipment. Whether it does in a specific case, depends on the design of the equipment, and that is typically not known to the user.

A charger is not really high risk, but I would never connect a camera, etc, to an inverter. Although some brands, for example Sony with their video cameras, force you to do this (no external charger).

A proper inverter producing sine-wave AC would be expensive.
 
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Quote: If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Have fun :)
Sooty
 
But granted, chargers and batteries are replaceable if you happen to fry them. Modern chargers contain electronics that could be fried by a square wave.

Would still be better to buy the Nikon MH-19 charger, or one of the independent brand car chargers.

I use a car charger that I got from B&H to charge all of my EN-EL3 (a and e) batteries. It wasn't expensive.
 
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