I first plugged in my desk and all its accompaniments, then nudged and woke up my laptop and monitor: 14.7 watts. That seemed a bit low, given that monitors are typically more than 20 watts, but the inverter is perhaps slow to report the full draw. Still, there was lots of headroom remaining.
Kevin Purdy
One extension cord, one desk full of gadgets, 14.7 watts (but probably not accurate yet). Kevin Purdy
Kevin Purdy
The author's desk, powered by his car. Please forgive the cable spaghetti; it's always this messy, but that's not the focus of this post. Kevin Purdy
One extension cord, one desk full of gadgets, 14.7 watts (but probably not accurate yet). Kevin Purdy
The author's desk, powered by his car. Please forgive the cable spaghetti; it's always this messy, but that's not the focus of this post. Kevin Purdy
Adding in the fiber-optic modem, the Dream Machine Pro router (specified at a 50 W maximum power draw), and its PoE-based devices boosted the number to 90 watts. That left 910 watts, which felt like a lot until I plugged in the big space heater and set it to its lowest setting. Once the heater had been on for a bit, I was at 850–860 watts, combined with the other gear. I knew space heaters were inefficient in a broad sense, but now that fact is burned into my brain in little red digits.
Credit: Kevin Purdy
All three plugs in—desk, networking gear, space heater—and the 850 watts the inverter eventually settled at once the heater ran a while. Credit: Kevin Purdy
All these things ran off the inverter for about 30 minutes (I wrote the previous two paragraphs with mostly inverter power), floating between 810 and 920 watts, and I saw the car's projected mileage dip one mile when I checked on it. If I had the Bolt fully charged, I might get a maximum of 60 hours of this, or 48 hours at my typical 80 percent charge, give or take some resistance and use variables. Given what I learned, I would need to use a smaller space heater or very light air conditioning if I also wanted to keep the fridge running without nervous monitoring (and make up for some loss to an extension cord). That, or hope the power only goes out during comfortable temperatures.
But I'm using the Bolt and inverter as a just-in-case option, not something I would lean on if regular multi-day outages were occurring. It would also be quite useful for car camping, though I can't speak to that personally. The process has, like most DIY projects, taught me some things: about power draw, EVs, and my priorities. If you have a similarly nifty but not exactly new EV, consider checking out your inversion options for it—after you fully understand the limits and know-how required.
This post was updated at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on March 17 to clean up references to inversion, which the non-engineer author regrets for their initial fuzziness. “Plugs” and “receptacles” were also better distinguished.
