On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, Michael Heron wrote:

> this may sound stupid, but for the sake of discussion here it goes

No, It sounds nice, but it won't work.

> 
> you know those little square ceramic heater things (approx 8" * 8") that
> people put in their basements.... well, how difficult would it be to change
> them from 110 volts to 12 volts so they could be used in a car. I have one
> in the basement and it PUMPS out the heat. You could probably melt your
> floormats with such a device.
> 
> Is ther some sort of voltage inverter/modifier that you could put in your
> lighter socket to let such devices work. I know that they have such devices
> to allow you to use your portable radio in the car  (i.e runs a 110 volt
> appliance on 12 volt). What does everybody else think? Surely there must be
> some way to get heat in the bus without having to rely on that old rusted
> tube that runs the heat up from your engine to the cab.
> 
> michael

Those little heaters are wonderful, but they run at 1500 Watts.
Your household electricity can put out that kind of power,
110 Volts times 13.6 amps = 1500 Watts.
13.6 amps is easy on a circuit.

Your Van is at 12 V... let's look at the math.
1500 Watts/12 V = 125 Amps
Sorry,  You're not gonna be able to get that outta your batt and alt
no matter how fast you're going.  Besides you'd have to have a pretty
impressive fuse system and some pretty high guage wires.

Answer:
Run an extension cord out to your van.
Plug in one of those heaters (don't burn anything)
Plug in your block heater (I don't have one either, but we both should)

Cheers

<sstones@io.org>
SStones             Toronto,  Ontario.