???????

I gotta find a way to plug my combine in when it gets cold, I have a genny, but ut's rather bulky and heavy for me to drag around. thinking of plugging the block heater of the combine into a vehicle. the question is....do I need an inverter or a converter?

I think your talking about taking an INVERTER and plugging into your 12v truck and have a 120v output to the block heater... Lets say your Block Heater is 480 watts ( check that).. then you need 120v x 4 amps = 480 watts OUTPUT... The problem is the truck battery is 12 volts or 10 Times SMALLER volts.. so you need 10 Times MORE amps to get the output.... 12v x 40 amps = 480 watts .......... Your battery will not run a half hour if your trying to pull 40 amps out of it....

Edited by steve(ill) - 31 Oct 2023 at 9:01am

Dale, don’t you have an RV with a generator? Get that battle ax(I mean your loving wife) piled in and while you have the combine plugged into the RV warming up the engine, turn on the charms to the Mrs, and get both your and her ‘motor revved up’ and give her good going over in the bedroom for a couple hours.

Could load the generator on your truck and drive to it and do the job. Use a loader to lift the generator up on the truck

the closest I can park the combine to 120V power is about 300 ft. I don't think there would be much power left at the end of the cord to power much. a tractor is about all I have room for any closer...not a combine with a 6 row head. I'm pretty sure the block heater on it would be at least 1500 watts, that's what all my diesel tractors have on them. Thanks ya'll, I always have trouble figgering out the amps/watts/volts...well not so much on volts! yes...I was figgering on using my burb or truck engine to power the inverter off the battery...it would also be handy for powering other things too! as for the camper with the 7000 watts genny, it hasn't run for about 8-9 years...don't have the time to mess with that right now. plus it's hooked in to about 9000 miles of wiring in that motorhome! So I should get at least a 2000 watts inverter then? Or if I can get a small genny like mentioned above with at least that much output? the genny I do have is really big and heavy, to much to move around. Thanks for ya'lls info!  

Shameless, anyone near you have a cart that go behind a lawnmower?

If you really need 1500 watts, i would buy a 2500 watt generator... A 1500 watt unit would PEAK at 1500, but put out 1000 - 1200 constant..

Says he's got a genny, just needs a way to take it to the combine. 

Dave, just giving you a head's up, when you die we are going to put your brain in one of those glass containers they have on futurama.

Edited by dr p - 01 Nov 2023 at 6:28am

While I don't usually work with immersion heaters as a normal rule, I do carry a small 3kw inverter type generator in the back of my pickup often. It is a "Champion" brand with remote start and will fire off from 300' distance repeatedly. I've had this thing five full years now and with exception of starting batteries, it's been dead reliable. Only thing it doesn't have is 240 VAC output but I have other gensets for that duty. This thing is quiet enough to converse of the top of it also and marketed for the RV crowds.

o-k ya'll....I bought a 2000 W genny today, it's book says it'll go continuous at 1800 watts running if it has too. I haven't read the whole book on it yet, prolly do that tomarrow night. it weights 47 lbs and will run on 87% gas. read lots of reveiws on it and it's a 5 star rating for several years now and says it's quiet running. used mostly for camping and tailgating. has lots of do dads on it. says it does have to be grounded in the ground while running. guess i'll hafta make up a cord for that and add a metal stake. it's a Preditor...first generation Honda. just by luck, it was on it's last day of a sale price...was a GOOD sale price too! it also stated it'll run 12 hours on just a little over a gallon of gas. we'll see! I think it'll be handy doing other applications around the farm too. hope so. as for putting a pole out with an electric box on it, gotta save the money on that as we want to build a new place away from this one and I don't wanna spend extra money on upgrading this place because of that. I used to run a cord out to my GMC diesel in winter, sometimes it would trip a breaker and I wouldn't know it til AM, I pretty sure running a 300 ft cord to the combine would also trip it. i'd be running back and forth resetting the breaker all the time, I don't climb stairs real well anymore! SUCKS to get old! I'm itching to use the new to me corn head I just bought for my combine. i'm thinking i'll be out in the cold combining this year....PffffffffT! hope the heater works in the cab, have never had to use it yet! I can say one thing...save your money and gits all your big chit done while yer young...cuz when you gits old...you gotta pay someone to do it for you!

I'll have to check ours about the ground wire but we've been using a Honda 2200 watt suitcase style for 3 years now. It rides in the truck full time and use it for block heaters, air compressor(also in the truck full time), portable welder, power tools, lighting.......