Electricity while camping?

July 24, 2022 7:49 AM

What's the cheapest and most effective way to mimic a wall outlet while car camping?

I'm going on a long car camping trip in a few weeks, and my back can feel the pain already. I have an air mattress I'd like to bring, but it's got a built-in electric pump that needs to be plugged into the wall--I don't see a way to manually inflate it. Is there a cheap and also safe way to get this thing inflated? All the battery packs I see are for USB devices and I don't want to buy a generator. Is a car-based plugin the best solution? If so, can you ELI5?

posted by soonertbone to Technology (15 answers total)

Best answer: Since you are car camping, I’d suggest a car 12v inverter . You should see if you can figure out how many watts the pump draws to properly size one, but it’s probably not a ton.
posted by advicepig at 8:02 AM on July 24, 2022 [7 favorites]

I have this small power station which has an outlet for regular plugs and would probably work for you. I keep it in my house as a backup in case of a major power outage, but it is designed for camping. I think there is an even smaller and lighter version that might do the trick for you.
posted by rpfields at 8:04 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

What I was going to say (advicepig). From my experience, such pumps do not draw much power. 300 w is porbably amply sufficient.
posted by bluefrog at 8:05 AM on July 24, 2022

I just zoomed in on one of the pics in the link you showed and it runs at 0.65 amps, any car inverter should manage that just fine
posted by advicepig at 8:07 AM on July 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Q&A for the product mentions that you can use a battery powered pump for this particular mattress. I have a Coleman one that works marvelously, and I see a similar one available at Target for 22.
posted by mochapickle at 8:07 AM on July 24, 2022

Best answer: As to what is best, the inverter plan eliminates thinking about how much charge various battery banks or battery based pumps have. Got gas? You’re fine.

I totally geek out on camping battery plans, but in this case, using the car and an inverter is the low stress and pretty cheap way.
posted by advicepig at 8:11 AM on July 24, 2022

There are nice battery packs that can slowly charge from the cig. port and have an outlet. If you lose power at home a lot, this might be something to consider. They also have the ability to jump start a car, which I find it useful. There's a broad variety of how powerful they can be. I car camp a fair bit and like that security. Consider if you'll want to charge your phone and any devices while you're at it.
posted by theora55 at 8:17 AM on July 24, 2022

I do have two portable battery "generators" (one the more well-known Jackery brand, the other an AEIUSNY that has been a real workhorse) we take camping, both have AC outlets, but because they're at the lower end of capacity they won't run very high wattage AC appliances - I've had them balk at a lamp with an LED bulb before. The AC onboard the smaller ones really meant for laptops, CPAP machines, and chargers for drone/camera batteries. You have to get up in the $1000 range before they will run actual appliances, though you can generally run DC appliances (because most of them are designed to not blow up your car battery or electrical system) pretty efficiently on them.

Your best choice would actually be a DC-powered air pump for inflatables. Turn the car on, inflate your mattress in a few minutes, turn the car off.

A jump-starter is a good entry-level high-capacity portable battery, but don't assume it will have the sustained wattage to run anything bigger than a laptop.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:39 AM on July 24, 2022 [4 favorites]

You're better off with a separate battery to power camping stuff rather than relying on your car battery. Nothing will make a relaxing camping trip get complicated faster than finding out you've accidentally drained the only big battery you have when you're relying on it to start the car that's going to get you out of Bugfuck, Nowhere.

As mentioned above, your pump is draws 0.65A at 110-120V. That means it needs 120V × 0.65A = 78 watts. The 110V outlet on the Jackery power bank that rpfields recommended is labelled 200 watts, so that should run the pump just fine. It's got a 240 watt-hour battery in it, so if the mattress was all you were using it for then it would give you about three hours of inflation time on a full charge, which should be enough for quite a lot of nights even if you never even bother to recharge it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:42 AM on July 24, 2022 [3 favorites]

How new/fancy is your car? You might have a standard AC plug somewhere in the trunk area for just this purpose. It's also intended to inflate tires or whatever for emergencies.
posted by fiercekitten at 8:58 AM on July 24, 2022 [4 favorites]

A 12V tyre inflator will pump up air mattresses and other inflatables with no problem. There are even devices that combine tyre inflator, torch, emergency beacon, jump-starter and phone charger. They're pretty inexpensive these days, and small enough to stash in the car alongside your first aid kit for emergencies.
posted by pipeski at 10:54 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: 100W or greater power inverter that plugs into your cigarette lighter will be just fine. This will use very little energy so you don't need to worry about draining your car battery. Getting a separate battery pack just complicates matters, unless you have some other reason to want one.
posted by ssg at 11:27 AM on July 24, 2022

If you have power outages at home, worry about running down the car battery, or just like preparedness, a battery with an AC plug will be a useful thing. I've car-camped a lot, and keeping the phone and laptop charged is a pain. Having a way to jump start the car is really nice.
posted by theora55 at 12:39 PM on July 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

If all you need to do is inflate the mattress, I’ve seen people just go to the bathroom or wherever there is a publicly-available plug, inflate their mattresses, and carry them back to their site.

An inverter is the best solution. Get the biggest one you can afford, you will appreciate it in the long run. I have a 400 watt one, which has two receptacles and a couple USB ports. I used to use a 200w one, which was fine for most things, but the bigger one has been handy. My kids use it to charge game machines and whatnot on road trips. For air pumps, I usually keep the car running while using them, it makes a big difference in decreasing inflation time.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:30 PM on July 24, 2022

That said, or long-term solution was to ditch the air mattresses (which kept getting leaks) and get some 4” thick self-inflating camping mattresses. No regrets. They are soooo much more comfortable than air mattresses, no more pumping, and no more worrying about leaks. Nothing wrecks a camping trip faster than a flat air mattress in the middle of the night.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:40 PM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]