I am interested in purchasing an air compressor to inflate my tires,
such as this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ET9SAU

They all seem to come equipped with one of those 12 V car cigarette
lighter plugs, instead of a regular electric plug. I would rather use
a wall socket though, so I am wondering if I can use a car plug-to-
wall socket adapter, such as this one:

http://www.cellphone-store.com/afunacpowsup.html

It converts 12 V DC to 110 V AC, which is what I want. But it also
says that the output is 500 mAh. Would that be enough for an air
compressor?

<void.no.spam.com@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:cfb5e2c0-e901-4d03-affe-f41c1ba12cef@o77g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>I am interested in purchasing an air compressor to inflate my tires,
> such as this one:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ET9SAU
>
> They all seem to come equipped with one of those 12 V car cigarette
> lighter plugs, instead of a regular electric plug. I would rather use
> a wall socket though, so I am wondering if I can use a car plug-to-
> wall socket adapter, such as this one:
>
> http://www.cellphone-store.com/afunacpowsup.html
>
> It converts 12 V DC to 110 V AC, which is what I want. But it also
> says that the output is 500 mAh. Would that be enough for an air
> compressor?

Depends(it converts 110 to 12 BTW and not the other way a round). The
compressor doesn't say how much power or current it consumes but I would bet
its more than than 500mA(I assume its mA and not mAh because its not a
battery and doesn't run out of charge).

What you need to do is find out how much power the compressor uses and
calculate the current from it(I = P/12) or find out how much current it
uses. That number should be less than any adapator.

500mA is < 1A and I would imagine the compressor uses at least 1A(probably
around 2-3A if not more). You can find other adpators around that supply
that much but chances are it doesn't have the "car lighter" type of
connector. So you might have to do some wire splicing yourself to get it to
work(make sure you get the polarity right).

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:54:35 -0700, void.no.spam.com@gmail.com wrote:

> I am interested in purchasing an air compressor to inflate my tires,
> such as this one:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ET9SAU
>
> They all seem to come equipped with one of those 12 V car cigarette
> lighter plugs, instead of a regular electric plug. I would rather use a
> wall socket though, so I am wondering if I can use a car plug-to- wall
> socket adapter,

All of the 12V air compressors I've seen draw several amperes. To drive
one from the AC line, you'd need something like a 10-amp battery charger.
Black & Decker makes an inexpensive compressor with an AC motor.

void.no.spam.com@gmail.com wrote:
> I am interested in purchasing an air compressor to inflate my tires,
> such as this one:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ET9SAU
>
> They all seem to come equipped with one of those 12 V car cigarette
> lighter plugs, instead of a regular electric plug. I would rather use
> a wall socket though, so I am wondering if I can use a car plug-to-
> wall socket adapter, such as this one:
>
> http://www.cellphone-store.com/afunacpowsup.html
>
> It converts 12 V DC to 110 V AC, which is what I want. But it also
> says that the output is 500 mAh. Would that be enough for an air
> compressor?

Not likely. Not even close for the 220 psi compressor
I have, which draws way over 500 mA.

Ed