I want to use a solar panel to keep my car battery charged and, when necessary, I may want to use my car battery to run some tools or tool chargers. What do I need? The prices are all over the place.
For the chargers the smallest ones are fine. For the tools, look at the amp rating on them and multiply by 100 to get the volt-amps they need. To be exact, you should multiply by 120 but the precision of the tool rating doesn't warrant being that finicky. For example, if you are running a drill that is rated at 7.5 A it will take a 750 VA inverter to power it, and that will draw about 75A from the DC connection. However, the drill only draws that at full load so if you are not bogging it down it is likely to stay under 3A.
Inverters are not terribly efficient at low load, so stay with the smallest you can get away with. That may mean getting a small one, like 100 or 150 VA, for charging and a larger one just to power tools. Otherwise the solar panel will be hard pressed to keep up.
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