I should know better but...

[crokett]

Will a battery charger put out enough juice for me to hook the leads to a cigarette lighter adapter so I can hook my 12 air pump to it?

[gonesailing]

Voltage Ripple

Since cigaret lighters are generally limited to about 12 amps, the answer is probably yes but....

Many, if not most battery chargers do not do much in the way of filter the output, so the voltage is varying from 0 volts to something like 15 or 20 volts 120 times a second. I am not at all sure that would be good for your compressor.

If you try it, listen to make sure the pump is running normally, and check the motor to make sure it isn't overheating.

Mike L

[LCHIEN]

Will a battery charger put out enough juice for me to hook the leads to a cigarette lighter adapter so I can hook my 12 air pump to it?

NEI - not enough information.

I can get battery chargers that range from 1Amp to 100 Amps. Depends upon your battery charger and it's intelligence.

And is it an air pump for matresses or is it an air compressor for tires?
What amps running rating do they have?

[crokett]

compressor for tires. i plug it into the cigarette lighter in the car and go. No idea on the amp rating. 'twould be convenient to use it around the house without having to to drag what I want to inflate up to the car. Battery charger in question has a meter on it that reads anywhere from 0 to 12 volts, IIRC.

[mpc]

Many battery chargers also sense the battery voltage before they actually turn on - to make sure you don't have the leads backwards. If you don't have a battery (and a compressor isn't gonna fake out the charger) you may get zero volts from the charger. I tried this once to run the heater blower motor in a car that had mold in the ducting... I wanted to circulate air for a couple days straight. A battery charger hooked up to the fan motor never started; I had to dig up a grungy old battery too.

mpc

[LCHIEN]

compressor for tires. i plug it into the cigarette lighter in the car and go. No idea on the amp rating. 'twould be convenient to use it around the house without having to to drag what I want to inflate up to the car. Battery charger in question has a meter on it that reads anywhere from 0 to 12 volts, IIRC.

So, still not enuf info for either question.
Can't provide a more accurate answer than, Maybe, +/- 50%.

[leehljp]

You have given me enough information. Try it! Famous last words of a red neck: "Hey yall, watch this!"

Seriously, I do this all the time. I have a small car 12V pump in Japan that I use in my shop to air up bicycle tires and 50CC scooter tires all the time. I just hook it up to the battery charger and it works fine for me. My battery charger is the smallest that I could get that still had power to jump start smaller cars, so I did not use a trickle charger.

[crokett]

Lee has the best idea yet. I will try this and see what happens.

[Russianwolf]

Since I still don't trust the alternator on my truck, I went ahead and bought the biggest portable jumper I could find. Guess what, It has a inflator pump built in and 2, count em, 2 12v accessory ports built in as well as a florecent light. All for $60.

This would solve your problem in several ways Crocket.

Once I get the truck in better shape, it'll ride along with LOML in case she needs it.

[crokett]

Well I tried it and it worked. Amp meter on the charger says the compressor draws 4amps but that was not when the compressor was filling a tire. I will try filling the wheelbarrow tire and see how it goes.