DIY Portable Power Systems for Display TVs

Adding television makes your tailgating even more fun.

Setting up a portable power station for your TV display for tailgating can be accomplished with only a few minor changes to your vehicle's existing electrical and charging system. And you can install all of them without affecting your vehicle's warranty and without killing your vehicle battery. While you'll have to pay attention to your vehicle's power level even with a deep-cycle battery, you'll have no trouble at all bringing the action to the parking lot.

Things You'll Need

• Deep-cycle automotive battery
• Power inverter
• Jumper cables
• Heavy-duty electrical connectors
• Wire cutters
• Plastic zip ties
• Heat shrink tube
• Lighter

Instructions

1. Open the hood of your vehicle and unbolt the stock battery from the positive and negative terminals. Remove this battery from the vehicle and install the deep-cycle automotive battery in its place. This type of battery won't go dead as quickly as your stock vehicle battery would.

2. Cut the clamp ends off the jumper cables with wire cutters and install in their place a heavy-duty round electrical fitting on each end. The two wires that connect to the battery will have to be large enough to fit over the round electrical posts on the deep-cycle battery.

3. Route the jumper cables underneath and then inside the vehicle to the area in which the display television will be located, securing the wires themselves to the vehicle's frame with plastic zip ties.

4. Connect the heavy-duty electrical connection to each of the wires to which the power inverter will be attached. When this is completed, slide a heat-shrink tube over each of these connections, and a third tube over both connections together.

5. Bolt the connections with the necessary wires from the power inverter. On some inverters, these cables will mount directly onto the unit. On others, however, a single wire runs out of the inverter to which you must connect the cables.

6. Slide the heat shrink tubes in place over the individual connections to insulate them from one another. Use a lighter to heat and shrink the tube. Slide the single larger heat shrink tube over both individual tubes. Again use the lighter to heat and shrink the tube in place.

7. Connect the heavy-duty connectors at the battery side of the installation to the deep-cycle battery. Reconnect the vehicle electrical cables to the battery posts to complete the installation process. The power system is now ready to use. All you have to do is plug the display television's electrical plug into the inverter socket.

Tips & Warnings

• Optima's yellow-top battery is an industry standard for deep-cycle automotive batteries, but you can choose from batteries offered by Interstate, Stinger and Diehard, as well. The deep-cycle battery must be a 12-volt battery, however, that fits on the battery tray of your vehicle. This means that most marine-style deep-cycle batteries should not be used for this purpose.

• All your connections must be properly shielded to prevent the cables from shorting against each other.

References

• "How to Install Automotive Mobile Electronic Systems"; Jason Syner; 2010
• "Car Stereo Cookbook"; Marc Rumreich; 2005
• "How to Design and Install High-Performance Car Stereo"; Joe Pettitt; 2004