Customer Reviews: Best DC Adapter!!!June 11, 2008 Aaron J. Bentley 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Works great, powers whatever. The fan built-in keeps it cool and working strong. The fan noise can get a little high when drawing power from both ports, but it's worth it!
Great concept - poor executionDecember 10, 2007 Nathaniel B.(ATLANTA, GA USA) 6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I purchased this item at Wal-mart while on a business trip. I left my charger for my GPS at home and the GPS uses a mini-usb charging port. It worked perfectly for the GPS which draws a very small amount of power. I then used it with my laptop which uses a 70 watt adapter, well below the rated 140 watts. The unit fried in less than an hour. It burned out two fuses in my car. I foolishly tried it in a second cigarette outlet after it blew the fuse in the first one.
The unit smelled of burned electrical circuitry. I thought that perhaps I just got a defective unit until I read a review on Amazon about another Powerline brand inverter where the customer had the same experience with two units.
The unit is very compact and light. It easily fits into my computer bag and is 1/3 or less the weight of the typical converter. In that respect the unit is perfect but don't expect it to last long running a laptop. If they make it more durable for a laptop or any device pulling over 50 watts, this would be a great item.
25 amp fuse should not be higher that a 20 amp cigarette lighter fuse.May 28, 2010 P. Allan I bought it from Walmart. I was playing music in my car for about 2 hours with the engine off. I then decided to plug the inverter into the cigarette lighter to charge my iPhone. When I connected the iPhone via the USB port, I could smell the unit burning and it blew the 20 amp fuse for the cigarette lighter/radio.
A few days later I opened the unit and I could see some type of white frothing that looked like whip cream but it was hard. I could not tell if this occured when the unit was frying since the smell was gone. The unit has a 25 amp fuse which was still intact which explains why the current by passed it and blew my car's 20 amp cigarette lighter fuse.
I think the amps on this should be less than that of cigarette lighters so that the unit should burn out first. I am no electrician but I believe this could start a fire starting at the unit.
