Last year I connected several strings of LED Christmas lights to a 12V inverter in my car for Christmas. I quickly learned that the police do not appreciate having Christmas lights turned on inside a car when driving down the road.
Ok, I promised him I would not turn on the lights while I was driving on a public road. However, we have a local park that people drive thru from Thanksgiving until New Years Eve. This park has something like 3 millions lights as well as live entertainment and other holiday events. The roads in the park are not considered "public roadways" during the holiday season, so the police do not mind that I light up my car in the park (yes, I asked them).
Anyhow, here's the problem. When the weather is warmer, like from 20 degrees (F) or warmer, the inverter works fine. But when the outdoor temperature is below 20F especially when below zero, the inverter simply refused to work until the car warms up for quite awhile. I quickly learned to take the inverter in the house when I get home, and that helps a lot.
But, I don't understand why this inverter does not work in the cold weather. It's a relatively new unit, purchased in 2008. It's fully semiconductor made. It's rated at 250 Watts and my sets of LED lights are only rated at about 40W total, so I'm far from the limit.
I should mention that during other times of the year I use this same inverter to operate my laptop computer without problems. Of course this is generally in warmer weather, because I'm not going to sit in my car in severe cold weather to read my email when I can do that in my warm house.
Anyone know why this inverter wont work when it gets cold?