Customer Reviews

Universal DC to AC Outlet Converter Adapter [US Plug]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Sorry for those like me who think this will be a solution to car charger for every item, it's not. As the other reviews state, it is limited to 5watts, and admits it will not work with many IPODS. Well, I have my Gigabeat, and it won't work for it either. The guy that used it for his laptop must be the luckiest man alive, because I don't think this thing could light penlight. Save the money, get something better. To good to be true. Red light comes on, nobody is home

You read that right, this is pretty much a completely useless item. I should have read better. My fault but trying to keep you from making the same mistake! Money better spent elsewhere. Not good for just about anything except maybe a cell phone? (and not even sure there) If it was not so cheap I would return it.

I missed this limitation in the Product Description. It was not in the Tech Spects or Product Details and the only review stated it worked for a laptop and a nintendo. This will work, maybe, for a cell phone.

I plugged this adapter into my car. The red light came on implying it had current. But, when I plugged in my portable tape recorder, it did not work. It also did not work for my cell phone AC charger.
Another caution: I could not fit it in the outlet in my dash because it was too wide. Fortunately, I have a 2nd DC outlet. It fit there but as I said, it did not work. It was so inexpensive I did not bother returning the product.

This Eforcity Universal DC to AC Car Adapter [US Plug]
Eforcity Universal DC to AC Car Adapter [US Plug]
product has somewhat misleadign technical description.

The product name "Universal DC to AC Car Adapter" would indicate that the output of this device would be standard USA mains AC (or pretty close to it) that would work with different small appliances.

The truth is that the output from this device is not AC power at all!
This device outputs DC instead of AC. So term "Universal DC to AC Car Adapter" is pretty misleading. The product itself even lists that the output is 110-220V DC. And I have verified with multimeter that the output is really around 150V DC when no load is connected, not AC.

This kind of DC output would possibly work with some (maybe not all) low power switch mode power supply based chargers etc.. But this device will NOT work with any charger or other equipment that uses a traditional mains transformer in their power supply.

Other things missing on the equipment and specifications is that there is no information what is the power rating of this device, so you don't know how big load can be connected to this device safely without overloading it.

So the description "Universal DC to AC Car Adapter" is misleading.
This device is a low power car DC to DC converter that generates DC that might work with some normally mains powered equipment, but but will for sure fail on most equipment! (maybe even damage equipment).

The only good this on this converter is that it is very cheap (6.95). Considerable cheaper than any other similar looking device.
If you are pretty confident that your equipment you plan to use will work with DC power applied to it's AC input, is low power and you don't accidentally connect anything else to this, then this device could work for you.

If you are in any doubt on that, then you would be happier paying somewhat more money to get a real "Car DC to AC adapter" instead of this.

This item is very handy especially when you go camping. We use it to operate our laptop, rice cooker, recharge our cell phone faster, and also to pump up our air mattress. I would highly recommend this product and now I know why some cars have these features standard in there vehicle but if you don't have one I recommend you get one ASAP just for emergency.

I got my product and it did not work within 2weeks i had a brand new one at no charge that works great.

IT works. But it takes a very long time to charge a cell phone, and you can forget about charging a labtop or tablet.

I have one of these I picked up off of Ebay. I measured it at 170 volts DC, at about 2 watts at most. But at 2 watts the voltage is low, but many power supplies can work at the reduced voltage. It's output is DC, not AC so it's not really an inverter. DC is fine for switch mode power supplies, just as long as you don't use a "brick" type with a transformer. I guess the silver lining is the fact that it's so small that the losses are small.

The unit that was sent to my house was missing the end pieces that connects to the electric inside the car lighter. It was cheap plastic junk. I tried to piece it together with another adapter but it did not work.