In my camper shell, I have some outlets and was looking at getting an electric blanket for the winter time camping. They say it draws 6 Amps. So the question is: How long can it be plugged in before the truck won't start? I couldn't seem to find any easily accessable info on the battery itself and I have no idea how much power it takes to crank the 5.4L.

Anyone have ideas?

 

6 amps is a pretty heavy draw, especially off an inverter. It's not something I would want to risk, especially in cold weather in camping wilderness. A dedicated deep cycle or normal battery is what I would suggest. Most electric blankets have timers that shut them off automatically after a certain amount of time, but that's still a lot of draw if it runs for a while.

 

This is what I suggest too. A deep cycle battery with a battery isolater is the best combo. That way you can keep both batteries charged every time the truck is running. No need to put the extra battery on a charger.

The isolater allows both batteries to be charged by directing the charge to which ever battery needs it.

Just my 2 cents.

 

6 Amps is about 720 Watts. That’s a fairly large long-term draw on a battery. I would agree with the previous posts that the best solution, for peace of mind, would be a second battery with an isolator. Why don’t you give it a test run in your driveway to see how long (overnight) it would run without totally draining the battery?

 

For comparison, the max parasitic draw Uncle Henry says is okay is 50mA.

 

NOUN:
Abbr. mA
A unit of current equal to one thousandth of an ampere.

a AAA battery puts out more than 50mA

 

Sounds like Uncle Henry likes his Jack D, too.