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Ps4 doesn’t work with car inverter annymore

ralphgb

I am on a trip and I was planning to use my ps4 in my car using my 230v 150W power inverter. I tested if it worked a couple of days ago and it worked fine. And today when we were on the road I plugged everything in and it worked as normal, until we were standing still because of traffic. My car has a function to stop delivering power while standing still ( so that the battery doesn’t die). When we started driving again I turned the function off so that I wouldn’t have the same problem again, but now my ps4 won’t start. then later at a gas station restaurant I plugged my ps4 and a screen into the wall there and it worked fine, but later back in the car my ps4 won’t start again. But my phone charger does work with the inverter.

 

Anyone know what to do?

  • 0

    Not really enough information to troubleshoot. Is the PS4 doing anything when trying to power it on? Can you plug in the charger and the PS4 at the same time? It would be interesting to see if when the PS4 starts to draw current if the inverter shuts down. If so, it could indicate the inverter is damaged and not able to power high-current loads anymore.

  • 0 in reply to baldengineer

    My ps4 does nothing when I press the button, and I can charge my phone using the usb output while my ps4 is plugged in but nothing from my ps4.

  • 0

    It could be a bad inverter, but more likely, there might be a few changes in variables - e.g. quality of the contact, temperature, inverter damage, fuse heating, etc.

     

    But more than that, to use a 150W inverter for even just a PS4 is a terrible idea. Your inverter is woefully undersized - the power supply has a rating of about 250W with consumption peaking about 140W of real power. The problem is power factor - the PS4 uses a switch-mode power supply which can have a power factor as low as 0.6. The inverter needs to supply both reactive and real power - so assuming the PS4 is actually consuming 140W of real power, the inverter needs to be rated about 233W at the least.

     

    To try and obtain this much power from a cigarette lighter socket is also problematic - many of these are not wired or fused for a high current as most cars have a 10A/15A fuse for the cigarette lighter, meaning a 120-180W maximum draw from the car. The inverter is not going to be 100% efficient, usually close to 80%, so 96-144W is the maximum you can realistically expect from a cigarette lighter. You're better off wiring in an inverter to your battery with heavy gauge wires if you want to support that much of a power draw.

     

    - Gough

  • 0 in reply to ralphgb

    If the inverter has USB ports on it, it is doubtful they get power through the inverter. They are likely using a DC-DC step-down converter from the input ~12 volt input.

     

    I was asking if you could plug in two AC devices at the same time, such as an AC-DC supply used to charge a phone. That way, you could tell if the inverter was outputting anything when the PS4 tries to turn on.

  • 0 in reply to Gough Lui

    Another factor is whether the inverter has a sine or a modified-sine wave output. Most likely it is a modified-sine and your ps4 power supply may not work as efficiently with a modified-sine as with a sine wave input. I agree that your inverter is undersized and using the cigarette lighter is a bad idea. If you maxed-out the inverter output power at 150W with 12VDC in, the DC input current would need to be 12.5 amps. It's doubtful that you can draw that much from the cigarette lighter adapter. Therefore, the 12VDC to the inverter will be even less input (10.5 to 11.5 VDC perhaps), which makes the inverter try to draw even more input current for a given output power than with 12VDC or more. The inverter has a negative input impedance such that when the input voltage goes up, the input current goes down and vice-versa. Use appropriate sized input wires (both pos and neg) and do not use the car body as a ground wire.

  • 0 in reply to kkazem

    As suggested, slapping on an inverter because you have one handy doesn't necessarily mean it will work.

     

    My daughter refurbished a 1982 camper trailer. After gutting the box, she funded a project to rewire the unit. I discovered much about inverters during the planning phase of the project. Selecting the wrong inverter output will render some commercial devices like televisions and microwave unusable. Select the wrong power rating and you create a frustrating environment.

     

    The final environment is a mix of AC and DC provided through a RV designed converter.

  • 0 in reply to colporteur

    It gets even worse than that. Sometimes, a modified-sine output inverter can even damage your equipment that's plugged into it. BE CAREFUL.

     

    This is not common and about 95% of loads will work on a modified sine inverter, but many will run hotter. The most susceptible to damage are NiCad battery chargers.