I'm not a redneck, but when I jump into my 9th gen F150 4x4 I can't help but imagine my neck turning a few shades towards red... I caught myself listening to Country/Western music once, but I don't tell too many people about it. (I'm a Rocker!)

With that out of the way, I have a few accessories that I do not go anywhere without:
- Laptop
- GPS Unit
- HTC Touch

I don't currently have a power inverter for the laptop, but plan to get one soon. But for now, I have a Bell power plug splitter that turns my power outlet into 3 outlets. I use it for my GPS and cell phone, and have recently mounted the box onto my cup holder that sits in the middle of the bench seat, and have it plugged into my power outlet. I plan on hard wiring the splitter into it's own fuse in the fuse panel, to make the wires quite a bit cleaner. This way, I have both my power outlet free, my cigarette lighter free, and can keep my ash tray closed (That's what the triangle window is for...). All while keeping my gadgets charged up.

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with doing this type of thing in our trucks. Surely there's another "High-Tech Redneck" who has came to the same realization of such a task.

 

Inverters are cool, but the problem with cheaper ones is that you can get low voltage before the fuse blows. Low voltage is worse than no voltage and causes sensitive electronic components to die with a quickness b/c of how low voltage tends to cook things. I cooked a CD boom box with my inverter on a camping trip. It was on for so long that it drained the battery enough to need a jump as well. That being said, if the things you're powering are battery powered, then it doesn't matter (battery stabilizes voltage).

With the things you've got going, you could get away a 300 watt unit. If you're tethering your HTC to your laptop to get an internet connection for an extended period of time then you'll probably want something a little beefier as both devices will probably start sucking a lot of power. Maybe 500w.

The 500 watt inverter I had wired into my jeep (which cooked the CD player) was powered with some 10 ga wire. It sort of looks like an amp, so I wired it like one. Power for the inverter was a straight shot to a relay (10 ga), relay wired to the battery with a fuse block near the battery terminal. 10 ga. ground wire to the chasis. Relay turned on with ignition. I ran the wires under carpets & trim pieces. I bolted mine down too, but that was probably overkill.

 

Thanks, that's pretty much what I was looking for.
Man I'm glad I joined these forums!