neoe60

Ever since I took my first road trip in the E60 back in July, I've been hooked! Our cars are so nice to take on road trips! Since then, we've taken it to Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon! Besides, it's nice not having to worry about getting cancer from those invasive airport body scanners, which I refuse to go through, it's hysteria gone mad, which is another topic.

Since I plan to take it on more trips, I thought it might be cool to do a permanent AC inverter installation. Just wanted to start a post and hopefully get some collaborative ideas going on this. I'm thinking of getting this (we really only need something to power our netbook):


I have an Android phone and bought an app that lets me wifi tether to the laptop. The app was $7 but the carrier charges $30/mo just to wifi, so it was well worth it. I guess you could do it for free if you knew how to root your phone, but again, that's another topic.

So, my idea is to mount the AC receptacle in the rear of the armrest, replacing the DC sockets that face the rear. There's no way we could fit an inverter inside the armrest but what about buying 2 AC grounded extension cords long enough to reach into the trunk? Here are some issues to tackle with this job:

• First and foremost, is this safe for our car's electronics? If so then...
• How do we secure the AC socket end of the extension cord where the DC socket used to be?
• How hard is it to hide and run both extension cords back into the trunk?
• How long of an extension cord do you estimate would be required? I think they come in 6ft, 10ft, 15ft lengths.

The nice thing about this install is that the actual inverter unit is installed in the trunk. We're only running extension cords into the cabin. So, if you ever needed to upgrade the inverter to a larger unit, it would be pretty easy to swap out.

Any further thoughts/ideas on this?