Do Trucks Have Power Outlets?

Huh what? In what country are you driving?

Don't worry about overloading. That is what fuses are for. When the power stops, you know it is overloaded! hehehee

Mikeeee

 

My Volvo truck has 110 ac power outlets, but they are only powered if the "shore power" outlet on the side of the truck is plugged into an outside power power source. In my near two years driving I have never found such a source at a truck stop. Except those with still operating idle air systems.

Mikeeee

 

Some do some don't. Mine has 1 more of these under the bunk.

 

Converters are nice...but aren't the best for your sensitive electronics under full time use. You may want to look into a dedicated inverter and possible sine wave inverter for use. Additionally it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have an inverter installed as compared to a plug in model. I come from an IT background and play around with photography. I upgraded my SUVs alternator and installed a sine wave in the back. I can run flash units and charge my cell/laptop as long as I need to. Buy once, cry once as they say.

 

They do have ac outlets that are powered by inverters. I recently started drive ng s truck for Ruan and my truck has two outlets but they either were not working or didn’t have enough power to operate a small dirt devil vacuum cleaner I was trying to use to vacuum the mattress in the bunk. It just went to the shop for its regular service the other day and I listed them as not working and am hoping when I get it back that they are now working. I will find out in the morning.

 

The outlets that are in the trucks are for when you are connected to shore power only.
My invertor has power outlets, but they are on the invertor itself.

 

Big trucks generally do not have shore power (120 volt house) as built from factory. They COULD be equipped with it if you have a second engine big enough to generate and maintain it.

Most of the time we use a inverter for the big stuff. Taking the 12 volt DC power from the batteries and stepping up and converting to AC power and beefing the voltage and amps plus watts most especially. With a big enough inverter properly installed by a dealership you can run anything you can run at home as long it's 120 volts and less than 12 amp draw and sufficient watts to start large motors. (Starting requires twice the watts than it is to keep it going)

You also need a form of AC power particular for computers. There are inverters capable of providing such nice power so that the computers can be stable feeding on it.

Most everything we had in our truck in our time, television etc were dual power. They could take 12 volt or 120 volt.

Inverter was about 300 dollars. Installation was another 300 parts and labor at freightliner armarillo after particular company permission in writing and a pair of 300 watt inverters were used off cigerette lighters provided they had dual fan, metal fin body to cool themselves feeding a laptop or cell phone charger. When we left the truck with FFE, the inverter etc stayed with it because at that time CPAP was becoming more common and it would benefit someone who has need of it.

 

This must be a company the thing, the company I work for have Freights and Petes and all of them have Shore Power outlets and of course optional (at drivers expense) inveters that can be installed in the trucks for I think 300 to 350.00.

 

The new Freight shakers do have an option for Shore power. Obviously that is for a premium truck with a lot more bells and whistles. My 2019 has two sets of 120 outlets in the bunk and one set on the inverter. The bunk Outlets will only work if the inverter is turned on. I also have a tripac Apu which keeps power going to them, again, as long as the inverter is on. If the inverter is off then the 12v outlets are the only ones that work.

 

That is pretty nice I reckon.