I bought a Trippe Electric 400 watt square wave resistive load only 12v.
inverter at a yard sale. I hooked it up directly to a 12v. battery, and put
in a 110v. test light, the small two prong ones. I flipped the switch, and
couldn't get the test light to come on.

Do I need to hard wire this to the 12v. system? Maybe there wasn't enough
juice in the battery to kick the light on?

I did hook it to a 12v. cigarette plug, and promptly burned out the 5 amp
fuse. I put a 30 amp fuse in there, and it burned that out, too.

What does resistive load only mean? and square wave?

Am I farting in the wind? I need to hook up a laptop in my truck for
business purposes. Should I just go get the cigarette plug inverter they
sell at the computer store?

TIA

Steve

--
"...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere
critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly,
not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done."
Theodore Roosevelt 1891