A cold cathode inverter changes 12v DC to what? I'm having real problems with them burning out... They are plugged into a standard 12v, 4 pin molex... they last a couple weeks and POOF! My system is on for maybe 6hrs a day... and is shut down at night.. any idea's? hagatha
12V DC to several hundred volts AC. About 600V for CCFLs and 100-200V for glow string, iirc. If they are burning out it is probably because whatever you are loading them with is drawing too much current (two CCFLs from one inverter, for example). Stepping up a voltage means stepping down the current, so while an inverter may pull an amp from the PSU it may only be able to provide 100mA of current to the device. This is because power (V*I) must be conserved. CCFLs are (I'm fairly certain) capable of negative resistance means, in certain circumstances, as the voltage across the tube goes down the current through the tube goes up (and vice versa). It is possible, I suppose, that if you had a bad tube or tubes negative resistance could lead to runaway which would kill the inverter fairly quick. Alternately the 12V supply on your PSU is bad (too high, or much too low) cheers
some inverters are very suscept to overheating; especially within the small, poorly vented enclosures they come in
