A heat gun more than likely won't work off a regular size inverter. Anything that creates large amounts of heat quickly will draw a significant amount of current. I can set my warmer on and it does take about 10 minutes to get to about 180 to 190. In my opinion the warmer is far better as it will heat the entire crankcase and internals. Back to the microwave analogy. When you heat something very fast the internals don't get near as much heat. When you look at the big picture of how much most people spend it is well worth an extra $50 to have the convienance of the warmer. But if you are only interested in going to the park and bashing you may not like the convienace of putting it on the warmer and come back 15 minutes latter and throw it on the box and go.