Inverters

Andy,

I was looking at the 2KW inverter that connects to the traction battery rather than the 12V battery. The 10KW speculation is how much charge you can put INTO the traction battery, hopefully from running the ICE at a reasonable rpm for a few minutes and fully charge the traction battery with 3kWh (20 minutes maybe).

again, I am guessing at the 10KW for the PiP. It is probably much more. Volt users have measured close to 20KW being generated from the Volt's ICE and going into the battery under "forced charging" conditions.

 

I used this and it worked just fine.
12 Volt DC to AC 1500 Watt Power Inverter-PW1500-12 at The Home Depot

 

This honestly is starting to sound like a rehashing of the Using PIP As A Generator thread, complete with claims about how 1500 W is so puny and useless that it's not even worth the trouble. Let's skip that, please.
Apart from El Dobro's link, I'll put down two others:
Amazon.com: Power Bright PW1100-12 Power Inverter 1100 Watt 12 Volt DC To 110 Volt AC (almost half the price of the 1500W version and still, imho, more than sufficient for emergency uses)
A Cobra setup that Corwyn has installed permanently: #117

 

OK, I will go along with that, what the traction battery is capable of in KW, I am not sure. But the subject was inverters and the 12V batteries and emergency use. I am positive, like you in thinking this capability will improve radically ( in the near future) I am not sure the average American is thinking along these lines. I do get a lot of questions about my PIP tho !
Le

 

El Dobro: I guess your electricity is totally restored now?

 

I agree !!

 

Thankyou, I hope things are improved on LI. I am originally from Manhatten, so I commiserate.

 

My Inverter by PowerBright 1500 (Amazon or HomeDepot)
Specs: 1500W, 2 outlets
Pros: easy to install, can be hardwired directly to battery
Cons: none. works great

I have used this inverter for a week at a time for two different storms. These storms are getting to be a habit in the northeast, so I am glad to have the inverter.

I wire this inverter directly to the small starter batter in the back of the car. I have the black wire permanently bolted to the car where the battery's ground is attached and use a wing nut to attach the red wire to the battery when i need to connect it.

The inverter has a display on it that shows how much power is being used, so it is easy to monitor. Running a new, efficient fridge, internet, TV, and multiple rooms with lights draws about 300 watts. Plugging in the coffee maker spikes it to 900 watts.

It may be possible to run more power through this inverter, but based on the recommendations I have read, I would not want to run much more than 500 watts on a steady basis. Fortunately, that seems to be plenty.

I leave the Prius in park with all the other systems turned off. The engine comes on when it needs to and burns about two gallons a day.

This works very well and is very simple to install. It would be wonderful to use the traction battery to get 220 and run my well pump, but I really don't want to mess with that.

 

Thanks for the input, useful.

 

...I believe the Toyota 1500W is pure sine wave which is better than the cheaper MSW. A good 1500W sine wave on Amazon gets into $300-400+ or so. Usually peak rating is higher than nominal rating (eg; 2x), and one issue may be how long it handles a peak load. Ideally a peak load can be handled for a little more than just a split second before inverter trips out. So hopefully Prius owners are getting a really good inverter for the extra money vs a cheaper MSW as low as <$100. (whereas Toyota option getting into $1000 range maybe little cheaper for non-PiP Prii).

 

Thanks for the review on the Power Bright 12V DC to AC 1500W power inverter:
12 Volt DC to AC 1500 Watt Power Inverter-PW1500-12 at The Home Depot

I think I'm going to go with this one.

As a followup to this step, can anyone recommend an appropriate battery to use in conjunction with this inverter as an alternative 'portable charger' solution?

I live in an apartment condo, and there aren't any available outlets in the garage. My intention is to charge a battery in my apartment, and then bring it to the garage to allow it to discharge into my Plug-In Prius.

I was recommended to check out Marine Deep Cycle batteries. Can anyone confirm that this would be appropriate, and what size? Other appropriate batteries?

Can someone also confirm my math please?
4400W capacity in the PiP.
12V inverter equats to 4400W / 12V = 366 Ah's required to fully charge the PiP battery.

Since deep cycle batteries recommend to never discharge more than 80% of the battery, this would require at least a 460 Ah battery.

I would appreciate if anyone can confirm my calculations/thoughts and correct me and/or advise.
Thanks!!

 

If you are thinking of hooking up a desktop computer to the inverter you may want to use a pure sine wave model. I have battery backup on my desktop and recently my desktop kept shutting down and restarting. found out my power supply was losing power, so I contacted the manufacturer of the power supply. The Guy at the manufacturer asked me about my battery back up (is it pure sine wave?) Contacted Battery Back up guys, they said my battery back up is stepped wave. Power supply guy says that's what caused your power supply to lose power, fortunately the power supply was still under warranty ( still had to pay $30.00 for shipping) Mean while I got a pure sine wave battery back up, haven't had any issues since.

 

Sam,

That approach isn't going to work very well. The closest I think you could get to your concept might be this thread.

Installed kit from Plug in Supply getting 28 miles! | PriusChat

You could charge the two batteries in your condo, set them in the trunk, and then connect them to your PiP.

 

Thanks John for linking.
I like his idea, but I'm not interested in using up all my cargo space to do that.
Also, I'm sure it must be somewhere in the 12 pages of comments, it was not very clear on the exact specs and calculations that were used to arrive at the hardware solution he is using.

I am very interested in identifying the voltage and Amp-hour capacity requirements for a battery that is capable of delivering a full charge to a Prius Plug-In.

Thanks!

 

If you look at the photos he has, it actually doesn't take up that much space.
But you definitely can't "recharge" the traction battery through the 12V battery.

 

Sam,
There is no magic battery that is going to do this for you.
The Prius plugin battery holds 4.4 kw-hrs, total and recharges with about 2.7 kw-hrs in its operating range. Due to charging losses you'll need a battery that delivers 3+ kw-hrs. Converting from kw-hrs to amp-hrs at 12v, this is 3000 w-hrs/12v = 250 amp-hrs (assuming constant voltage, which it isn't). A typical big Sears Diehard Marine battery is about 80 amp-hrs. So you'd need 3-4 of these. And you'll go through them quickly.

But the bigger question is how are you going to charge the Prius with them? You can't do it through the normal charging connection...it takes 120v AC or 240v AC and requires compliance with the J1772 spec. If you try and connect directly to the traction battery (don't do this) it won't work because you are at the wrong voltage; like water, voltage flows downhill from high voltage to low voltage. The traction battery is 650v. How are you going to convert from 12v dc to 650 v dc?

Mike

 

Yeah, honestly, if you can afford it, just buy the PiP and charge wherever you can publicly. It's still a great car, and in some states (due to TFS and government incentives) is actually cheaper than a Prius Three liftback.

 

I think Sam is considering a bank ( 4-8 ) of 12V deep cycle lead acid batteries connected to a 12VDC - 120VAC 1500W inverter, and then using the standard 120V EVSE to charge the PiP. It's not unreasonable to put 4-8 batteries on a cart and move them between his condo and garage, charging the lead acid batteries during the day and then charging the PiP in the evening.

Personally I don't think this a great solution, but it's not for me to decide. I would find an outlet for charging, and then ride my bike or hike back and forth to my condo or office. Considering that the PiP can get a full charge at a 240V charging station in under 2 hours, I would find a charging station near a gym or someplace I can spend 2 hours being productive.

 

Yep, it came back on after a couple of days. Thanks to the PIP and the inverter, I didn't lose any food.