Hurricane Sandy - I love my Prius!

Most excellent! Toyota should collect more stories like this.

 

I did the same thing with a 1200 watt inverter. I actually back fed my panel, so I had 120Volts everywhere (Do not do this unless you know exactly what you are doing). We used the fridge, lights TV heat microwave, toaster. Could not use high inrush current things like the waste disposer, gas dryer. Of course careful load management is critical since there are only 1200 watts to go around. I am thinking of upgrading to RPPD2000 for $150 which should allow me to meet the inrush needs of the few things that did not work (of course, I can't use anything that needs 240 VAC, nor can I get power from my solar system). The inverter I have now is well matched to the average power the Prius can deliver on a continuous basis, but its peak power is only 2X the average, so many motors that will run with the inverter once started, will not start due to the 3X or 4X higher inrush current then running current. I think I can get away with this since I have a flooded 12 volt battery which can handle much higher peak currents then the AGM battery the car comes with. The car powered the house running continously for 3 days using about 7 gallons of gas. Beats any generator on gas consumption. Even my wife loves the Prius now.

 

...Frankenstorm has certainly educated more of us on how easy it is to buy an inverter and hook it up.
Prior to this it was clouded in mystery for me, now I "get it". Gotta get me one too.

 

...what's a flooded 12-v battery?
I think that's the next question, the first simple step is just buy a 1000-1500 watt inverter, then where do you go next if you want to go to more power (beside buying a second Prius)

 

This is amazing!!!

 

Did you just connect the Inverter to the 12v Battery in the back? Maybe a photo of the hookup would be Great. Thanks FF

 

Sorry maybe I'm slow.....does this mean you ran your car, outside, 24 hours a day for 3 days?

 

Looks like it. If you live in an unsafe neighborhood and don't have a garage this solution could be problematic. But life is full of trade-offs.

 

Yes. What makes this such a nice solution, compared to a regular car, is that the Prius will simply turn the engine off and on as required to keep the battery charged.

According to the OP's data it appears to have only used a little over 1 gallon per day to accomplish this. Very impressive.

 

An excellent outcome.

I would encourage other members who are considering AC inverter use to make sure that they do not overload the system by drawing too much power. The voltage drop on the 12V bus down to 12.2V shows the DC/DC converter is under duress - since normal voltage output is 13.8V.

If the 100A DC/DC fusible link that protects the DC/DC converter blows, you will be without power and of course the Prius also will be disabled. That link is housed within the 5" long plastic box located within the main relay/fuse box and will not be easy to replace - typically dealer service will be required.

 

Excellent job Firstflt. I was thinking that it may be better to force charge the 12 volt intermittently or at least when using the heater so not to pull the 12 volt so low which stresses out the Inverter also.
I would use Inspection mode when I was using the heater. It uses more gas (not much) but really helps.

Also be aware you really gave that little agm a workout. I would suggest buying a reg car 2 amp mode battery charger and start doing weekly maintenance charges on the front jump points to track its health. On a healthy agm in 2 amp mode should charge to O draw in less than 10 minutes. Soon as you see that start taking much longer you will know its going south.

 

I'm a bit of a cynic but this sounds too good to be true, and often if that's the case, it often is.

So am I getting this right? You plug a suitable inverter into your cig lighter socket, connect an extension cord from the inverter to your house and then plug in items like your fridge and tv or a light? I guess you have to leave the car in Ready mode and you could manually lock the door with the metal key.

So it's as simple as that? Just leave the car running and the inverter will change 12v to 230v? That's magic lol. How much do these inverters cost? I've seen some 150w and 300w versions but the 1500w's cost a packet. Is it harder to bump up the voltage to 230v instead of 110v?

 

The car is locked. The engine is very quiet and only running intermittently, probably not even noticeable in a neighborhood with other noisy generators. If someone wants to steal the car, they need to disconnect the cable first, which turns out your lights, like a perfect car alarm. With the cable coming out the back they need to break into that as well as a door. Once they get the car it can't be restarted once it shuts down.

I live in a safe neighborhood, so I am not paranoid about these things, but it doesn't sound like too big a risk to me. No worse than someone stealing your (noisy) generator while it is running.

 

Hi Grumpy. To some extent yes it is that simple (though no you can't use the cigarette lighter socket - you need a connection well clamped to the battery terminals for a 500+ Watt inverter).

There are some important considerations to watch out for however. You need to have some idea of how much power each appliance takes. Many things like computer TV and lights *can* be very low power consumption these days and can easily run from even a 300W inverter (Not all do, but you can get modern TV's and computers that run at under 100 Watts - some even well under 100W. With rising energy costs these days, it really pays to check into the power requirements of your appliances when you're looking to purchase.)

Also, you can now get LED replacement globes that run from 3 to 10 Watts per globe. They're still an emerging technology and performance/price is still rapidly improving, so keep an eye out for these.

The fridge is a potential problem for an inverter however. A typical household fridge may only take 100 to 200 Watts to run the compressor (and far less averaged over 24 hours due to thermostatic cycling), however it may take more than 10 times this power for a duration of approximately 1/4 of a second each time the compressor starts. So even a 1kW inverter may trip when the fridge cycles the compressor to start. Some inverters will have a 2 second (or something like that) peak rating of approx twice their continuous rating, so perhaps the OP's inverter was good for 2kW for a few seconds and therefore could handle his fridge ok. Many inverter users however have come unstuck when trying to start up their fridge.

 

This just goes to show you how flexible the technology is.

Also, the car's efficiency is demonstrated beyond the usual realms of MPG - a standard "running" engine would not have been to maintain this set up with any measure of efficiency. The notion of you running an Xbox is a little blasé, but I suppose you earned the right.

Bravo.

 

Well, this sounds pretty good on the surface in case of an emergency. So are you guys up in the air about keeping a large home refrigerator going? It appears that there is a high risk of damaging your car or starting a fire if the convertor fan stops! Isn't there a 2000w convertor that would hold or maintain the load better?