For Sale AIMS Prius 2kW Pure Sine Wave Inverter

What is the benefit of this versus installing a pure sine 3,000 inverter to 12V battery?

 

Benefit? It'll work.

Install a 3,000 watt inverter to the 12 volt battery, and you will either (1) if the car is not READY, fully deplete the car's 45 amp-hour battery in eleven minutes flat at full load, or (2) if the car is READY, exceed the DC/DC converter output capacity (and its fusing) by 80 percent.

The same inverter capacity powered from the hybrid system requires under 15 amps at traction battery voltage, and the engine and MG1 can supply that with start/stop idling without breaking a sweat, for as long as there's fuel in the tank.

There's more on this particular inverter over in this thread.

 

Eh, not sure if you've tested this scenario or not but running the proper wiring 3000 is doable on the Prius. I have two 85AH batteries, each with its own 2000W pure sine inverter and I can cook on an air fryer and induction stove at the same time. I know someone personally running a 3k watt inverter.

 

Then it sounds like you answered your own question. It would require no additional 12v batteries or 12v battery capacity. Standard 12v battery, + standard HV battery. Connect this inverter to your HV battery and you're all done. Certainly, with your knowledge of batteries and electronics you already can see the advantages. Any device that operates at higher voltage and lower current is also typically more efficient.

Regardless, in your case, you are limited by the capacity of the DC/DC converter, with some amount of cushion provided by "two 85AH batteries". Under continuous use, that cushion runs out.
An inverter that connects directly to the HV battery does not have that limit and is merely limited by the capacity of the inverter and the amount of gasoline in the fuel tank

 

A Prius comes with a single 45 amp-hour battery with a 120 to 140 amp fuse (depending on generation) in the battery clamp. That's around 1800 watts tops within the fuse capacity and the battery capacity even at that rate is under 20 minutes. In READY, the car's DC/DC converter is online, with its specified output of 120 amps tops, 30 or 40 of which are needed by the car itself, and you're still depleting the battery with anything you draw beyond what's available there. If you personally know someone who is deliberately overloading that and getting away with it so far, well, "more power to them" is probably the best thing to say.

Your retrofit with the two 85 AH batteries sounds neat, but that in itself kind of answers your question in #2, if we're comparing a stock Prius with a high-input inverter simply attached and easily running from the hybrid system, versus starting with a stock Prius, hauling in two aftermarket batteries each nearly double the size of the stock one, all to manage to support for some adequate but limited time a draw that exceeds the output capacity of the car's DC converter.

Edit: beaten by TMR-JWAP to about the same point....

 

This is all dependent on wires as well, before 0 gauge I would burn through the power cables and blow 120A breakers. I cook for longer than 20 minutes. I monitor my draw with a bmv-712 and an additional battery monitor. I never peak more than 1760 on high with an air fryer or induction stove.
the cell booster, fridge, routers, mifi can be run with the car out of Ready mode.

Can you tell I hadn't looked into these? Your explanation answered my question actually. Sounds like for my use case it won't work.

I hope to run out of my cushion to then upgrade the failure point. I've gotten to a point of using the car out of Ready mode these days, only use it when pulling lots of power from the system. Free charging stations have me wanting to go solar and upgrade the standalone system I've built into the prius system.

 

Undersized wiring can give you heating and voltage-drop problems, and put unnecessary limits on your available power. They can paradoxically increase the current being drawn (the inverter is actively regulated, so if it needs to produce W watts of power and the input voltage drops to V, it will increase its current draw to W/V if it can).

Upsizing the wires can solve those problems and get you closer to the maximum power available, but not work magic and give you more than that.

If that's a peak and if the voltage is holding around 13.6 at the time, that's a draw around 130 amps. The car's DC converter is rated for 120, and the car uses some of that. If you monitor its IDH output, it probably is calling Uncle! at that point. The 125 amp fuse embedded in the front fuse box is not fast blow, and should be good for over four hours at that modest overload, which is good, because that fuse is a pain in the butt to replace.

If the car is in READY when you cook, there's no surprise there, as you're only relying on the battery then for as much as the DC converter falls short. At the same load with the car not in READY, a stock Prius battery would be fully discharged in 20 minutes though.

 

Don't waste your time on this one. No respect for sellers who pull auctions out from under bidders.

 

You mean like it was a reserve auction but without saying so, and not delivered to the winning bidder?

 

No reserve, first auction completed, winning bid was a bargain, item now relisted.

 

I hope the winning bidder has reported that to eBay, or will do so. Probably the only real way to deal with that. eBay may have allowed the relisting because they don't know whether the seller has more of the same item.

 

It does, thanks!