How to Turn Your Toyota Prius Into a Temporary Generator

No clue! I need to check it. I'm at work now. Found the manual on line but it only gives the voltage. Grrrr. I'm just going by something I read that said 725 W is typical. Then again, 125 watts is only about one amp. That seems pretty low. It might have a variable rate compressor. I'm not really up to speed on refrigerators. I'd expect something closer to 5-7 amps. Mine is also a Samsung, medium sized French door.

We're packing tonight for a micro-vacation, so I won't have time to check it for a few days. Mr. Kline, the clamp-on meter should educate me.

 

A refrigerator compressor takes a good grunt to get started, then less while it's running. Any power source will have to be able to supply the grunt.

 

It very certainly could. A lot depends on the vintage and the degree of energy savings the makers aimed for. Older models consumed far more average power than today's Energy Star units, and commonly had shorter duty cycles, thus even higher running watts.

And even higher still starting current, especially from back when power factors and starting surges didn't matter. With a slight bit more manufacturing expense, both of those can be significantly improved.

I'm seeing numerous web sites suggesting 700-800 running watts for typical refrigerators, while others give figures resembling yours. Some references would use older data than others.

My own refrigerator, considerably more efficient than its predecessor, lists a max current of 3.5 amps, i.e. allow 420 VA.

 

Exactly. Our rule of thumb for motors in the factory was that startup current was about 600% of FLA (full load amps). And, sometimes that could take a couple seconds or more for bigger stuff.

They have made big advances in refrigeration power requirements. But even new stuff can pull pretty hard when it needs to.

That's the thing with doing these inverter systems is that it's so hard to predict what the peak loads will be. You might be measuring current at one moment that looks really low and then it could spike when a second stage kicks in or something. That and the cost are what has made me slow getting to the party. It still might be a while because of my awareness of the potential pitfalls.

 

We always knew when they started and stopped the ball mills at the mine, because the whole city would go dark for a few seconds. A pair of 5000kW motors on each.

 

In our house the biggest load item that really has to be connected to a generator during power outage is the deep well pump. Without it, we have no running water in our house hold. There is no easy way to connect the pump to an extension cord, thus I had to install the whole house generator plug-in to the main service panel. I don't know how much kW is required to run this pump. Is there any easy way to measure this value?

 

Is the pump submerged and inaccessible? If not, there's almost certainly a plate on it listing demand.

I put ammeters on the legs feeding my panel from the generator inlet, so I can monitor the load in realtime. My well pump hits for 10A @120V; it's a fairly average 1/2hp motor.

 

Correct. It's waaay down in the well. I have had the pump serviced once in the past, but forgot to ask the guy to look at the spec on the pump.

The pump is on its own 240v 20A circuit on main panel. I have been thinking about buying whole house home energy monitor like this one.
TED The Energy Detective
or this
https://sense.com/product

But I have not pull the trigger yet.

 

I've been researching that TED gadget. I like what I see but I don't have enough applications to justify the cost.

A simple clamp-on meter would let you check up on that pump in place (or any other load) if you pull the deadfront and took measurements. That's not too different than what I did to install my little meters, except I left the current transformers in place same as the TED system would work. Mine just have a live LCD showing current, voltage, calculated watts and accumulated kWh since reset. I think I spent $40 on the parts; amazon stuff mostly.

 

Exactly! I also thought about simple clamp-on meter to check individual circuit on the main board, but have not done that either. It would cost much less, but with that type of system I would have to go down to the basement where this main panel is currently located every time I need to check. Not the most convenient solution. I really like the wifi enabled monitoring system that can report and chart the individual appliance energy usage for the whole house over time. I can do that on a individual house outlet with cheap smart plugs for most 120V appliances, but 240V circuit is not easy to check.

 

@Salamander_King Yep, that's why I just put in the simple live meters and called it good. The only time I really care about load management is when I'm running the emergency generator, because it can't handle everything in the house simultaneously. And once I know what the loads are, the best place to actually do something about them is the panel itself. So while in theory it's less convenient, in practice it doesn't happen often enough to matter.

 

I am more curious about normal usage of electricity during normal days to find out where I can conserve more. I know, my portable 7.5kW generator handles whole house electricity needs during power outage as long as we don't use the oven and electric dryer and of course no PRIME plug-in. In preparation to installing PV panels I would like to find out how much normal day to day electricity use for each appliances. I know the total usage, but just don't know what is using how much.

 

My frig runs 156 watts but a (cheap) 300 watt inverter will not fire it up.

 

There are two paths: You can get a 1kw 12v inverter off the shelf and attach it to your 12v battery directly. Great for low wattage needs.
You can get a PlugOut inverter for 4kw and 5kw spec that attaches to the hybrid battery from PlugOut Power [plugoutpower.com].

 

Each appliance has a label or manual where the information can be found. For actual readouts, get a Kilawatt power meter for those appliances that plugin.

 

THe warranty cannot be voided, except per incident if you cause something bad to happen. See PlugOutpower.com/FAQ

 

Hope you looked into inverters before this Fall. Happy to help, if needed.

 

A dashboard solar panel can work nicely.

 

Correct, Both.

 

THe warranty cannot be voided with product attached, except for incident where problem was caused by the addition. See Plugoutpower.com/FAQ