1500W AC inverter in 23MY Prime

Looks sinusoidal enough for government work. (And like a ✕10 probe is being used.) What more are you wanting to know?

 

Do you have a label or something in the car's owners' manual that says what the max load is?

 

I suspect if that's the rating they give it, it's good for that much.

 

Do AI chatbots now sign up for their own forum accounts?

 

Looked like it at another forum I visit.

 

Well, at the end of the day, 120 VAC inverters by now are pretty much commodity items. They do what they're supposed to do, and perform to their ratings.

With an output as sinusoidal as your 'scope shows, there aren't likely to be any devices that would have any problem with it. If you keep under the rating advertised for it, it is likely to just do its job.

Maybe the only question that leaves unanswered is your "near max load for any period of time" question. And I don't have an answer for that. But, did you see anything in the manual that said "intermittent" or suggested a time limit?

 

I don't see anything in the (EU) manual even hinting at a time limit - just lots of talk about ensuring the total stays below 1500 W and that it might not work if you try to exceed it. I get the strong impression it's 1500 W continuous.

I liked some of the actual warnings:

In situations such as the following, do not use an electric device while driving [...]

* When a device is likely to cause burns, such as a toaster, microwave, electric heater, electric kettle, coffee maker, etc.

* When a device is likely to fall under the pedals and prevent the brake pedal from being depressed, such as a hair dryer, AC adapter, mouse, etc.​

 

Those have probably happened at some time for there to be warnings.

 

Slightly off-topic, but my favorite car warning was for my Gen1 Prius, roughly paraphrasing:
- The electric windows have a safety feature to stop the window closing if there is an obstruction such as a neck.
- DO NOT TEST THIS FEATURE WITH YOUR NECK.

Yea, kinda scared that text was put in there because someone did....

will

 

So, I used and hairdryer with a two power switch. I was worming glue on some add-ons to stitch in the car. I used the first position for a while, then changed to the highest one for a little bit and the inverter cut off power for some time. Didn't work even at low power (I went inside the house to try the dryer with a normal outlet- here in Europe 220 volt - and it worked). Returned in the car and the dryer was also working, but I kept it at the lower power for finishing the job. No power rating on the dryer, but it isn't a big one! So the inverter has a switch limiting power, auto resetting after some time. Regards
Alessandro

 

Didn't the manual state it is pure sine for the inverter?

 

@purplePriii: (BTW, do you really have a purple Prii, that would be cool!)

I thought I saw someone having a post in that, but can't find it. I have a scope, but a bit nervous playing around with high current AC. Lemme mull it over and if I decide to go for it, will post it here.

will

 

@purplePriii: OK, it didn't take long, that was an experiment I wanted to try. Never ask an engineer a question about data he'd like to get anyway!

STANDARD WARNING: This type of setup is one that can easily go very wrong quickly! There are lots of horror stories about folk plugging scope probes into AC outlets without correct isolation in place and creating a lot of smoke. The scope was plugged into a house outlet and with the Prius fully isolated, I felt it was an OK setup, but still scared and powered up and touched things very carefully!

The setup: The GFCI was kinda there for added safety, but really for the triple outlet. I wanted a nice resistive load and my kettle was perfect. My load was about 950W measured. The scope was plugged into household power and I had the probes ground to the cars 120V neutral and probe tip to the cars 120V hot. Nothing touching car ground.

With no load it looks pretty good, just a bit of discontinuity at the zero crossing
At 950W it looks even better!

AAGH! I can't post pictures!! I get a short box in the upper right corner then nothing. This happened with the new website update I think. I tried "upload a file" too and get an error. Hopefully I can figure it out and post soon. The sine waves look really nice!

Looking at the forum update thread, this seems to be an issue being actively worked, so I'll post the pics as soon as I can. Main thing is that while not perfect, the sinewaves look really nice at both no-load and my 950W test load. In fact, the 950W waveform looks a bit better than the no-load waveform!

will

 

I wish! I thought the Gen 4 would look great in purple, the Gen 5 I'm not so sure.

I tried checking the manual and can't seem to find the part when it's pure sine but I did think I saw it somewhere. Thanks for the checking, it confirms it at least!

 

OK, still no ability to post pictures in the forum, but supposedly I can post links to pictures on another server. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, but want to try. These are JPEGS on a Google drive:

Setup:

Zero load waveform:

950W load waveform:

I will leave them up for a while, but at some point in months ahead they'll get cleaned up. Hopefully by then I can post pictures again. If there is a better short-term workaround, happy to be educated!

will