Just starting a project to add more 12 volt battery power to my Prius. Wondering if others have done it and what they did? So the first decision is replace the Toyota battery, or add and fit in a second 12 volt battery. I want around 90 AH available for accessories. Assuming I can make something fit looks like an Optima Yellow top will be my battery choice, as it is readily available and is AGM. I think I read a post once where someone swapped the Toyota battery for an Optima but can't seem to find the message now.
Go for it. It would be nice to have a yellow top optima for a prius. They are cleaner and have a less chance to corrode and leak. Not a bad idea. But one more thing, the accessories you are going to be using...are they like a massive stereo, lcds,etc ? Because if you are, research in a different alternator, because that battery would be taking a beating. :mrgreen:
Why bother? You can pull up to 100 amps@12v from the present system. You just have to remember to have the car in ready. You can put it in park if you like. The ICE will cycle as neccesary to keep the 12v charged.
My old car was a diesel with 90 amp alternator and 90 amp hour battery. It was perfect for my needs but just got too old to keep on the road. I just gave it away. 17 years old and 260,000 miles. Can't replace it in MA so I have to make my new hybrid match it's capabilities: 1 Back up house power for when the grid is down. (been down as long as 2 weeks where I live in the middle of winter) I have a several KW inverter. It could run my freezer and refrigerator during the outages, or my sump pump and furnace. Prius will do it better because the engine won't have to go all the time! The motor starting surges are more than I want to subject the little Prius battery to however. Steady state load may be around 700 watts 2 I keep a little car refrigerator/freezer going 24/7 at times by running on battery during the day and grid power at night. It is an Engel which is quite efficient but still needs 2-3 amps at 12 volts. Has built in ac line power too; dual power cords. 3 Someone mentioned audio, and I do have a subwoofer and amp to move over from the old car! I think the amp is 100 watts or so. Be nice to listen to music parked once in a while and we aren't supposed to just idle our engines anymore. 4 There are times where I've wanted to leave my car with parking lights or flashers going. Wouldn't dare to in the Prius with it's tiny battery.
Sorry. There is no alternator in the Prius. The 12 v. system is charged directly from the HV system via an inverter. Powering a house from the Prius during outages seems far-fetched. But for leaving lights on, etc., a larger 12 v. battery seems like a good idea. Toyota apparently decided that with no starter, the Prius didn't need a full-size battery. So they ended up leaving it without enough reserve for ACC and IG-On modes.
I don't expect whole house power at once. Just the necessities. I've done it with 90 amps so the 100 in the Prius should be easy. I generally run the fridge and freezer, and then switch to furnace and sump pump instead as needed. Load stays around 700 watts except for motor start, and for that reason the inverter is rated closer to 2 kw.
I may not get this done till summer, but I will try to keep everyone up to date with my current ideas case they are doing mods too for this. So far I have run into two problems. 1 normal battery isolators can not be used that use diodes and have a 0.7 volt voltage drop. The drop is bad anyway, but the problem is the single power rail for power front to back of the car. My solution is to try the isolators from http://www.hellroaring.com/bic75150.htm If you look at the RV section especially they have several suggested circuits to use depending on what you want to do! You can make some adjustments since there is no big starter load in a Prius! Can't say much about them yet but I ordered one to look at. 2 The more serious problem is space and battery sizes. I would like to use something fairly available, but might not if I found the perfect fit. This may take me the rest of the winter to decide but here are the options I can see: A Smaller battery than I want mounted on side beside the regular one. Cut and re-shape the bin to give it space. B Put battery in the tire well and move tire up to the top somewhere. Then cut bin and mount battery box cover in it to allow the extra 2 inches or so needed. All standard batteries seem to come in one size only: "too high" C Remove the left side bin and put battery in box there, allowing for a 2-3 inch hump there. Discard the little cover, and cut the main cover as needed. That about covers the possibilities though there are permutations of these. There seems to be room for a slightly wider battery from Toyota, but this would make installing it harder, and would not even then be close to the sizes I could use. Might help some people to look into. Looks like room for about a 1 inch wider battery in place of the stock one, but duct would have to move for installing or removing. Might let someone go away for a week longer without disconnecting stuff.
Hook a 125 amp grey AMP connector to the jump terminal under the hood and leave the big battery and inverter in your garage/basement* whatever and run the leads with connector out to the car and plug it in. No need to carry around a bigger battery and inverter when all you want to do is charge the battery for the project. * if you leave the battery in the basement use a sealed gel cell as they don't off gas.
http://www.toyota-industries.com/product/e...ogy_center.html Just some specs on the converter. 1120 watts total max.
Well it was Google, but I was searching for more Prius battery info, not converter info and it just showed up!