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Gen 2 Prius inverter 220vdc to 220vac what works best?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by lalloyd, Oct 5, 2024 at 10:14 AM.

  1. lalloyd

    lalloyd Junior Member

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    After 7 days without power and using a gasoline generator, the idea of using my Prius for power has risen again. I have read many posts on the subject but the question that I have is what is the best and cheapest solution. I need 10k watts of power. I have found many inverter/converters on the net from China. Most want a 5 unit minimum order. I just need one, lol. Unless there are four of you that want to group buy. Hopefully there is someone who reads this that has done this and can offer suggestions on what inverter works the best and so on. If that person would chime in I would be so thankful.
     
  2. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    You'll want to be careful with the voltage range, because the nominal 201.6-volt gen 2 battery can reach close to 240 volts when the engine is running and charging it, and discharge close to 190 or so before the engine kicks in. Not every inverter you find will tolerate that wide a range of input voltages, so check the specs carefully.

    You won't get 10k watts. The car's engine, MGs, and inverter are easily capable of that much and more when you are driving, but when the car is sitting parked, it will not rev the engine up above 1200 RPM to charge. For sustainable power, you have to budget for the amount you get from the engine at that low charge-while-parked RPM, which will be more like 3 kW.

    We have a thread about all this:

    Electric power from a hybrid, connecting inverter to the high-voltage system | PriusChat
     
  3. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    How can you get 10K watts out of a 1.3KW pack?

    Maybe if you wired up 12 Prius that could work?

    But probably if you want to tap directly into what little HV DC power a Prius can provide you, just go with the folks who already designed and tested equipment that does that: PlugOut Power LLC
     
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    It's easy to be confused by the similarity in spelling between a unit of energy spelled kWh and a unit of power spelled kW.

    The amount of energy a gen 2 Prius pack can have stored when fully charged is 1.3 kWh (not kW).

    The amount of power a gen 2 pack can give you (for a short time) is 25 kW (not kWh). (That's multiplying its nominal voltage by its 125-amp fuse rating; it might even give you more than that, for durations too short to blow the fuse.)

    But if you are planning to use power with an inverter like this, the idea is you will leave the car READY and the engine will run as needed. The amount of power you can sustainably budget for is just how much power MG1 could give you from running the engine. You've got a 57 kW engine and an MG1 that can handle 30 kW. So far, so good.

    However, the limiting factor is really the car's programming. When it is sitting parked and running the engine to keep the battery charged, it never bumps up the engine RPM to the higher power levels seen while driving. It charges with the engine at roughly idle RPM, and you get about 3 kW.

    Those folks have announced no more product sales, but continuing tech support on already-sold products for the rest of 2024 on a best-effort, as-available basis. It may be possible to find some of their products second-hand.

    Those folks as well as other sources are already covered in the dedicated PriusChat thread on this topic, linked in #2 above.
     
    #4 ChapmanF, Oct 5, 2024 at 2:39 PM
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2024 at 2:52 PM