Using car as generator for house power

I live within bicycling distance of Seattle, in Washington State, 2300 miles West-Northwest of DC. Think of it as upper west coast. Historically cheap hydroelectric power in this region created a large legacy of all-electric homes. While many neighborhoods now have natural gas, I have never lived in a dwelling with any kind of gas service.

 

I was so sorry to see this last post:
"Judgeless, post: 1712574, member: 52719"

I'm in this thread to understand and share the engineering and technology of connecting inverters to our Prius. I had started a second thread about the generator carbon monoxide risks hoping you might hang out there but no luck. I'd also suggested postings that are 'not part of the solution are part of the problem' and again, no luck. Since I can find no relevant Prius content in your posts, there is a fairly easy solution, "ignore user." It is what we have to do when the 'signal-to-noise' ratio gets too high.

The current PriusChat software effectively removes all postings of the ignored user(s) from this and all other threads . . . like an electronic editor. Now this thread has instantly become a "Prius Inverter" technical thread which matches my interest. As an experiment, ignore "bwilson4web" and see if this thread improves . . . in your eyes. In effect, there are two threads in one:

• How to use a Prius as an emergency power source in a power-outage.
• Non-Prius based, emergency power solutions.

Which do you think matches the goals of a PriusChat forum titled "Gen III 2010+ Prius Technical Discussion" and which is not?

Regardless, select who you want to read to 'crank your tractor.' Chat at you later when we've finished our Prius technical discussions.

Bob Wilson

 

3PriusMike, these values were written on a permanent sticky tag placed on my PV inverter by the installing crew back in 2007 to (I think) show my particular PV array's current's peak possible values as the current exits my inverter to feed into the circuit breaker box and back into the grid. In other words, were I to alter the panel count of my PV array for some reason in the future, these "max possible" values would also change. I think the sticky tag and its calculations were written out by the PV system installers for future electricians who might have to mess with my setup.

I recovered from a long day at work yesterday and of course the information came to me right away this morning

 

Folks, another member just let me know of this Prius-related inverter solution: (begin quote)

Turn your Prius into an efficient, quiet and clean gas generator!
One tank of gasoline lasts 60 hours at full load or one week on normal household usage
Applicable to 2004-2012 Prius, PriusV and Plug-in Prius

PWRI2000S240VDC
AIMS 2000 WATT 240 VOLT PURE SINE POWER INVERTER

FEATURES
2000 WATT CONTINUOUS POWER
3000 WATT SURGE POWER
COMPACT AND LIGHTWEIGHT
DUAL AC RECEPTACLES / OFF SWITCH
LOW BATTERY VOLTAGE WARNING / SHUTDOWN
OVER TEMPERATURE INDICATOR
OVERLOAD PROTECTION
INCLUDES REMOTE SWITCH
HIGH INPUT VOLTAGE PROTECTION WITH AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN
OVER LOAD INDICATOR
COOLING FANS THERMALLY CONTROLLED
AC OUTPUT SHORT CIRCUIT PROTECTION
SPECIFICATIONS
DC INPUT / OPERATING VOLTAGE: 180-260 VDC
OUTPUT VOLTAGE:120 VOLTS AC
OUTPUT VOLTAGE REGULATION: +/- 3%
OUTPUT FREQUENCY: 60 HZ
BATTERY LOW VOLTAGE ALARM: 180 VDC VOLTS
HIGH BATTERY VOLTAGE SHUTDOWN: 260 VDC
NO LOAD POWER CONSUMPTION: < 0.4 AMPS
DC AMPS - 9A
AC AMPS - 17
FULL LOAD EFFICIENCY: 90%
1/3 LOAD EFFICIENCY:95%
AC OUTPUT SOCKET TYPE: DUAL TYPE 2-3 PRONG
HIGH INPUT VOLTAGE PROTECTION: 280V
LOW INPUT VOLTAGE SHUTDOWN: 170V
INTERNAL BLADE FUSE PROTECTION
DIMENSIONS: 15”L X 6”W X 3.4”H
WEIGHT: 15 LBS
FREE 1 YEAR TECH SUPPORT
1 YEAR WARRANTY PARTS AND LABOR (end quote)

The seller has this E-bay link, which will likely be non-persistent:

Aims Prius 2KW Pure Sine Wave Inverter for Backup Power Generator | eBay

 

More background about the "Prius Inverter" post above: the seller writes that:

"Yes, this inverter is for 120VAC output only. It doesn't supply 240VAC. But if this kind of product has market, we will supply 4KWH dual phase 240VAC/120VAC inverter in the future."

The non-E-bay discussion can be found here, starting with the 2d section 1/3 of the way down the page:

A PbSO4 PBS

Thank you Richard for this information!

 

Excellent, I have the 12V version of the same inverter!

If I find a space to mount my inverter in the ZVW30, we'll have a solution for the traction battery version. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

This seems to be an even better solution although routing the 200V cable will be a different challange all together. Also somewhat costlier ... but I think it will be more efficient (not using another inverter/converter in the chain).

I have my setup done (yet to be tested) so I am not going to invest in this but will be following if anyoneone does.

 

Bob,

99% of the topics in these forums are way off topic. Here is an example of one from today.

Random Questions: | PriusChat

When I post about inverters in thread about a Prius using an inverter I am a lot less off topic then other threads. Nothing compares to the 400 new topics that get created for new winter tires over 3 months.

Bob the world is not perfect, relax and enjoy that people do not have similar (not exact) views as you.

 

At $490.00 this is way over priced!!! You can get the same thing with some cables and a fuse for less than $150.00

 

Real sine wave, not modified sine wave?

 

Thanks. But I was questioning the term watts/hour. There is no such useful unit. The correct unit would be a watt-hour. A watt-hour is the consumption of 1 watt for a period of an hour. A watt per hour has no meaning.

When someone writes a watt/hour it is unclear if they really mean a watt-hour or a watt.

Mike

 

OK, but they still don't make much sense. First, I was questioning the use of the (non-useful) units of watt/hour. No one uses this for anything useful. Watts or kilowatts are useful. Watt-hours and kilowatt-hours are useful. As far as units that would be useful for connecting a PV array to the grid...you only need to know the volts, amps and watts (which are volts x amps)

7.5 watts/hour and 1.9kw/h on a sticky tag make no sense to me and probably not to anyone else.

Mike (formerly the electrical officer on a Navy sub)

 

That's about right for what it is.
12-Volt DC to AC 2200 Pure Sine Inverter-APS2200-12 at The Home Depot

 

This is what I found shopping around a little.

PowerBright - 12V DC to AC 1000 Watt Pure Sine Power Inverter - Sam's Club

Handys Hardware: Home

1500W Pure Sine Wave DC 12V AC 110V/220V Power Inverter

PowerBright APS1000-24 Blue Aluminum Casing - 1000W Power 24V Pure Sine Wave Inverter; Anodized aluminum case provides durability & maximum heat dissipation; Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter; Built-in Cooling Fan; Cigarette Lighter Input; 2 AC Receptacl

 

Mike,

I think it is just how it is written. Wh or WATT/Hour or WATT-HOUR all have the same meeting. It is power over time.

 

No, that is NOT true. A watt-hour is a watt delivered for an hour. (It is, mathematically a watt times an hour). A watt/hour is a watt per hour, or a watt divided by an hour. This is an entirely different unit of measure, mostly not useful for any of our discussions. It would be used, for example if you were to describe the rate of change of power consumption...At 1:00am you were using 500 watts and at 2:00am you were using 600 watts. Your change in power consumption was 100 watts per hour.

Equating a watt-hour and watt/hour is like saying distance and acceleration are the same thing ...i.e. miles and mph/sec are the same.

Watts is unit of measure that describes the rate of power consumption...just like miles per hour (mph) is a unit of measure that describes a rate of travel. When you multiply those units by "time "you get energy consumed (watt-hours) and distance traveled (miles). When you divide by time you get something else... the rate of change of power consumption (watt/hour) and the rate of change of speed (this is acceleration; mph/hour or more useful for cars: mph/sec or more commonly something like feet per second^2).

Sorry for being so OCD on this, but this is a technical forum and thus we should use correct terminology.

Mike

 

Wait a minute !!! the quoted inverter is from ~200 DC !!!! to ~110V AC ALL your examples this is a different thing altogether !!!!

 

And none of them come close to the 2kW for under $150 price that he claimed in Post #110.

 

As an engineer, I share your OCD view of this. Unit errors have led to numerous disasters, and are frequent contributors to bad reporting.

 

Mike the forward slash can be used as punctuation or a division slash. When I posted

I was referring to punctuation not division. This is also true with a dash. It could be used as punctuation or a minus sign. Really the best way is just post WATT Hour or Wh.

I am a BSEE and it bugs me to. I hate when people mix up Mb and MB. Huge differnce.