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Using a gen 2 Toyota Prius as a generator

SVBot

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Please forgive me as I am not using solar in my project (as the moment). I have a fun recreational off-road only project where I do not want to use a standard gas generator because of how stinky the exhaust fumes are but instead want to use the Toyota hybrid as the generator. It has a much cleaner exhaust!

I am contemplating installing an AIMS 10k watt 12v inverter onto the Prius, but from my understanding, the DC to DC converter found inside the inverter box of the Prius cannot charge a fully depleted 12 volt battery. So just swapping the 12v starter battery with a 12v 300Ah LFP battery and connecting the AIMS 10k watt inverter will not work. Instead I need to find a way to add a proper lithium charger to the LFP battery, like the Renogy 40A DC-DC charger, but connect directly to the high voltage 201.6v/200A hybrid battery leaving alone the 12v starter battery circuit. How would I do that?

I found these High Voltage DC-DC Chargers , but I do not think they are set up the properly manage the charge of an LFP battery. Does anyone have advice from experience on these or a better way to go about running the high watt AIMS inverter from a Prius? Also, the AIMS inverter is not a pure sin wave but a modified sin wave. Does that mean my efficiency will be dropping significantly? Should I choose a different pure sin wave inverter?

Thank you!
 
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I think one option is an SCC like a Midnight Classic 250V.
 
I think one option is an SCC like a Midnight Classic 250V.
That looks like it should do the trick. Thank you! Connect directly to the hybrid battery and charge the LFP battery bank. If I have a 300Ah battery, charging at 63 amps would take about under 5 hours to charge a depleted battery but if I leave it on, the Midnight charger will keep the LFP battery topped while engine will cycle on and off to keep the hybrid battery charged up. Of will it just keep it at the minimum and only top off when the car is driven? D'oh!
 
What is the peak charge voltage? Is it under 250V, or under the "Hyper Voc" limit for Midnight?

Be sure to use appropriate fuses. Typical class T is good for 20k AIC but only 125V. Others are rated to 600 VDC.
You may also want a circuit with precharge resistor, to avoid a surge when connecting SCC input caps to battery.

The battery probably has a minimum voltage it shouldn't be discharged below, and if like the lithium batteries many people use, BMS monitors individual cells and disconnects if any hits minimum cell voltage. I think some Prius use NiMH, others Lithium Ion? Caveat Implementer!
 
AND of course when the next lithium hybrid battery upgrades are available, I will go for those as well!
 
That looks like it should do the trick. Thank you! Connect directly to the hybrid battery and charge the LFP battery bank. If I have a 300Ah battery, charging at 63 amps would take about under 5 hours to charge a depleted battery but if I leave it on, the Midnight charger will keep the LFP battery topped while engine will cycle on and off to keep the hybrid battery charged up. Of will it just keep it at the minimum and only top off when the car is driven? D'oh!
I pulled the high voltage straight off the prius battery through a midnite classic and into my off-grid house battery. The classic only works about half power and you have to use a custom wind curve mode. I've got a whole thread about it. https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/foru...idnight-classic-as-voltage-converter-possible

But I'd recommend the plug out power route. You can get the inverters they use straight from China. About $400 but then you have to buy the transformer separately. However shipping is a problem with the particular inverter that they are using. Transformers best found on Amazon. It'll take you a day or so research just trying to figure out what to order & another day to figure out where to get it. Or you could just buy the kit from plug out power.
 
This thread was inspiration for using my Prius Prime as an inverter. With the high voltage paralleled into the panels, with a fuse and bridge rectifier to prevent current backfeed into the Prius battery, the start/stop contactor tests pass. I use a 20A fast acting fuse and a 600V 25A bridge rectifier and my Growatt immediately sees it as a 355V source and draws close to 20A, charging each of the 48V batteries at 50A each. Without the bridge rectifier, if any voltage is fed back to the Prius battery during the contactor test, hybrid lockout will trip, requiring both the HV and the 12V battery disconnected for a minute to clear, and the check engine light will self clear after 24 hours. It's a powerful and reliable system, not to mention extremely quiet. For security, there's a hack to lock the doors with the mechanical key while the engine is enabled. If anything goes wrong on the car, the contactors will drop out with that hybrid lockout. Just be careful as this is high voltage and arc flash property damage or death can happen
 
This thread was inspiration for using my Prius Prime as an inverter. With the high voltage paralleled into the panels, with a fuse and bridge rectifier to prevent current backfeed into the Prius battery, the start/stop contactor tests pass. I use a 20A fast acting fuse and a 600V 25A bridge rectifier and my Growatt immediately sees it as a 355V source and draws close to 20A, charging each of the 48V batteries at 50A each. Without the bridge rectifier, if any voltage is fed back to the Prius battery during the contactor test, hybrid lockout will trip, requiring both the HV and the 12V battery disconnected for a minute to clear, and the check engine light will self clear after 24 hours. It's a powerful and reliable system, not to mention extremely quiet. For security, there's a hack to lock the doors with the mechanical key while the engine is enabled. If anything goes wrong on the car, the contactors will drop out with that hybrid lockout. Just be careful as this is high voltage and arc flash property damage or death can happen
Arc flash for sure. I get quite the lightning bolt going inside my breaker whenever I turn it off before I disconnect. After seeing My white plastic breaker glowing from plasma within I just didn't want that arc going inside the Prius relay or the breaker so I normally bridge the breaker with a resistor, shut off the breaker and then pull away the resistor quickly away watching the lightning stretch between the landing points on the breaker and the resistor which I'm holding in my hand as I pull it away. I'm not using the midnight classic anymore. I just couldn't pass much power through it so instead I'm running the high voltage directly into the solar panel input of a hybrid inverter I got from Tesla. It was one they never actually sold. They just produced a bunch and then decided not to sell them so they ended up getting liquidated for cheap.
 
This thread was inspiration for using my Prius Prime as an inverter. With the high voltage paralleled into the panels, with a fuse and bridge rectifier to prevent current backfeed into the Prius battery, the start/stop contactor tests pass. I use a 20A fast acting fuse and a 600V 25A bridge rectifier and my Growatt immediately sees it as a 355V source and draws close to 20A, charging each of the 48V batteries at 50A each. Without the bridge rectifier, if any voltage is fed back to the Prius battery during the contactor test, hybrid lockout will trip, requiring both the HV and the 12V battery disconnected for a minute to clear, and the check engine light will self clear after 24 hours. It's a powerful and reliable system, not to mention extremely quiet. For security, there's a hack to lock the doors with the mechanical key while the engine is enabled. If anything goes wrong on the car, the contactors will drop out with that hybrid lockout. Just be careful as this is high voltage and arc flash property damage or death can happen
I'm super happy to hear that the growatt works with this. How many sessions have you done this with the growatt so far? With my Tesla inverter I've only done it a handful of times because my house battery is so huge now that I rarely ever need a backup generator. One thing I found is that while pulling 5,000 watts from the Prius the efficiency is about the same as pulling 1200 w. It just runs a lot more and the battery in the Prius goes up and down and up and down until it starts to get hot so I have hot wired the temperature sensors to make the Prius think that It's battery is getting hot so that way it tries not to use the battery. Instead it just idle smoothly and doesn't start and stop anymore.
 
I'm super happy to hear that the growatt works with this. How many sessions have you done this with the growatt so far? With my Tesla inverter I've only done it a handful of times because my house battery is so huge now that I rarely ever need a backup generator. One thing I found is that while pulling 5,000 watts from the Prius the efficiency is about the same as pulling 1200 w. It just runs a lot more and the battery in the Prius goes up and down and up and down until it starts to get hot so I have hot wired the temperature sensors to make the Prius think that It's battery is getting hot so that way it tries not to use the battery. Instead it just idle smoothly and doesn't start and stop anymore.
I've only used this a dozen times so far, but seems much more efficient than a loud little generator. If the Prius Prime's lithium battery is fully charged, it seems to transfer those kilowatt hours into the house 10KWh battery without noticeable loss.

I've had many arc flashes at work over my career. One of the worst was a 2 gauge three phase plastic conduit exploded while cleaning outside of the machine. Apparently, hydraulic fluid migrated through the stranded wires and rotted the insulation. The energy from the 100 horsepower motor next to it transferred it's kinetic energy and collapsing field apparently much faster than the fuses on the other side as it instantly vaporized all the copper on two of the phases next to my hand. The glove on my hand was mostly destroyed, leaving a mild sunburn on my hand. It was a loud explosion and it also vaporized the 200A breaker contacts. The main disconnect fuses on the busbar were unaffected. Could have been a lot worse as that breaker was fed directly from the substation 2000KVA busbars across the plant ceiling. What worries me is these batteries efficiently pack a lot of chemical energy into a form to release it very quickly. It's annoying when a 48 volt forklift battery has a failure, but I can imagine these high voltage batteries releasing it fast as a large gasoline container...
 
Nobody else is going to question a 10,000w inverter running off 12v? That's over 800 amps.

I'd suggest going with a 48v system if you need that kind of power!
 
Nobody else is going to question a 10,000w inverter running off 12v? That's over 800 amps.

I'd suggest going with a 48v system if you need that kind of power!
You must have accidentally posted in the wrong thread.
 
After seeing My white plastic breaker glowing from plasma within I just didn't want that arc going inside the Prius relay or the breaker so I normally bridge the breaker with a resistor, shut off the breaker and then pull away the resistor quickly away watching the lightning stretch between the landing points on the breaker and the resistor which I'm holding in my hand as I pull it away.

The picture this creates in my mind suggests the topic belongs in "Danger Zone!" or worse.

What voltage battery are you dealing with, and can you provide a photo or otherwise clarify exposed electrical conductors and relative position of your hand?

I'm running the high voltage directly into the solar panel input of a hybrid inverter I got from Tesla. It was one they never actually sold. They just produced a bunch and then decided not to sell them so they ended up getting liquidated for cheap.

Good to hear there was a way to connect battery to those inverters. Mostly I've read as people using them batteryless.
It does appear you are referring to the Prius high-voltage battery, not the 12V accessory battery others have used.
 
Oh wow, I must have missed that 10,000 w comment. Lol hey now nothing's impossible.
 
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