I don’t have one that will plug in to the lighter. it connects directly to the battery. 5000 watt output. If the calculator is correct that is 41 amps of 120 volt electricity. I use this to power my fish store when the lights go out.
It connects to my car much like a set of jumper cables connects to a tow truck. (because that is what I used) connect the large plug and it’s powered. My cars remote start has voltage protection. it automatically starts the car when voltage in the batteries drops below a set point.
A full tank of gas will power my shop for 1 day.
Total amount spent on the car, the cables and the inverter.
5% of the cost of a new Prius. I also use it at job sites when needed. I also produce the power of 3 Prius with it.
“A full tank of gas will power my shop for 1 day.”
Very cool. I’m not a tree hugger, but, I’m not opposed to doing what’s smart. If a Prius will serve enough functions, it could become useful. As I said the price has to drop, I think it’s around $24k for 2011 Prius. I wouldn’t spend $24k for a car that gets slightly better mileage than a Hyundai Elantra.
My commute is short, I have no objection to alternatives if they make sense.
Can you provide a website for this product. I am interested and certainly can’t afford to buy a Prius when I can use my Chevy truck. Thanks for any info.
This would be useful in California when the Big One hits.
Thanks
This would be useful in California when the Big One hits.
Thanks
If your battery is standard 12 volt accessory, I doubt your numbers are correct — the battery would have to deliver more than 500 amps in order to drive an inverter at 5000 watts.
The biggest car battery I could find was around 62 amp-hours, which would run your system for about 10 minutes.
A car alternator can put out about 50 amps max at 14 volts; you could have a larger one, but not 500 amps. 50 amps at 14 volts is about 5 amps at 120 volts. This is about 700 watts.
IN order to get 500 amps out of a car battery, assuming the battery could do so for more than a few seconds, you would need wires big enough to handle 500 amps. The largest common rated wire is 0000 gauge, which is about 1/2 inch diameter wire. It can carry about 300-380 amps.
A set of heavy duty jumper cables, 4AWG, is advertised to carry 500 amps (clamp rating), but only for a short period of time. Typical write-up: “EXTREME HEAVY DUTY JUMPER CABLES FEATURES:liLength: extremely long at 20’ liGauge: very large at #4 gauge liConstruction: tangle free, color coded 100% rubber which remains flexible at temperatures even below zeroli500 Amp capacity liAll copper - multiple fine strands for greatest flexibilityliColor coded insulated handles liExtra-strong spring loaded parrot jaw clamps”
Long-term amp max for 4 gauge wire is about 60 amps.
A typical car lighter has a 10 amp or 20 amp fuse. That translates to a wattage of 120-240 watts. But you said you hooked directly to the battery.
The Prius pulls a lot more wattage from their battery, but that’s because the battery is hundreds of volts, cutting down the current.
If you have a 24-volt battery system, all the numbers above are cut in half — but it would still be hard to pull 5000 watts from any normal configuration, even with the 32-volt battery system.
Remember when Americans were inventive and practical?
OK, I looked up comments on that 2000Watt/5000 watt peak converter, and it looks like it’s made for dual-battery trucks; it has two sets of cables.
I purchased this as a large capacity inverter system for my truck. It is a continuous duty inverter with DUAL positive and negative cables. I have no idea why they are like that but it won’t run without all of them hooked up.
This inverter never shuts off fully. The switch will only shutoff the AC output, the DC continues to draw power so I’ll wire in a switch and relay to prevent dead batteries. It’s best to use this while the vehicle is running because the power draw is too much for a car battery and not much better for dual truck batteries. I’d recommend a secondary deep cycle battery for the inverter system.