Hello,

We have been without power for 5 days due to an ice storm in Toronto. I am wondering if I can connect a 2000W inverter to the 12V power port on my 2007 Camry Hybrid to provide A/C emergency power?

Thank you,
John.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the cars accessories to include the cigarette lighter all run off of the 12v battery and not the high voltage battery pack.

When the car is in READY mode, it maintains (charges) the 12v battery. Due to the nature of the 12v battery, I'm sure it is a low amp "trickle type charge". Putting high demand on that battery and then expecting the car to charge it again in a reasonable amount of time is probably not feasible.

Interesting question... I'm curious if anyone has tried this?

 

This been discussed before several times.
Without getting my lazy ars out of chair, I am almost positive, at least one of outlets - they are now power outlets - is 120V, so it should work, as there is no 120V coming out of 12V battery.
OP, do search on this. This questions keeps coming every winter.
Also, do yourself a favor - and I feel your pain, seriously - invest into power generator and multi outlet panel. You won't get far with Camry as power generator. Not powerful enough.

 

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r277...se-of-blackout

 

You can connect any 1000 watts inverter to the battery of the hybrid car ( Prius in this case) to use it as a generator to provide emergency power in a blackout or any place where you do not have access to mains power. There is no danger of engine overheating as it will shut down as soon as the HVB battery is fully charged. There is enough power to keep your fridges and lights running in an emergency.

 

eply to haroldo

Been there, done that, with a Prius. With the Toyota hybrid systems, you turn the car on, leave it running, in park and Ready status. The engine will turn off after a few minutes because the high voltage traction battery is fully charged and there is nothing else for the engine to do. If the traction battery discharges to a particular point, the engine will restart itself to run the motor-generator(s) to recharge the traction battery.

You cannot access the high voltage traction battery system; instead you hardwire a substantial inverter to the 12V starting battery in the trunk. The 12V battery is puny by automotive standards, because in actual use it does very little. It only powers the computers and accessories, it does not power a starter motor to turn the engine over for starting, there isn't one of those. Instead, to start the engine, the computer instructs the high voltage battery to spin up the powerful traction motors which in turn spin up the output shaft of the gas engine and then apply spark to the cylinders, for a near instantaneous start. But, if the computer senses that the 12V battery is running low, it will bleed off some current from the traction battery to recharge the low voltage system. And that is where the inverter comes in. As you bleed house power through the inverter, the 12V battery discharges, which signals the car computer to bleed traction battery power to the 12V battery, which in time will discharge the traction battery to the setpoint where the computer instructs the engine to start and recharge the traction battery. When the traction battery is recharged, the engine will turn off, and the cycle will continue until the car gas tank is empty.

So where are the limits? The accessory outlets (cigarette lighters to those of us of a certain age who remember them) are fused at 10 amps @ 12V, which is less than 1 amp @ 120V, or just a couple of small lights. Anything else will trip the fuse to protect the car wiring from overload. That is why you have to hardwire a large inverter directly to the 12V battery. But then the charging system from the traction battery to the 12V battery is fused at 100 amps, which means you can only pull 10 amps @ 120V out of the inverter before the car's high voltage charging system fuse blows. And that is not something you want to do.

 

I totally agree with your statement. Thank you.

 

The Prius guys have used inverters and you should read the thread I have linked to below. Bob Wilson is a VERY good electrical engineer and an real "rocket scientist" to boot. You would be limited to 1,000 watts from the 12v battery as a hard wire solution but you do need to limit in rush as Bob has noted. It will be much easier to buy a generator.....

https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...nverter-16008/

 

Hey, that's my post over at DSL Reports!
FWIW...my 'whole house' Generac generator is being set up on Monday.
Three lengthy blackouts in four years is enough for me!

 

Hey Haroldo. How you been?
Good choice. I am still planning on whole house gen, but so far, my 8500W running gen feeds entire house just fine. I had it running few weeks ago. I set it as trifuel, start in gas mode, then switch over to natural gas and let it run. Darn MTS panel cost me an arm and a leg. But now I live normal life. Was very good investment.