Using a power inverter with the e-Golf

[REM]

I live in an area that was developed in the 1950s, and they ran out power lines along a tree lined creek between the back yards of the houses, which means if you fast forward 60 year our power lines feed through established trees and our power goes out with a certain regularity. I was able to connect a power inverter to my 12V on my Leaf to power lights, the coffee maker, etc. during outages, which was awfully handy. Has anyone had any experience running a power inverter off of their e-Golf?

 

[JoulesThief]

I live in an area that was developed in the 1950s, and they ran out power lines along a tree lined creek between the back yards of the houses, which means if you fast forward 60 year our power lines feed through established trees and our power goes out with a certain regularity. I was able to connect a power inverter to my 12V on my Leaf to power lights, the coffee maker, etc. during outages, which was awfully handy. Has anyone had any experience running a power inverter off of their e-Golf?

VW electrical is pretty touchy... I would not recommend that you use an inverter, especially something as high drawing of amps as a coffee maker

 

[REM]

I live in an area that was developed in the 1950s, and they ran out power lines along a tree lined creek between the back yards of the houses, which means if you fast forward 60 year our power lines feed through established trees and our power goes out with a certain regularity. I was able to connect a power inverter to my 12V on my Leaf to power lights, the coffee maker, etc. during outages, which was awfully handy. Has anyone had any experience running a power inverter off of their e-Golf?

VW electrical is pretty touchy... I would not recommend that you use an inverter, especially something as high drawing of amps as a coffee maker

I connected the inverter directly to the battery on my LEAF; however, there were some nuances that I had to work out so that the 12V would recharge as needed from the traction battery (e.g., leave the car on and connect the negative cable to the DC-DC converter). There is a good thread about this on mynissanleaf.com. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=13097

Has no one tried something like this with their e-Golf?

 

[Frank3]

Seems to me that electric cars would have a much smaller battery than ICEs because they don't have to crank an engine over to get it started. Their only purpose would be to run accessories and "turn on the power" to start the motor. That said, I can't imagine it would last very long in being used as power to a 120v inverter. Given that, you may be better off getting a gas-run generator and hooking it up to your home's electric circuit for emergency power.

 

[JoulesThief]

Seems to me that electric cars would have a much smaller battery than ICEs because they don't have to crank an engine over to get it started. Their only purpose would be to run accessories and "turn on the power" to start the motor. That said, I can't imagine it would last very long in being used as power to a 120v inverter. Given that, you may be better off getting a gas-run generator and hooking it up to your home's electric circuit for emergency power.

A used honda EU1000i or Eu2000i is a good investment for emergencies. Store the carburetor and fuel tank empty, add fresh gas when needed, and redrain both before storage. Current gas has a lot of ethanol in it, which does bad things to the jets in carburetors if left in there for any length of time (month or more)

 

[REM]

Seems to me that electric cars would have a much smaller battery than ICEs because they don't have to crank an engine over to get it started. Their only purpose would be to run accessories and "turn on the power" to start the motor. That said, I can't imagine it would last very long in being used as power to a 120v inverter. Given that, you may be better off getting a gas-run generator and hooking it up to your home's electric circuit for emergency power.

I appreciate the suggestion, and understand that getting a generator would be logical; however, I have no intention to get a gasoline powered anything. I don't even have a gas can at my house. Connecting a power inverter to my LEAF worked well for my limited needs (I wasn't using it to power my whole house). I guess I'll just have to experiment.

 

[JoulesThief]

Seems to me that electric cars would have a much smaller battery than ICEs because they don't have to crank an engine over to get it started. Their only purpose would be to run accessories and "turn on the power" to start the motor. That said, I can't imagine it would last very long in being used as power to a 120v inverter. Given that, you may be better off getting a gas-run generator and hooking it up to your home's electric circuit for emergency power.

I appreciate the suggestion, and understand that getting a generator would be logical; however, I have no intention to get a gasoline powered anything. I don't even have a gas can at my house. Connecting a power inverter to my LEAF worked well for my limited needs (I wasn't using it to power my whole house). I guess I'll just have to experiment.

Do you have a political beef with the petro-chemical industry?

 

[REM]

Seems to me that electric cars would have a much smaller battery than ICEs because they don't have to crank an engine over to get it started. Their only purpose would be to run accessories and "turn on the power" to start the motor. That said, I can't imagine it would last very long in being used as power to a 120v inverter. Given that, you may be better off getting a gas-run generator and hooking it up to your home's electric circuit for emergency power.

I appreciate the suggestion, and understand that getting a generator would be logical; however, I have no intention to get a gasoline powered anything. I don't even have a gas can at my house. Connecting a power inverter to my LEAF worked well for my limited needs (I wasn't using it to power my whole house). I guess I'll just have to experiment.

Do you have a political beef with the petro-chemical industry?

Let's just say that I think the world would be a better place if we burned less gas.

 

[JoulesThief]

Do you have a political beef with the petro-chemical industry?

Let's just say that I think the world would be a better place if we burned less gas.

Do you ever fly in your travels?

 

[REM]

Do you have a political beef with the petro-chemical industry?

Let's just say that I think the world would be a better place if we burned less gas.

Do you ever fly in your travels?

Do you have a political beef with environmental conservation?

 

[mfennell]

It would probably work fine IF you can figure out how to keep the car ON for an extended period. It really likes to shut down when not moving and in Park.

 

[JoulesThief]

Let's just say that I think the world would be a better place if we burned less gas.

Do you have a political beef with environmental conservation?

I have a political beef with people against big oil that don't know all the products that they receive the benefits of using in their life from the supply of inexpensive hydrocarbons. That includes the naughahyde seats your ass is sitting on in your e-golf, and all the plastic parts in your e-golf, that are made possible by cheap oil. That same oil made the extraction of lithium out of the ground possible with out back breaking labor getting it from the mine to the factory where it is separated out and purified into a useable raw material. It makes the heat necessary to smelt and to form the alloys used in your battery pack too.

In other words, your car is not possible to be manufactured without it.

Cheap oil makes a higher standard of living possible for all of us. Expensive oil makes people on the margin not able to afford it any longer, and end up with a lower standard of living.

In regards to your problem, set yourself up with a solar panel and a separate deep cycle battery to run your inverter of off. A 140W solar panel in 18V should put out 8.0 Amps per hour of recharging into a group 27 or 29 12v deep cycle battery. Much less risky than messing up the battery in your e-Golf, which is designed only to cycle what is on board the e-Golf, not run your inverter.

RV people do what you are doing all the time, that boondock or dry camp. They use separate batteries in a motor home, one for the electronics on the chassis portion of the vehicle, and another deep cycle battery for all the motor home living features. The batteries are kept isolated, for a very good reason.

 

[mfennell]

Let's just say that I think the world would be a better place if we burned less gas.

Do you have a political beef with environmental conservation?

I have a political beef with people against big oil that don't know all the products that they receive the benefits of using in their life from the supply of inexpensive hydrocarbons. [rant deleted].

That's all lovely except he specifically said he doesn't want to burn gas. That's all he said. Do you really need to sh*t all over a simple technical thread with this nonsense? This is a friggin' car forum.

 

[JoulesThief]

That's all lovely except he specifically said he doesn't want to burn gas. That's all he said. Do you really need to sh*t all over a simple technical thread with this nonsense? This is a friggin' car forum.

His idea of not burning gas to make coffee is what is ****, because it is so much more efficient than electricity for making heat. Been there, done that, owned an electrical heated condominium up at Mammoth Lakes, at an 8000ft ski resort, heated by Edison electricals finest electrons. Cords of valley oak firewood that I hauled up myself were a better value, 5 to 1, cost wise, over electricity and space heaters. Air is a lot easier to heat that water, calorie wise. Just the facts.

As an example, I lent my 3 bed 2 bad condo to 4 friends over the Christmas -New Years week in 2008, for free. Told them I wanted a $600 deposit for electricity before they went. They stayed 8 days. They still owed me $120 for the electricity after staying an extra 2 days.

 

[REM]

That's all lovely except he specifically said he doesn't want to burn gas. That's all he said. Do you really need to sh*t all over a simple technical thread with this nonsense? This is a friggin' car forum.

His idea of not burning gas to make coffee is what is ****, because it is so much more efficient than electricity for making heat.

Okay, I'll look for a gas powered coffee maker next time I'm at Bed Bath & Beyond. Wile I'm at it, I'll buy a gas can, generator, and the gas to run the generator so that I can create the electricity to run my coffee maker while the 24 kWh battery in my garage just sits there next to the power inverter that I already own and have successfully used for this purpose in the past. That's efficiency? All of this because I'm supposed to celebrate burning gas? I never said tha gas doesn't make many things that we do possible, but burning fossil fuels does contribute significantly to global climate change, and I didn't realize that there was something wrong with reducing our dependence on them.

 

[mfennell]

His idea of not burning gas to make coffee is what is ****, because it is so much more efficient than electricity for making heat.

Ignoring for a moment that has nothing to do with your oil rant and since this thread is well-ruined anyway, he actually doesn't want to burn gas to make electricity to make his coffee. Unless you're proposing he make his coffee over a gasoline fire, the fact that burning gasoline makes a lot of heat has no relevance.

Yes, it's cheaper to burn natural gas to create heat in your home but that doesn't make his cup of coffee or turn on his light bulbs and he has 22kwh of electricity already available in the car.

Finally, to be pedantic, electricity is a very efficient way to make heat. It's the making of the electricity in the first place that's not so efficient.


For the record, I did the inverter thing once with my Volt for several days. It was a big PITA (you need a really good one to cope with inrush of even a small fridge) so I got a 5500w generator!

 

[TheyVanish]

Seems to me that electric cars would have a much smaller battery than ICEs because they don't have to crank an engine over to get it started. Their only purpose would be to run accessories and "turn on the power" to start the motor. That said, I can't imagine it would last very long in being used as power to a 120v inverter. Given that, you may be better off getting a gas-run generator and hooking it up to your home's electric circuit for emergency power.

Tell me you've never looked under the hood of your car without telling me.... my 2016 e-Golf se came from the factory with a 68ah 12v AGM battery. The battery itself is an excellent candidate for inverter use. I wouldn't advise using it with an inverter while connected to the vehicle unless you are certain the onboard dc-dc converter can handle it.

 

[DannyEgolf]

Isolation is a great idea.. Maybe buy two or more larger 12v batteries.. charge them up..
then use one isolated while recharging others with the egolf via jumper cables. This also gives you the ability to use larger batteries say from a bmw or a truck..

In theory everything in the egolf should be protected by fuses.. but do you really want to take a chance especially if you are no longer under warranty? Dealer quoted me $6500 to replace the jx1 module..

 

[HarryPotter70]

I was today year old when i heard we can use power inverter