I have an inverter which can provide up to 75w of household AC from the Prius appliance socket (aka cigaretter lighter socket). I want to use it to power a CPAP machine overnite, which draws around 50 w continuously. My plan is simply to leave the ignition on with the car in park, run an extension cord out of the car to the CPAP machine in my tent, and voila - I'll be able to have a restful night of sleep, free of breathing complications, anywhere I can drive my Prius. Does anyone see any problems with this scheme (other than someone stealing the car and me getting dragged out of my tent by the extension cord)? Thanks for any insight!
Cigarette lighter socket is 12Vdc CPAP is 110-120AC unless you have a 12v adapter. You need to make sure the cigarette lighter socket will handle the ampereage or you'll blow fuses or fry your wiring. If it's 50w @ 120vac that's ~.5amps. You may wany yo check out the following thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-modifications/33073-prius-back-up-power.html.
Your idea sounds fine... i guess. I tend to tap strait into the 12v battery ( rear hatch, right side) This leaves me with the option of hooking up other 12v supplies... like my 12v rechargable spot light.
Prius needs to be in 'Ready' mode for this, or else the 12 volt battery will be discharged. In this mode the engine will cyle on occassionally.
You might want to look at something a little more 'umph' for house emergency power: Prius - UPS Project Bob Wilson
When you use the Prius' 12 v system and a 1 KW (or so) outboard inverter its fuel burn per KWH is very similar to the small Honda portable generators (example EU1000I). I find that impressive as the Prius consumes several hundreds watts for 'housekeeping' in ready mode. Lower emissions and a bit quieter than the Honda as well However, with small external loads (like 100 watts), the Prius will burn nearly as much fuel, so its efficiency at the task suffers. Just sayin'...
be careful what you try to power and keep an extra couple fuses on hand. i blew out like 4 fuses (these were all the same fuse - cig lighter socket) trying to power some high loads... like a coffee pot! it seemed that one cig lighter block + inverter seemed to have a higher capacity then the other, not sure.. its probably my imagination the most i tried to power using my prius was a 13" tv and a satellite reciever + dish switch i thought the inverter would trip its own circuit breaker before the prius would, but the prius blows first off topic trivia crt monitors usually degauss on power up, and this could easily blow a fuse my nec multisync actually took out a ups or two
Many CPAP machines convert to 12VDC internally, so it's very wasteful to use an inverter to go to 120VAC to plug it in. Unfortunately, only a few models allow you to tap directly into the 12v circuitry. If your CPAP needs to be replaced in the future, you may want to get one that has an option to run off of 12v. Then you just need a 12v adapter without the inverter. (I switched to a Respironics RemStar Plus LX which has this option. Bought it off eBay for a fraction of retail and adjusted it myself to the proper pressure.) After you do that, you can pick up a Vector or Black & Decker (they're the same company) jump starter like this one: http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B000AMMNB2?tag=priuschatcom-20 use this for camping and it can last for 3 nights between charges. It allows me to completely ditch the extension cord. Also, its compressor and jump start capabilities have also proven useful for my less reliable vehicles.
