Need to run a cooler for about a day and a half. 12 volt socket max current

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webeleafowners

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 5, 2015
Messages
1,306
Location
Okanagan Valley British Columbia
Hi folks. I need to be able to run a little fridge cooler for about a day and a half. (Long story) This is a small Dan Foss unit with a 5 amp draw and a duty cycle of about 1/3. Two questions.

* What is the 12 volt accessory socket rated for.
* What is the procedure for the car activation where the 12 volt socket is activated but hopefully car still "off" or at least not in ready. etc. Not sure I am explaining myself well so bare with me.

Thanks all.

PS, I think I asked something like this a while back but can't find it or the response...plus I wasn't sure of all my cooler numbers at the time.

John
 
Couldn't you run it right off the 12V battery? That would have the least amount of extra drain. Supposedly the 2015+ models are better about keeping the 12V charged off the traction battery, but I don't know that for sure.
 
10 amps for the accessory socket, but it's off when the car is off. You'd need to leave the car in Ready Mode, because even running right off the 12 volt battery you'd kill it before the car tried to charge it.
 
LeftieBiker said:
10 amps for the accessory socket, but it's off when the car is off. You'd need to leave the car in Ready Mode, because even running right off the 12 volt battery you'd kill it before the car tried to charge it.
Exactly. It can and should work just fine. But you'll have to leave the car on.
 
IssacZachary said:
LeftieBiker said:
10 amps for the accessory socket, but it's off when the car is off. You'd need to leave the car in Ready Mode, because even running right off the 12 volt battery you'd kill it before the car tried to charge it.
Exactly. It can and should work just fine. But you'll have to leave the car on.

Thanks for the replies so far all.

So yah I kinda thought so. Lets define "on" as opposed to ready. I know it has to do with the number of times you push the on button and wether the brake is pressed when you do this. So, "on" or "ready". My definition of ready is car will move if I put it in gear. I have always been a little fuzzy on this terminology...and how to actually achieve this.

Thanks all.

John
 
You can't use the Accessory (misnamed!) mode or the in-between mode you get when you start the car with foot off brake. It HAS TO BE in Ready mode: foot on brake when car is started, yellow-green car icon lit on dash. You may be able to lock the car like that.
 
LeftieBiker said:
.... You may be able to lock the car like that.
Yes you can, use either the remote or what I do, push the outside door handle button. It does NOT work to lock the car via the inside door button, as soon as you close the door it unlocks :x
 
LeftieBiker said:
You can't use the Accessory (misnamed!) mode or the in-between mode you get when you start the car with foot off brake. It HAS TO BE in Ready mode: foot on brake when car is started, yellow-green car icon lit on dash. You may be able to lock the car like that.

OK. So I played with it a bit and the 12 volt accessory plug power powers up in the "Accessory mod" (foot not on brake start. BUT my guess is you are going to tell me that if I do this the DC to DC converter is not engaged and I will kill the 12 volt battery. Yes?????
 
webeleafowners said:
Hi folks. I need to be able to run a little fridge cooler for about a day and a half. (Long story) This is a small Dan Foss unit with a 5 amp draw and a duty cycle of about 1/3. Two questions.

* What is the 12 volt accessory socket rated for.
* What is the procedure for the car activation where the 12 volt socket is activated but hopefully car still "off" or at least not in ready. etc. Not sure I am explaining myself well so bare with me.

Thanks all.

PS, I think I asked something like this a while back but can't find it or the response...plus I wasn't sure of all my cooler numbers at the time.

John
Looking at your needs it looks like you need only about 60ah of electricity. (36 hours times 5 amps divided into three). Sound like a 100ah or bigger deep cycle battery might be all you need instead of leaving your car on for a day and a half.
 
Unless you need a large deep cycle battery for something else, just use the Leaf. Put it in ready mode, make sure climate control is turned completely off, plug the cooler in, lock the doors, and walk away.
 
GerryAZ said:
Unless you need a large deep cycle battery for something else, just use the Leaf. Put it in ready mode, make sure climate control is turned completely off, plug the cooler in, lock the doors, and walk away.

Thanks for the input. So I know there are lots of parasitic loads in the ready mode but I would be curious about what you think the consumption of the leaf would be after a day or two in ready mode.

Thanks in advance.

John
 
Look in the "leaf to Home' topic. People have run inverters from a Leaf (and Prius). I don't remember the stats, but IIRC they pulled 10X as much power from the car as your cooler would, for many hours.
 
John,

I am guessing 300 watts average continuous load so maybe 8 kWh per day. Therefore, you would have about 1/4 to 1/3 charge remaining. If you go this route, make sure all lights and climate control are turned off to minimize residual load.

If you have an extra battery, you could run the cooler on that battery for a few hours and then recharge that battery with the Leaf. A 40 AHr battery would run your cooler for 6 to 8 hours and you could recharge it by running the Leaf for a couple of hours (or less). If you go this route, connect jumper cables from the Leaf battery to the cooler battery to recharge it using the DC-DC converter with the Leaf in ready mode. Cables need to be suitable to carry 100 amperes continuous. Connect directly to positive and negative terminals of the Leaf battery so charging current flows through sensor at negative terminal to get maximum charging rate. This approach would reduce the overhead losses because the Leaf would not be on continuously.
 
That's a good idea. However, I seem to have read somewhere that hooking up to the negative cable is a no no break the car type of thing. Is this a different situation.

GerryAZ said:
John,

I am guessing 300 watts average continuous load so maybe 8 kWh per day. Therefore, you would have about 1/4 to 1/3 charge remaining. If you go this route, make sure all lights and climate control are turned off to minimize residual load.

If you have an extra battery, you could run the cooler on that battery for a few hours and then recharge that battery with the Leaf. A 40 AHr battery would run your cooler for 6 to 8 hours and you could recharge it by running the Leaf for a couple of hours (or less). If you go this route, connect jumper cables from the Leaf battery to the cooler battery to recharge it using the DC-DC converter with the Leaf in ready mode. Cables need to be suitable to carry 100 amperes continuous. Connect directly to positive and negative terminals of the Leaf battery so charging current flows through sensor at negative terminal to get maximum charging rate. This approach would reduce the overhead losses because the Leaf would not be on continuously.
 
webeleafowners said:
That's a good idea. However, I seem to have read somewhere that hooking up to the negative cable is a no no break the car type of thing. Is this a different situation.

When my 12V was dying I hooked jumper cables up to the battery terminals. I did get a strange effect in that it didn't help start the car. I was told in this forum that the problem was I wasn't hooking up to the body of the car as ground. Anyhow, that didn't change anything either, but it definitely didn't hurt anything to go straight to the battery terminals. My guess is that it wasn't putting out the voltage I thought it was according to my analog voltmeter.

And logically it shouldn't hurt anything to go straight to the battery terminals.

Technically you could use just the Leaf's car battery alone and turn on the Leaf every couple hours to charge it. But with the second battery you can manually disconnect that and completely avoid killing your Leaf's 12V battery.

As stated before, leaving the Leaf in ready mode will waste up to 75% of your traction battery charge.
 
If you connect to negative battery terminal, current flow to auxiliary battery will be enough to keep DC-DC converter charging at 14 volts. If you connect to chassis ground, charging will be at float voltage of about 13 volts so current into auxiliary battery will be lower.
 
I've noticed some interesting options from Goal Zero and Anker for portable LiIon battery packs if you need to do this more often. I saw the Goal Zero Yeti 1400 Wh LiIon "generator" at Costco for $1K. Anker has a smaller 434 Wh unit for $329. Both include USB, 12V socket, and 120V sine wave AC output. Pretty neat.
 
gshepherd said:
I've noticed some interesting options from Goal Zero and Anker for portable LiIon battery packs if you need to do this more often. I saw the Goal Zero Yeti 1400 Wh LiIon "generator" at Costco for $1K. Anker has a smaller 434 Wh unit for $329. Both include USB, 12V socket, and 120V sine wave AC output. Pretty neat.
That sounds neat. But for less than $200 he could get up to 1,200Wh of what he needs with this:

100AH BATTERY SOLAR WIND CYCLE

This is all he really needs and some wire and perhaps a set of jumper cables or a battery charger.
 
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