Using the Leaf for power in a Blackout: MY "Leaf to Home"

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LeftieBiker said:
1500 watts, yes - maybe 1800, briefly, but I'd avoid trying. As I said, a buffer battery for surge loads can work...

Confused. So stick with my 1500watt/120v inverter, connected to the Leaf's 12vdc system, but put a battery in parallel with the 12vdc inputs to the inverter ? So saying the inverter can handle the surge, except maybe the 12vdc is sagging enough to make it trip. Perhaps a big capacitor instead of the extra battery ?
 
I know little about capacitors and super-capacitors. I'm talking about a BIG SLA battery* sitting where your inverter will be used. The Leaf connects to that in parallel, and yes, the big battery absorbs the high startup loads. For that reason you may want to make it a Marine type battery, so it's rated for high current draw more than for tolerance for extreme depths of discharge. Say a 100AH Marine starting/backup power battery.


* You can't use a lithium buffer battery, because then the voltage would be too high for the Leaf to charge it properly.
 
RustyShackleford said:
LeftieBiker said:
1500 watts, yes - maybe 1800, briefly, but I'd avoid trying. As I said, a buffer battery for surge loads can work...

Confused. So stick with my 1500watt/120v inverter, connected to the Leaf's 12vdc system, but put a battery in parallel with the 12vdc inputs to the inverter ? So saying the inverter can handle the surge, except maybe the 12vdc is sagging enough to make it trip. Perhaps a big capacitor instead of the extra battery ?

The Leaf 12V system is limited to 2,000 watts. A 1500 watt inverter has conversion losses, so it might take 1650 watts to create 1500 watts of 120V AC power for example. The Leaf needs at least 200 watts of power just to be on and run the computer, provided you have everything else turned off in the Leaf beforehand.
 
RustyShackleford said:
Just so you know ... I was hoping that Leaf Spy would tell me how much current I was sucking from the 12v system; yet I'm only seeing less than an amp. Helpful respondent at the Leaf Spy support thread pointed out that it's because I connected the inverter's '-' input to a chassis bolt (as you're supposed to do), not the the battery's negative terminal.

Leafspy does show the draw from my inverter just like drive motor draw, on the Energy Panel of the screen four display.
It's easy to miss because it is less than 1 kW on a 70 kW (or more?) display bar.
Here is an October 9, 2019 screenshot drawing 988 watts. The power bar barely appears. (I might have been brewing coffee.)

2019-10-09_Leafspy.png
 
ClarD said:
RustyShackleford said:
Just so you know ... I was hoping that Leaf Spy would tell me how much current I was sucking from the 12v system; yet I'm only seeing less than an amp. Helpful respondent at the Leaf Spy support thread pointed out that it's because I connected the inverter's '-' input to a chassis bolt (as you're supposed to do), not the the battery's negative terminal.

Leafspy does show the draw from my inverter just like drive motor draw, on the Energy Panel of the screen four display.
It's easy to miss because it is less than 1 kW on a 70 kW (or more?) display bar.
Here is an October 9, 2019 screenshot drawing 988 watts. The power bar barely appears. (I might have been brewing coffee.)

2019-10-09_Leafspy.png

Just to clear up some of that confusion. The amount on the 12V system at the bottom of the 4th screen is how much the 12V battery is either charging with or discharging in parallel with the 12V system. The 4th screen will also show how much power is being used from the main pack. So if you are *not* driving around, then the only power draw is the computer and the relays that are switched on plus anything else you having running such as radio, cabin fan, seat heaters, headlights, etc. You can use that same screen to see how much power your 12V DC to 120V AC inverter is drawing if you do the mental math of what it was using *before* you switched on the inverter.

The screen-shot above is a good example. If the system was "idle" at 200 watts of power draw and you switched on your inverter for backup usage, then 988 - 200, means you are using about 788 watts of extra power. If you draw over 2,000 watts of power on the 12V system, the Leaf will do a safety shutdown and you'll have to reboot the Leaf to get it back up by disconnecting the 12V battery and waiting about 5 minutes before powering it back up. The only reason I know this, a relative went over that limit by accident with a 2000 watt setup. A very scary way to test the safety system in your Leaf, but I hope the knowledge I spread around will help others. :D
 
knightmb said:
If you draw over 2,000 watts of power on the 12V system, the Leaf will do a safety shutdown and you'll have to reboot the Leaf to get it back up by disconnecting the 12V battery and waiting about 5 minutes before powering it back up.
So how big an inverter IS considered safe (for this scheme of hooking it to the Leaf's 12v system) ? I went with a 1000watt Xantrex just to be safe. But apparently my fridge is killing it (it shuts off) with an auto-defrost cycle. I've been trying to figure out how to temporarily disable the auto-defrost, to no avail. I can't help feeling like the 1000watts isn't that far off from being able to handle it. So thinking of maybe a 1500watt one.
 
LeftieBiker said:
You can draw 1500 watts safely, and I think that you can draw 1800 watts for short periods.
Well here's a random 1500watt pure-sine unit: https://invertersrus.com/product/cotek-sp-1500-112 Says it can draw 2650 VA surge (1 sec). How will the Lead react to that ? I've wondered if the problem of my 1000watt unit getting shut-down by the fridge could be the 12vdc sagging, and not the inverter itself. Thought of putting a honking big capacitor on the 12v leads.
 
Hopefully this quick experiment I did will help with future decisions on the setup people want to use.

Using my 2000 watt Xantrex Full Sine-wave inverter, when I pull about 1,228 watts of power (which I was using a couple of low power space heaters to help with this), it results in over +2000 watts of power, right about at the max. So why does 1,228 watts of power max the system out? Because the inverter I'm using has to use more than 1,228 watts of power on that 12V bus to produce the wattage needed for the 120V AC system. So if you subtract about 200 watts of power that the Leaf just needs to be "on", you see my inverter was probably pulling about 1800 watts of power. That's why I'm always weary of anyone trying to put anything higher than a 1,000 watt inverter on the 12V system. The conversion loses along the way eat up a lot of the "spare" power that you can't normally see. Now imagine if you have a 1,500 watt inverter and you try to reach the actual "max" of that inverter, more than likely you'll exceed the 2,000 watt limit of the system because of the conversion loses.

nJOOIl1.png


RPFZX2c.png
 
RustyShackleford said:
LeftieBiker said:
You can draw 1500 watts safely, and I think that you can draw 1800 watts for short periods.
Well here's a random 1500watt pure-sine unit: https://invertersrus.com/product/cotek-sp-1500-112 Says it can draw 2650 VA surge (1 sec). How will the Lead react to that ? I've wondered if the problem of my 1000watt unit getting shut-down by the fridge could be the 12vdc sagging, and not the inverter itself. Thought of putting a honking big capacitor on the 12v leads.

I've suggested this before, and I'm suggesting it again. Use a big "buffer battery" in between the car and the inverter. 100-200AH lead-acid (I suggest AGM) or 60-200AH LiFePo4. You can hardwire the inverter to the buffer battery, and connect the battery to the car as needed with heavy duty jumper cables. This has the added advantage of letting you turn the backup system on before you even have to move the car, or start it.
 
RustyShackleford said:
LeftieBiker said:
You can draw 1500 watts safely, and I think that you can draw 1800 watts for short periods.
Well here's a random 1500watt pure-sine unit: https://invertersrus.com/product/cotek-sp-1500-112 Says it can draw 2650 VA surge (1 sec). How will the Lead react to that ? I've wondered if the problem of my 1000watt unit getting shut-down by the fridge could be the 12vdc sagging, and not the inverter itself. Thought of putting a honking big capacitor on the 12v leads.

Looking at the specs on this link, it has an efficiency of 88%. That means, as an example. To output 1,000 watts of power would require 1,137 watts of power from the 12V system. To output 1,500 watts of power would require 1,750 watts of power. So in theory, the continuous load should be right at the limit for the Leaf 12V system because you have to leave some for the Leaf itself to function. But using this as an example, you can see why any surge power will have to be done by the inverter itself, the Leaf 12V system won't be able to provide that kind of power due to conversion losses in the inverter.
 
knightmb said:
So if you subtract about 200 watts of power that the Leaf just needs to be "on", you see my inverter was probably pulling about 1800 watts of power.
I calculated this wrong, I checked on my inverter specs, it's actually 90% efficient, so to output 1,228 watts of power, would need to draw 1,364 watts of power. I suspect the reason 2,000 watts was showing because it was trying to charge the 12V battery at the same time. :lol:
 
Tomorrow I am going to order an inverter to Leaf my own home.
In preparation I was looking under the hood to make an inventory for the hardware to buy, and looked at the ground cable running to the chassis. Is the plastic piece with the connector the current sensor, as mentioned in the beginning of the thread?

And is it still not advisable to connect an inverter direct to the battery terminal? (Leaf 2018 model)
https://imgur.com/mdrHq1u
 
Does anyone have any recommendations for a 1,000W pure sinewave inverter that they are using for their Leaf? I have a 2015 S and I just need a 1,00W inverter to connect to the 12V battery so that I can recharge my EGO 56V batteries using the 700W quick charger so that I can hot swap them on my 2,000/3,000W surge EGO Nexus Power Station which would power my fridges and other appliances during a power outage. Unfortunately the EGO Nexus cannot be charged at the same time its being used but I can just hot swap the batteries one at a time and charge them from the Leaf. If you could post a link to an inverter you have and also a picture of exactly where I connect the red and black terminals onto the 12V battery on the Leaf I would sure appreciate it! I don't need a permanent setup, just something to use in a power outage while the Leave is in my garage with its hood up. Thank You
Would something like this work at 1,200W? https://www.amazon.com/Ampeak-Pure-Sine-Wave-Inverter/dp/B09SZCWM8R/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=1000%2Bpure%2Bsine%2Bwave%2Binverter&qid=1671470493&sprefix=1000%2Bpure%2Bsi%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-6&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.f5122f16-c3e8-4386-bf32-63e904010ad0&th=1
 
The Ampeak one you link to looks good. I don't have personal experience with it, but it has solid reviews. For a smaller inverter I use Bestech 1000w unit,

amazon.com/gp/product/B07XYR1BS3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and never had any issues with it. I like the for factor compared to most with a similar size and the fan only comes on when it is hot and not really loud. The big thing is I would make sure it is truly sine wave, which both of these are.
 
Did you see the BESTEK Power Inverter 1200W is currently $97.99 with a $10 off coupon so maybe I should get that instead for $87 as it would be comparable to your same unit and save me $74 off the Ampeak 1200W. I could almost buy two of them for the price of the Ampeak 1200W? Anyone see any disadvantages with this approach? Here is the link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QP5CXZ1/?coliid=I29ZVFVV78H5O6&colid=1PP8XX0FJ5517&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1
 
The problem is the Bestech 1200w version is modified sine wave, while that may work with most things, I would rather know it is pure sine wave and works with anything I can plug into it. I have found more and more small electronics get really hot on modified sine wave and just stopped buying them and have never looked back.
 
I have my leftover connection wiring, Fuse, and connectors for the LEAF that we sold in October.

I would sell this to someone for $50 plus Priority Shipping...

Not shown is the second connector and around 12" red/black wire to connect to an inverter...

7QWie9oauRLTiL3axlFzRFuv6g09beqnLkkjFu4t4IiI33rz2YLZx0o953zxjTS__BvMmYySFn_aPNYSwOec2K9CHum3fJtAPiQw5dmzW1Ni7dJ8gNU8aN7cEn19tQH3sX_RTriJkaV7KpLrulDwEMk_ZoVxJN7Bum3CzGpH4LS21iZfJkHiKbfqtZh7uepYpmPwR8B2uGXJBULnkjp9mWwMWOBMjDcbYYJ3vXB9JJcPgJoL6fxL-EotRXnQq3rw3Rfbio_Bb2b1H_9QAlMuR-YvdtI98dm7W5EnNgQEnHgIYMkE7dIsTtY1V0IgTISXC2Egm9jdkqDZtUVBD5XqM4OFe4oBV-h36ISCp0g9lJo4eaoVjnofUuJCSVERXbFDi3z_XcPtQ8RyHV3fCUJkbgNj7V_61NrJDKfyJVbQFz6nzu2Z9ZSNZbii865BWIffKWXYlGgx1V_Ak4uukUPxZf1KsTxcBd3yoc_8sacuklS9YnId6LOhnbi-OZ7GSbk2Ldp7afWxJvnU-34Z_UoUTiVa8fX10_DoWMtqV8bWPpAYdqtovzGJKdWIL3I-fpe3G65MsOo2h_cSMMfUOr0p33PeHjeRzA_oHrPt7WyVYsflwFaXVdY8EbJyrfZXNKrFm-zmhBVgOP9T_VZhg0WgYouRQ4djVtMINnekpD0l0P9PGcoKYQrTwFD5q4XR5PYIEx6Lqs-xNzSzChH9gHOHFOfuLVOn_IChKhgfmRdNItBRTKyGzAmwn0Qt-r_JtRna2-6shmb4vlAZvTJBQVAbxNwEZEPZaEJbrVrK1L2iuTB-dcvGMhCOS2HEZu-EoyydD0VBXXlEhOx80KYC640zICoC0o4m1BlC6ZcJetUY69noXwEwYoG6mHH0e03ZXmavrtMYQ5wD7AtKqVTO5dNyMJIDS2-LljPopGuIvft704QMGpT-5zoWqh3ckBABoP5jNZQDca25Z6aIqLPoWQ=w1224-h959-no
 
So about $60? If there is a ring terminal for the ground connection on the Black cable, and ring terminals for the inverter connections, I'll take it. I'm having issues with my hands that preclude using them to apply much force.
 
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