Looks like lots of Toyota alternators are 150 amps. If so, you are probably good in that department.
From: Cameron Crum Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 9:39 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT: Road Trip Battery I owned a small car stereo business in my youth, building systems in excess of 1000watts. I would opt for a higher output alternator as Chuck suggests over a second battery. On Jul 11, 2017 9:33 PM, "Jaime Solorza" <[email protected]> wrote: Good inverters have DC low voltage alarms when they hit 10 volts DC. Jaime Solorza On Jul 11, 2017 8:06 PM, "Adam Moffett" <[email protected]> wrote: Actually this would have been closer to 700 Watts....I forgot my laptop was plugged in too! ------ Original Message ------ From: "Adam Moffett" <[email protected]> To: "Animal Farm" <[email protected]> Sent: 7/11/2017 10:05:20 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT: Road Trip Battery My '04 Hyundai Accent has a 90 amp alternator. ....though I never did figure out how many RPM's they assume when giving you that rating. I read some conflicting facts on that. Anyway, I have 1000 watt inverter and I've had approx 600 watts on it while idling for several hours. I can't prove whether the alternator kept up or the battery was slowly draining. ------ Original Message ------ From: [email protected] To: "Animal Farm" <[email protected]> Sent: 7/11/2017 8:49:23 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT: Road Trip Battery If you install the isolation diodes, then yes. But that only prevents a dead starter battery. If you have 3-4 devices all using 50 watts, and you have a 50 amp alternator, you only have 600 watts total. The air conditioner blower is going to take probably 200 watts, the onboard electronics perhaps 100 watts. So maybe 300 excess. I wouldn’t count on even that much. I have seen aux connectors fused at 15 amps so that is 180 watts. My dell has a 90 watt power supply. So two of those running non stop? From: Jaime Solorza Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 6:32 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT: Road Trip Battery Not at all...Pep Boys and others sell a simple to install dual battery inverter and heavy duty fuse system. A good quality inverter would work well and no big thing to install. I use this for wiring up inverters for vans and buses to a solenoid to start inverter when vehicle is started. Prevents draining battery.. Jaime Solorza On Jul 11, 2017 6:14 PM, "Sterling Jacobson" <[email protected]> wrote: I've got a cross country family trip from Utah to New York coming up and I want to wire up a secondary battery to my Toyota Minivan. I know, maybe I'm crazy, but I want to be able to run all our electronics on the trip, including maybe a computer for serving up video (another topic). I want it on a secondary system so I get more power and don't kill the main car battery. From what I gather I would need a sealed battery to avoid fumes (mostly). I would need a some sort of control system so the battery can charge from the alternator, but not drain the main battery. I need high gage wire between the batteries/alternater along with fuse, and also between secondary battery and large inverter for AC power. Probably not possible to shove another battery under the hood of the mini-van, but I haven't checked. Is this a silly idea?
