Joined
·
108 Posts
Recent natural disasters and the upcoming winter have me thinking about using the Volt as a source of 120V AC power for the house... just enough to run the fridge and the boiler. I did some research and found that there is a kit available but it seemed rather pricey and being a DIY sort of fellow decided to tackle it myself. Turned out to be very easy.
The starting materials:
1) Gen 2 Volt.
2) An inverter of your choosing (I despise made in China garbage with inflated specs, so I went with a Made In USA Exceltech 1100 Watt (2200 3 second surge) pure sine, scored like new off ebay for $175 shipped
3) Power cable set... I used "Rough Country RS107 Quick Disconnect Winch Power Cable Set", normally $65 or so, scored from ebay "scratch and dent" for $45 shipped.
4) 2 8mm ID nuts which I had laying around
5) some zip ties which I had laying around
6) basic hand tools
7) A battery charger (optional)
Step 1:
Attach your battery charger to the charge posts under the hood. Preferably a dumb charger. This will keep the various computer memories happy when you disconnect the battery later.
Step 2:
Open up the back trunk, lift out the carpet, remove the cover of the left side cubby.
Step 3:
Remove the hand-screw holding the tire inflator and gently lift out the styrofoam insert from the trunk area. There are several plastic clip which will just pop out.
Step 4: Disconnect the negative terminal of the battery. It takes a 10mm socket or wrench
Step 5: Fish the wires from your quick disconnect through the front of the cubby and down through into the trunk area
Step 6: Attach the wires directly to the 12V converter module using the extra 8mm nuts, right on top of the existing wires.
Step 7: Zip tie the wires in place as shown in step 5
Step 8: Put everything back together, and attach the other end of the wire set to your inverter. Enjoy! my inverter was able to power a 1500 Watt nominal space heater drawing a measured 117 Amps. (117*13.6 volts = 1591 watts). Ran for several minutes before I turned it off, which is darned good for a 1100 watt inverter. It was also able to start and run my full-size refrigerator without any problem.
A note on fuses: Some astute readers may notice that I neglected to include a fuse. Is this naughty? No. The DC-DC converter contains it's own protections and will shut down in the event of a short. It is attached to the battery through a 200 Amp fuse (visible in the battery photo above) so a short circuit in the inverter cannot pull more than 200 amps from the battery. In effect by wiring the inverter this way I am piggy backing off the DC-DC converter fuse.
Almost forgot the most important part: To use the inverter, "start" the car, set the parking brake, and shift into neutral. If left in park, the car will shut itself off after a period of time and then the 12V battery will drain.
The starting materials:
1) Gen 2 Volt.
2) An inverter of your choosing (I despise made in China garbage with inflated specs, so I went with a Made In USA Exceltech 1100 Watt (2200 3 second surge) pure sine, scored like new off ebay for $175 shipped
3) Power cable set... I used "Rough Country RS107 Quick Disconnect Winch Power Cable Set", normally $65 or so, scored from ebay "scratch and dent" for $45 shipped.
4) 2 8mm ID nuts which I had laying around
5) some zip ties which I had laying around
6) basic hand tools
7) A battery charger (optional)
Step 1:
Attach your battery charger to the charge posts under the hood. Preferably a dumb charger. This will keep the various computer memories happy when you disconnect the battery later.

Step 2:
Open up the back trunk, lift out the carpet, remove the cover of the left side cubby.
Step 3:
Remove the hand-screw holding the tire inflator and gently lift out the styrofoam insert from the trunk area. There are several plastic clip which will just pop out.

Step 4: Disconnect the negative terminal of the battery. It takes a 10mm socket or wrench

Step 5: Fish the wires from your quick disconnect through the front of the cubby and down through into the trunk area

Step 6: Attach the wires directly to the 12V converter module using the extra 8mm nuts, right on top of the existing wires.

Step 7: Zip tie the wires in place as shown in step 5
Step 8: Put everything back together, and attach the other end of the wire set to your inverter. Enjoy! my inverter was able to power a 1500 Watt nominal space heater drawing a measured 117 Amps. (117*13.6 volts = 1591 watts). Ran for several minutes before I turned it off, which is darned good for a 1100 watt inverter. It was also able to start and run my full-size refrigerator without any problem.
A note on fuses: Some astute readers may notice that I neglected to include a fuse. Is this naughty? No. The DC-DC converter contains it's own protections and will shut down in the event of a short. It is attached to the battery through a 200 Amp fuse (visible in the battery photo above) so a short circuit in the inverter cannot pull more than 200 amps from the battery. In effect by wiring the inverter this way I am piggy backing off the DC-DC converter fuse.
Almost forgot the most important part: To use the inverter, "start" the car, set the parking brake, and shift into neutral. If left in park, the car will shut itself off after a period of time and then the 12V battery will drain.