Sunday, February 24, 2008

Charging Up on Roadtrips

I'm considering taking the car on some slightly longer journeys this summer and don't want to be caught out in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery, so I ran out and purchased a Honda generator that can charge the car for four hours to get a few more miles out of it, if necessary.


I tried firing up the generator with a little gas and it didn't go into overload with the Zivan charger at the 60% (12 amp) setting. The generator puts out 1600 VA (technically 13.3 amps), but the charger has a power factor of 90, so 12amps/.9 is actually 13.3, which puts the generator at its rated capacity. I figure four hours of charging starting with the battery at 80% DOD will be acceptable for another 20-30 miles. I might also be able to pull off the freeway and find a plug-in at a gas station, but this would work anywhere.

2 comments:

onei57 said...

My parents summer place is 155 miles from my house and I thought about stopping for breakfast about halfway, plugging into a outlet it the parking lot and bringing a generator in case things go bad. How far have you gone with yours between charges?

TimK said...

The farthest I've gone is 46 miles and it took six hours to recharge with a 20-amp dedicated 115V outlet. Of course, getting up to 80% SOC is faster than the final 20%. I suspect you would have to take a very loooong breakfast to get a reasonable distance out of the car.

Have you fixed your accelerator issue yet?

Cheers, Tim