Mach-e Housepower

[Benny’66]

Costco: $490. No risk to car and portable.

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[mburtsvt]

So something I've always wondered - suppose you actually DO have an extended power outage (say Texas), and need power at your home. You then decide to power your home from your electric vehicle. What happens when you end up drawing your car battery and your utility still hasn't restored your electricity? I'd still rather get a generator or some other type of backup system that doesn't rely on draining my only form of transportation.

Not to mention something that could charge up the MME battery - even if it's a 110V charge.

 

[bshaw]

Not to mention something that could charge up the MME battery - even if it's a 110V charge.

Yes, but the efficiency in using this method would be so bad it really should only ever be considered as a last resort for charging a vehicle. After running this generator for ~8-hours, you'd have about enough range in the MME to make it round trip to the gas station, fill up the generator and start the whole cycle again.

 

[dtbaker61]

I guess I’m extremely fortunate in that I live in an area that very rarely has power outages and the longest outage we had was less than a day. Over the years, I’ve occasionally thought of buying a small Honda generator, but I’ve never been able to make the case for one. My home is heated/cooled by a heat pump, so it’s not doing anything there. About all it could do is run my refrigerator. Maybe keep my phone charged. Not worth the bother to have another piece of crap to maintain.

exactly..... *most* people don't want to invest much in something they *might* use once a year. Even a little generator costs $2k-$3k if it has a good quality pure-sine output.

But, if you could run your refrigerator, lights, phone and computer with a $300 (pure-sine) inverter from your MME, would you think it's 'worth it'. I sure do.

As 'rolling brownouts' become more common during peak times (instead of just emergencies) I think it's a pretty nice option to be prepared so you don't have all the food in your freezer melt!

 

[dtbaker61]

Costco: $490. No risk to car and portable.

gasoline is a bad choice for backup generator that seldom gets used; gas will go bad, or be very difficult to start when you need it most!

...and these cheap generators are all 'modified-sine' rather than 'pure-sine' wave power. the <3% THD is ok for running some loads, but really bad for anything that has a computer control board depending on 'good voltage'.

regardless of fuel source (gasoline, diesel, propane, or Solar) it is worth making sure the inverter produces pure-sine power.

 

[dtbaker61]

Well this is certainly one way to stress test your 12v battery for any potential issues, lol.

Creative set up, OP.

if MME is 'on', it is not stressing the LV battery at all.... the dcdc converter is pulling energy from HV to maintain LV system at 14-15v.

160amp max = pretty close to 2000 watts
...but I wouldn't recommend running at that level for hours and hours. So, you want to make sure big loads like A/C, space heaters, hot tubs, etc are turned off if you have not separated out critical loads to a sub-panel.

Most household 'critical loads' average out to about 300 watts, with half of that being your refrigerator. The occasional spike running a microwave or coffeepot is not a problem.

The OP did a nice job setting up a critical loads panel and transfer switch for safety and to prevent backfeed to the Grid. That adds quite a bit of electrical work (cost). It's possible to skip those costs and manually isolate from the Grid before firing up the Generator... but that does introduce shock hazard if you turn on inverter before plugging backfeed cord in or damage to the inverter if you forget to isolate from grid first.

I just wanted to mention that so people are aware the minimum investment to use your MME as whole house backup is really just a 1500watt pure-sine inverter (less than $300), and 2x male-male adaptors (easy to DIY) to backfeed to two outlets (one on each 'leg' of your electrical panel). This minimalist design gives you 120vAC power, but no 240v. The point is your MME can be a very effective 'backup generator' for emergency situations.

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