V2L function to power the house?

[Rolfe]

I think I should avoid using that extra extension lead with a high load thing like the heater. It was a nice idea, but it's not necessary and it's just being parsimonious. It's covering for a particular issue right now, which is the oil supply, which I fervently hope won't be an issue when summer ends.

The planned use of VtL in the house would be during a prolonged power cut where the home battery only had enough to run the central heating boiler, and it would be confined to a table lamp, the TV, the computer, the house phone, and the wifi router. I need to add that up, but I don't think it's a heavy load.

When I did use a couple of higher-load appliances on it (kettle and microwave) I didn't use the extension lead, and it was only for a few minutes.

 

[T1 Terry]

I have converted lots of those V10 tritone to LPG over the years, OMVL did a dedicated kit for them which made it easier as it was all plugged up. Also had petrol additions so power was exactly the same on hard acceleration, same engine in other Ford stuff so it was a regular conversion once it gets around how good it was

This one left the Winnebago Australia throw together shed (built is not a word that should be associated with one of these things) as a dual fuel vehicle back in 2001. It runs fine on LPG, it's just hard to find anyone actually still carrying it at fuel stations now.
I actually have my LPG installers ticket, and advanced tuning additional TAFE accreditation, so I've also remapped an advance curve to suit LPG, so switching between the fuels, also switches to a different spark advance map ......
If I thought LPG would continue to be available, I'd build a liquid injection system for it as well, but it has already been made clear, LPG is being phased out as an alternate fuel in Australia .......

Unfortunate, because they really do go well, that exhaust note as they wind up with the split phase crank, it sounds like a high end Italian sports car when on full song ......

T1 Terry

 

[T1 Terry]

The extension cord I made for my V2L to power our motorhome with up to the 7kw available, uses 5mm sq conductors and a 2.5mm sq earth cable, 10 mtrs long.
The plugs are Australian 3 pin pattern, but very high current rated. The same pattern as the 20 amp plugs and sockets, just the flat pins are twice as thick .... supposed to be rated at 50 amps, but the cable will never see more than 32 amps so sort of overbuilt, but better than under doing it .....
I made cheater cables for it so I could power my mig welder, it only requires 15 amps, but the voltage drop over 10 mtrs of cable was affecting the weld penetration, the over size cable seems to have sorted that problem .....

T1 Terry

 

[Everest]

voltage drop is so often overlooked as being a design factor.

 

[Peterboat]

This one left the Winnebago Australia throw together shed (built is not a word that should be associated with one of these things) as a dual fuel vehicle back in 2001. It runs fine on LPG, it's just hard to find anyone actually still carrying it at fuel stations now.
I actually have my LPG installers ticket, and advanced tuning additional TAFE accreditation, so I've also remapped an advance curve to suit LPG, so switching between the fuels, also switches to a different spark advance map ......
If I thought LPG would continue to be available, I'd build a liquid injection system for it as well, but it has already been made clear, LPG is being phased out as an alternate fuel in Australia .......

Unfortunate, because they really do go well, that exhaust note as they wind up with the split phase crank, it sounds like a high end Italian sports car when on full song ......

T1 Terry

It's always been fuelling that was an issue on big V8s, I had a Shelby mustang 5.4 supercharged I fitted 2 vaporisers to it and petrol additions, it could just about cope but it was 660 hp so was working hard. Direct injection always failed Ford had a go as well and that didn't do much better. I settled on OMVL as the Engineer was on my doorstep and he carried loads of spares, this was important as we did Jaguars and they had issues with some ECUs. I have gone EV because LPG has literally folded over here too.

 

[wattmatters]

I live off grid have 15kwh home battery storage and 7kw of solar, over the winter months primely Dec to Feb odd days in March I use the V2L to top up my home storage battery which obviously inturn runs my entire home through a 10kw inverter so the vehicle is not directly running my home as any high current draw is automatically assisted by my home battery though the inverter. I slso have turned down the input from the V2L to only draw 1.5kw so as not to work the vehicles own inverter to hard for long periods, been running my system like this for over 3 years now works very well.

Very similar to what I was doing. My 40 m long extension lead was 15 A pins/socket (different to normal 10 A plugs/socket) using 2.5 mm² conductors and I ran it at perhaps 1.2 kW. I had minimal voltage drop, and nothing ever generated much heat. I also had an overcurrent protection device at the V2L end in case for some reason the system decided to draw way more than I had asked it to.

For us it was an occasional use thing when our off-grid system needed some support help when we had longer grid power outages. We had a system that switched between grid and off-grid depending on various factors.

Cable weighs a ton.

The extension cord I made for my V2L to power our motorhome with up to the 7kw available, uses 5mm sq conductors and a 2.5mm sq earth cable, 10 mtrs long.

That's a chunky cable.

Heaviest cable I have is the 10 m long DC charging cable for our cars. It's rated for the 400 V DC / 25 kW charger, although mine only supplies 12.5 kW.

This is now our V2H/G cable as our charging module is bidirectional.

 

[T1 Terry]

Very similar to what I was doing. My 40 m long extension lead was 15 A pins/socket (different to normal 10 A plugs/socket) using 2.5 mm conductors and I ran it at perhaps 1.2 kW. I had minimal voltage drop, and nothing ever generated much heat. I also had an overcurrent protection device at the V2L end in case for some reason the system decided to draw way more than I had asked it to.

For us it was an occasional use thing when our off-grid system needed some support help when we had longer grid power outages. We had a system that switched between grid and off-grid depending on various factors.

Cable weighs a ton.


That's a chunky cable.

Heaviest cable I have is the 10 m long DC charging cable for our cars. It's rated for the 400 V DC / 25 kW charger, although mine only supplies 12.5 kW.

This is now our V2H/G cable as our charging module is bidirectional.

40mtr long 2.5mm² cable, I can understand why you only pull 1200 W, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable using a cable that long at 5mm² conductor, that 40m length supplied with 220 VAC trying to draw 2400 W would be drawing 11.2 amps min and a voltage drop of close enough to 6V, asking a 230 VAC appliance to function at 214 VAC would be a big ask, even at 1200 W, the voltage drop would be close enough to 3V and the voltage dropped to 217 V ......
The 15 amp plugs are over kill and maybe misleading, the only difference is a wider earth pin, the rest is just a 10 amp plug, you only pull 5.5 amps through the cable, anyone attempting to pull 15 amps through it would want to make sure it was laying flat and not coiled up at all and either in the open air or on something that could dissipate plenty of heat, that is a 120 W resistor 40 m long ....
I remember being at an RV get together and had a 40ft 3.5mm² cable still wound up on the cable drum I used to transport it in the Kombi. The caravan park pole was right beside the sliding door, but the cable for a electric cast iron wok wouldn't reach the power point on the pole, so I used the extension cord, but left it wound up to avoid trip hazards ...... the inside layer, where it met with the plastic cable drum, melted into the plastic enough to be able to see the coil winding spiral from inside the cable drum .... I hadn't noticed it until someone asked me how I did that I felt the drum, panicked and unplugged the lead and immediately unwound it in a huge loop around the Kombi ..... it had also left the cable impressions on the drum sides for the lower few layers ...... the joke from then on was the cable barrier was to keep snakes and ants away from the vehicle ..... the coil with the AC current running through it was a snake and ant repellent ...... it truly is incredible just how gullible some people are

T1 Terry

 

[wattmatters]

40mtr long 2.5mmsq cable, I can understand why you only pull 1200w, I'm not sure I'd comfortable using a cable that long at 5mmsq conductor, that 40m length supplied with 220vac trying to draw 2400w would be drawing 11.2 amps min and a voltage drop of close enough to 6v, asking a 230vac appliance to function at 214vac would be a big ask, even at 1200w, the voltage drop would be close enough to 3v and the voltage dropped to 217v ......

My voltage drop was acceptable (better than the maths would suggest). It worked well. Just used for powering the battery charger.

The 15 amp plugs are over kill and maybe misleading

The issue is availability of pre-made items. If you want 2.5 mm² wire, then it'll most likely be fitted with a standard 15 A plug/socket.

 

[T1 Terry]

Well, I would never have expected that length cable to be standards approved for 15 amp use using 2.5mm² conductor .... it certainly flies in the face of everything we learned at TAFE and the rail electrical competency card that we had to renew every 2 yrs to be able to work near electrified rail, that's within the rail corridor ......

T1 Terry

 

[wattmatters]

And yet you can buy them and they are marked compliant with ANZ standards.

Sydney Tools

sydneytools.com.au

DETA 40m 15A Extra Heavy Duty Extension Lead

DETA 40m 15A extra heavy duty lead with 2.5mm² conductors designed to withstand rough applications, ideal for building, Caravan, industrial and construction sites. The neon indicator in the socket indicates power ON/OFF for extra safety. Australia and New Zealand electrical safe approved. Note...

detaelectrical.com.au

 

[T1 Terry]

And yet you can buy them and they are marked compliant with ANZ standards.

Sydney Tools

sydneytools.com.au

DETA 40m 15A Extra Heavy Duty Extension Lead

DETA 40m 15A extra heavy duty lead with 2.5mm² conductors designed to withstand rough applications, ideal for building, Caravan, industrial and construction sites. The neon indicator in the socket indicates power ON/OFF for extra safety. Australia and New Zealand electrical safe approved. Note...

detaelectrical.com.au

I saw that, just running the numbers says it exceeds to max allowable 5% voltage drop, but somehow they pass the required standards .......
If you were to wire an appliance or house using that sort of voltage drop, you'd be up against the wall with the guns pointing at you ......

T1 Terry