Using Tacoma Truckbed inverter to supply a power station, despite Modified Sine Wave AC power

[Dave in AZ]

Truckbed Inverter use to supply a Power Station, and video. Applicable to Tune M1, OVRLND, and other canopy or wedge campers for an easy power recharge option.

Was msging with someone today about 3rd gen Tacoma, power stations, and how to use the truckbed inverter to supply one. I know several other trucks have an inverter this would apply to, such as F150s.

If you have an existing truckbed inverter in your model, you can make use of your alternator supply, and completely remove the need to get an alternator dc to dc converter, to isolate your start and house batteries, to limit current draw to avoid alternator damage, and to run thick 8AWG or 10 AWG cables from alternator to truckbed. You end up with a nice prebuilt alternator power supply, isolated from starter battery, ready to go.

Here is a video I made, showing the issues involved, and a quick solution and success.

Video shows using the 3rd generation Tacoma truckbed 120v outlet, to charge a Pecron e1500LFP power station. The problem with Tacoma power is that it is a Modified Sine Wave (terrible), not a Pure Sine Wave inverter. No power station tested so far (that doesn't have an external charge brick!) will accept the poor malformed ac power, including Pecron e1500LFP, Bluetti AC200Max, Ecoflow Delta2 Max, and Jackery. So you can't just plug your power station into the AC and charge it, you have to somehow convert that nasty power to something your power station will take, which means some dc voltage and feed it into a Solar Charge Controller port.

 

[Dave in AZ]

Made a new video, showing complete system and using my 480w power supply to charge the power station. This is how I am actually using it now. Getting 280W, which is about like a dc to dc 20A charger. Five hours will about recharge my 1536 Watt-hrs power station. Remember, this is a "brickless" power station, if yours has a brick and station pulls less than 400W, you could just use that. But my station will pull 700W and has no brick, so this power supply lets me set a limit of 400w so I don't trip the tacoma inverter.

 

[tencentlife]

No power station tested so far (that doesn't have an external charge brick!) will accept the poor malformed ac power

That just says they went cheap on their internal power supplies, they assumed their units would only ever be recharged from grid power. Not an unreasonable assumption, what you're doing was not on their screens at all. It's always been the case that whether or not any electronic device will run cleanly on mod-square ac (mod-sine is what the marketers called it, it sounds sexier, but it is nothing but a barely modified square wave) depends on the noise-filtration of the power supply (either an old-school transformer-rectifier, or PWM-based device). Some other self-contained power stations may have quality PS's that would run on your mod-square inverter just fine. Maybe you should get as many as you can from your buddies and try them all out, some may recharge direct from the Toyota inverter.

 

[ovʀʟxnᴅ]

I've been using the OEM inverter in my GX for about a year to charge my Jackery 500. I haven't had any issues with this combo.

 

[Dave in AZ]

I've been using the OEM inverter in my GX for about a year to charge my Jackery 500. I haven't had any issues with this combo.

The jackery 500 has an external charger that already converts the AC to DC, doesn't it? Posted that before, but I understand not reading lo ger threads for sure! But smaller and older power stations like jackery 500 have external charge brick, an ac to dc converter already. Newer or larger ines don't, they convert it internally and have issues.

Maybe I should get a smaller one with a brick! good excuse to buy another.

 

[ovʀʟxnᴅ]

Honestly, I'm not sure. The included charger I have hooked up to "shore power" to charge at home. The inverter is powering a generic 12v charger that came with a previous refrigerator.