Daox's 2004 Toyota Prius Build Thread

[2000neon]

That sucks! Glad to hear it's just metal that's banged up, it could have been worse. Bestbof luck with the new car.

[CigaR007]

That truly sucks, but glad you are ok. I was also in a car accident in late October (not at fault) but luckily the insurance did not write it off. Still waiting for the repairs to completed.

Happy Ecomodding with your new Prius !

[Cobb]

Glad to hear you walked away, those are the best crashes to have. They say hybrids do better in crashes cause of the extra weight of the systems, bracing for said systems and better weight distribution cause of the batteries are usually in the back.

I was gonna tell you I have thought about sellin my honda if you considered coming over to the dark side, complete with PHEV kit.

[orange4boy]

Glad to hear you are OK. Sorry about your car.

Last week my fiancé and I almost ended up in a similar crash. Someone turned left in front of us as we drove through a green light. We were doing 45 mph in the rain at night, but the antilock brakes, Nokian Entyres and a quick reaction on my part saved us. I was able to slow and swerve just enough to avoid a head on. We missed by inches.

Can't say enough about those entyres. I have never had such good wet grip.

Good luck on #2

[Cobb]

Yeah they are just crazy out there any more. Its getting to the point I hate driving. Makes me wish I could get a car that is made out of a giant rubber made container with a 500 hp enginer inside so I can whip around everyone and bounce off those who pull out in front of me.

Ill never forget the day a guy came to a dead stop in front of me down a 2 lane road. I just whipped around him as I could see the way was clear. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw him just beating his steering wheel with his fist. I hope he as upset over something other than me not rear ending him.

[Weather Spotter]

Glad you are ok. any plans to make v2 different/ better then the first one?

[Daox]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

I did pick up the new car tonight. Before driving out of the lot I had the SG hooked up. I got it home and aired the tires up to their normal 50 psi.

As of right now I'm just going to put the basics mods on. I'm headed over to Ben Nelson's house this Friday to have a 'Prius work day' where we'll do some stuff to both his and my car.

Moving forward I do have different ideas I'd like to implement, but we'll see what I have time to get around to. Right now, my house renovation is eating up all my time.

[Xringer]

Wow.. Glad to hear you weren't hurt too badly. I hate it when dumb people crash into me.
But, since I drive once or twice a week, I know it's inevitable. Like death & taxes.
Especially, if you live in the Boston area, it's gonna happen, sooner or later.

It's great that you have a buddy like Ben Nelson nearby.
You guys will get the winterizing done easily.

Take care,

[Daox]

Thanks. We actually worked on it last weekend. The winterizing went great and I'm enjoying a nice toasty commute thanks to our work.

The build thread on the new Prius is here:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ius-24080.html

[bwilson4web]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

Does the Prius have an alternator? If it does are you going to do the disable? Or does it use the synergy drive to generate power for the electrical system?

I understand there is a lead acid battery somewhere in there which has an unusually short life. Probably not getting fully charged by the only intermittently on engine.

Originally Posted by Daox

No alternator. The high voltage pack feeds a dc to dc converter to keep the 12v auxiliary battery charged. I hear they have problems here and there too. I'm looking up a bit more on that to see if I can't do something about it.

All of our Prius have the 12 V DC-to-DC converter and both our 1.5L 2003 and 1.8L 2010 models can provide about 1 kW to power an inverter:
Prius - UPS Project

BTW, this was one of my earliest mods and we have used it at least once each year since 2005. The longest was four days and six hours when tornadoes tore up the TVA transmission lines in North Alabama. We burned about 2 gallons per day; almost no carbon monoxide due to catalytic converter; so quiet we could hear the neighbor's generator a half a block away but our car could not be heard beyond the property line, and; ran an extension cord to neighbors for a small TV and cell phone charging.

I have a first version, sine-wave inverter in the 1.8L but I am planning to rework it. The problem is the 120 A, 12 V circuit breaker and the Anderson connectors waste too much energy, nearly 100 W.

I will go with an earlier design of a one foot, #4 gauge ground cable connected to the battery terminal and stored, safely loose in the battery compartment. The 12 V cable will be permanently connected to the inverter and with a stored, insulated wrench for the B+ nut. The inverter will only be connected when needed.

I am doing this because I could not find a sensible way to permanently install the inverter. The Anderson connectors were an attempt but they ran too hot at a 930 W, tested load. I'm out for a solid 1 kW and this 'emergency only' mode will reach my goal.

BTW, my sine-wave inverter is rated at 1.5/3.0 kW. This means sustained, 1.5 kW which means the 12 V battery will provide the surge energy, 10s of seconds, before the low voltage threshold trips. The 3.0 kW is good for about 300-400 msec and is really only useful for inrush loads . . . more about this later if there is any interest.

Bob Wilson