The technology in the Prius is amazing, and it can do so much, but sometimes you want a little power when your car isn’t running. Sure there are a bunch of battery packs out there, but if you’re a geek, it’s fun to make your own.
First, I need to tell you that you won’t save any money doing this if you’re buying all the items I’m listing, at least not initially. The reason for that is that every cable, controller and connector you buy will cost you more than whatever battery pack manufacturers pay for theirs, because they buy everything by the gross. The biggest advantage for you is that you can reuse the parts if one piece goes bad, or if you decide to upgrade. That’s where I believe you’ll actually save money, as well as on the electricity you won’t be paying.
I found several videos about “solar generators”, and it appealed to me because I like to use my gadgets wherever I go, and after I figured out that I could power my portable shower using a small battery instead of my car, I wanted to see if I could charge the battery without electricity.
I have a few confessions to make. The first is that I watch too much YouTube. The second is that I’m not a strict follower of instructions. The third is that I know almost nothing about guns and even less about ammo! For my little project, I decided to loosely follow the Solar Ammo Can guy on YouTube, but since my electrical experience is very minimal, I was afraid of having to use jumper cables or stick live wires into banana sockets wherever I went, especially since there might be children camping with me.
The breakthrough moment came when ammo guy mentioned SAE plugs. Eureka! I thought. I’ll just use those for everything, then no one will be electrocuting themselves! So off I go to Amazon to get an ammo can, cables with SAE plugs, and my controller.
In my desire for something cute, and my not reading directions, my ammo can turned out to be only slightly larger than a box of Tic Tacs, in spite of the fact that my battery was way smaller!
Also of note, my solar controller was much bigger than ammo guy’s, because mine was 50 amps, and his was only 20 amps. And there was no way to mount anything inside the box because I don’t have a laser cutter at my disposal. But I was determined to make it work!
There was just barely enough room to fit the socket panel on the front of the box if I turned it sideways, and there was just enough room to mount the controller on the side of the box using only the top two screw holes, because the other two would interfere with space needed for the battery and the socket items.
In the end I was really pleased with my end result, and I tested it out by using my power box to run a 12v cooker. Unfortunately, the battery was too small to run a 150w appliance for more than about 15 minutes, which wasn’t long enough to bake my cornbread. But never fear my friend, because the beauty of the power box is that you can swap out the battery, remember? So I ordered a 15 amp hour battery to replace the 3 amp hour battery. Of course I didn’t even think about the new battery being bigger, and whether I was going to be able to fit it in the box.
I’m thrilled to report, however, that if you turn the battery on its side, it actually does fit inside the tic tac ammo box. There’s even a tiny space behind it where I can keep my electrical tape. And now I can run the shower and the oven, charging it up with solar if I need to.
Not bad for a tiny box!
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Tiny Prius Travel 