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I have a friend with 1988 Jeep YJ.

I'm not sure if this question is more appropriate for here or for Electrical Engineering.

We want to mount this blender with an AC motor in it. I think it's 110 volts and 3.5 amps.

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We also want to put these 12volt DC LED lights around the base of it so it looks cool when we are out at the lake late at night fishing making margaritas. Plus, we can see what the margaritas look like when we are making them. Bonus.

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I would also like to mount my friends Jeep to the side of his house so we can use it as an AC generator. We need about 250amps I think. It needs to be able automatically couple into the house and connect a shaft through a radiator modification directly to the main pulley of the crankshaft of the vehicle. The engine of the Jeep will then drive an AC generator mounted in the wall of the house to power it.

My Questions

Will I need to ground the Jeep to the earth in order to prevent any safety issues?

How can I convert the DC current from my battery to power the blender in the Jeep?

Should I procure AC LED's or DC LED's for my blender lighting solution?

Can someone help with a wiring diagram for the Jeep AC motor to integrate the power generation into the breaker panel?

Can someone make some recommendations regarding guidelines of the type of AC generator I need to procure to mount in the house for the Jeep attachment driven attachment?

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  • OMG! This is ridiculous! I love this.
    – Ppoggio
    Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 1:12
  • Wouldn't you be better off just getting a 1000watt gennie? Would use a lot less gas then running the Jeep the whole time to power things. LEDs don't take much juice ... at all. To run them off of 12v, you just need a resistor to power down the voltage a little bit. Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 2:55
  • 1
    Have "a friend" - yeah, right :-)
    – Rory Alsop
    Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 9:52
  • You've probably had 100 votes... that have equalized to near zero.
    – Billbad
    Commented Feb 19, 2016 at 1:39
  • @Billbad You are correct! :-) Commented Feb 19, 2016 at 1:44

3 Answers 3

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How can I convert the DC current from my battery to power the blender in the Jeep?

The only solution is a 12V DC to 110V AC inverter. Google is full of this, so I just linked google.

Your blender has nearly 400W, so you should look for something in the 500W range to have some margin. However, this makes 400W/12V=33.3A, which is very unlikely to be delivered by the cigarette lighter socket. So you have to connect it directly to the battery. Use thick cables, and definitely a 50-60A fuse in the positive line, not too far from the battery.

Also keep in mind that 33A is pretty much. I only have a cute 40Ah battery, so 30 margaritas, and not only me, but also the car couldn't drive any more. I guess your Jeep has a bigger battery and will last longer, and when you concentrate more on fishing, you'll also not make that many margaritas, and it will be fine.

Will I need to ground the Jeep to the earth in order to prevent any safety issues?

No. The reason for earthing is that mains also uses the earth as conductor for electricy. If there is a device with faulty isolation (i.e. hot wire connected on the case), you could close the circuit to earth and get electrocuted. By earthing the case of the device, current takes that way (and probably blows the fuse)

These invertors should be completely floating, i.e. the mains they produce is in no way connected to their case, and so to the chassis.

However, read the manual.

Should I procure AC LED's or DC LED's for my blender lighting solution?

Well, LEDs typically need up to about 3.5V DC, but as you said, there are 12V types, too. You could connect these directly to the 12V of your car. The longer leg / leg where the plasting flange is flattened a little needs to be connected to minus (chassis).

I'm not aware of any LEDs which you can directly connect to mains voltage. However, it sounds strange to convert 12V DC to 110V AC, and this back to 12V DC to power the LEDs...

In case you do NOT have 12V LEDs, you should connect each LED to 12V via a resistor:

plus ----|====|-----|>|------ minus/chassis
        resistor    LED

The resistor needs to have the value

R=(14-Vled)/0.02A

since the maximum voltage in the car may be up to 14V and an LED usually sinks 20mA. The nominal voltage Vled of the LED varies from type to type.

Can someone help with a wiring diagram for the Jeep AC motor to integrate the power generation into the breaker panel?

It's not clear what you are planning to do here. You wrote you need 250A... At what voltage? At 110V this would be 27.5kW. This sounds like you want to run a flow-heater... Do you want to power a whole standard household by your Jeep instead of the power grid?

The motor of your Jeep can deliver up to 100-135kW. What ever you are going to supply, you will only need a low fraction of the power, which makes this very inefficient. I'd say a stand-alone generator unit is usually better suited. It already contains all the circuits to generate nice 110V, and it is more (fuel) efficient. Probably, it's also cheaper than your plan.

Could you write a bit more about that part?

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  • LOL...your fantastic. I was trying to see if I get this migrated though but +1, just cuz! Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 1:09
  • Migrated... It contains the trigger words "car" and "Jeep"... Good luck!
    – sweber
    Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 9:37
  • Might as well leave it here, brilliant answer! Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 11:32
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Older Jeep transfer cases have a cover on the rear side of them, once the cover is removed a gear driven unit called a PTO (power take off) can be installed. This PTO can be used to drive a motor driven electrical generator unit or a hydraulic pump. If a hydraulic pump is installed it can then have hoses connected to a hydraulic motor driving a electric generator. Your generator would then connect electrically to a AC power panel with electrical outlets. You can then plug in your blender. A wall wart/wall transformer can drive your LED light string (easy to use Christmas lights). Last to power a home will be limited by engine size with gearing and generator size. You will be hard pressed to make 250amps at standard 220volt home wiring. But you should easily make 35-50amp at 220volt to power a RV style power connector. Again a wired outlet, heaby RV cord, and a transfer switch would supply the home. You will not get AC, electric heat, electric water heater or electric stove in home as to much load (at least if used with other loads.

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Perfect for a disco blender -- get LEDs typically described like MR16 base 12V color changing LED bulb with remote control. Amazon has them in a handy 4-pack. The fish are gonna love it.

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