Anyone Charge a Goal Zero Battery From the Inverter?

I was thinking of getting the Goal Zero Yeti 400 Lithium battery and from what I can find they claim the AC power supply inputs at 60 watts and even while driving the bed inverter plug puts out 100 watts so more than it can use. By that math, a battery at 20% charge (it's a 428 Wh battery) needs 342 watt hours to reach fully charged. Charging at 60 watts per hour then it should take around 6 hours to charge.

I did contact Goal Zero and they basically said to look at watts not amps so that's why I'm going off the watts of the inverter not amps.

Has anyone tried this and have any data to confirm this?

https://www.goalzero.com/shop/power-stations/yeti-400-lithium-portable-power-station/

 

I have a GO 1400 lithium powering a dometic fridge/freezer. The stock inverter seems to charge the GO just fine. I keep it topped off when in the garage and so far have been pretty happy w/ the charging i get off the inverter while driving around. My $.02.

 

Cool. Thanks.

Out of curiosity, how long will the 1400 keep the fridge running?

 

Your math looks right and there's not a lot of reason to doubt the basic electrical principles involved. If you doubt the output of the truck, just get yourself a cheap meter and double-check (I probably have three free ones from HF coupons).

But at that price, I'd consider going with a dual battery + solar setup, or just pick up a portable Honda/Yamaha 2kW gas generator (both are pretty damn quiet). Or hell, I think Harbor Freight has a knock-off of the Honda for under $500.

 

I'm not really trying to power anything in the truck. Just wanted the battery for camping trips and was wondering if I could keep it topped off using the inverter. I'd likely get solar panels for it for longer trips, but any time I'm driving I could keep it plugged in and charging.

 

I just ordered one the other day, would be interested in what you find out on this, be nice to charge while driving so its always topped up as the panel option has a long charge time.

 

Yeah, I hear you. You're just going to charge slower. BUT still much faster than my golf-cart battery connected to a 5w solar panel!

Also, when you're not driving, I think the output jumps to 400w, so if the charger can pull that much, you can charge 4x as fast.

 

I think you would be better off using a 12V charger https://www.goalzero.com/shop/yeti-accessories/yeti-12v-car-charging-cable/ you will have less wasted power going to heat creating 110V then having the Goal zero change it back to 16V to charge the Yeti..

 

Honda Generator, don’t leave home without it

 

That's a good point. My original searching showed this to take a very long time to charge but might have referred to an older charger or something. That one looks more efficient. Although one benefit of using the inverter in the bed is I don't have more stuff in the cab, but certainly not that big of a deal.

 

Looks like the 12v adapter does 12v @10A, so 120w. If the battery will pull that, it'll be the fastest way to charge

I don't see anything wrong with the bed inverter either. Less efficient for sure, but if you're just topping off the difference is going to be pretty minor.

 

To be fair, it should be pretty easy to access 12v dc in the truck bed. I don't actually know where the inverter for the bed outlet is located, but if it's near the outlet, you can probably just split the line above the inverter. *caveat: I'm not an electrician but I took shop classes in high school.

 

I just got off a 4,100 mile road trip with a Goal Zero 400 Lithium. I charged it using the 12v car charger and it did just fine. Thought about using the inverter, but we were on a lot of dusty roads and I wanted the Goal Zero to be in the cab and out of the dust. I would think the inverter would be just fine though.

 

I'm interested in this info as well.

 

Shit, that's a 132Ah battery. And the ARB fridges all pull ~1Ah (specs say between .85 - 1.07 depending on fridge size). So that's roughly 132 hours of operation to drain the battery to zero. Probably closer to ~100 hours (~80% of capacity)if you don't want to ruin the battery.

 

Sorry, missed this response. I can run the CFX75DZW off the GZ 1400 for about 3 days with zero charging. I have the CFX75DZW set at 1/2 fridge @ 37degrees and 1/2 freezer @ 3 degrees. I'm sure if you went full fridge you'd get a longer run out of the GZ.

I do also have the 200W GZ Boulder Briefcase solar panel. So between that and charging off the truck inverter while driving, I just got back from a 10 day trip in BC, never plugged into shore power, and still had 40% or so when I got home. So far, I'm very pleased with the setup.

 

No, the inverter is under the center console in the truck. If one has the tow package one could tap into the 12V+ lead by the tow socket but it does have some voltage drop because of the thing wire gauge.
Also why complicate it? Silly IMHO. What OP wrote in the OP will work just fine so I would do just that. Worry about sth else

 

I have that same battery and was able to top it off via the converter while driving. I did not attempt to charge it with the truck off.

 

If you goto a yeti 1000 or bigger, you can get the carlink and charge via 12v

https://www.goalzero.com/shop/kits/yeti-link-car-charging-kit/

 

Fair enough... my point was it's a DC device and can be charged with DC.. and converting the DC to AC just so you can plug in a converter to switch it back to DC is what really seems complicated to me. There's a lot of inefficiency in that system that could be solved with a red wire and a black wire.

edit: but you're essentially right. Easiest solution is the one he described, but I'll never get to 500 posts if I don't shoot my mouth off as much as possible.