Charge portable power bank from car 110v outlet

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

I have a small (7.7 lb) capacity “portable power station” that I use when traveling, to recharge my laptop and other low power devices. It’s an Ecoflow River 2.

Before I bought the Ecoflow, I used a simple inverter to charge my laptop from the power outlet (aka: cigarette lighter).

To recharge the power station when I’m driving, I’d like to plug it into the 110 volt power outlet in my 2005 Sienna.

My only other option is to find places en-route where I can plug in the River 2 for about an hour. That means stopping at public libraries or the rare case when I overnight at a campground with hook-ups. For practical reasons, I’d rather recharge the Ecoflow while covering miles, but only if I’m certain I’m not frying the electronics on one end or the other.

The question is whether using the car’s 110V outlet is a safe way to recharge my power station.

If it IS safe, would it be significantly slower than plugging into house current?

I assume the Sienna must use an inverter to step up the voltage from the alternator to supply the 110V receptacle in the car. I don’t know if attempting that might somehow damage the car’s alternator and/or battery, or blow fuses, or fry the Ecoflow, by somehow demanding more energy flow than the system was designed to provide. .

What I do know is that a small LED desk lamp designed for standard house current works fine in the car’s 110V receptacle.

My first thought was to study the specs for the Ecoflow River 2. Unfortunately, I don’t understand the respective electrical factors well enough to know if recharging from the 110v port is fine, or if it is destructive to either to the alternator or inverter, or to the power station. Or maybe it’s fine, but would take a very long time.

I called Ecoflow for clarification, but unfortunately support agent knew less about this than I did.

Here are the Ecoflow specs which seemed most relevant to my question:
• Car input
12v/24v, 8A, 100W Max

• AC Input
100-120V50Hz/60Hz. 360W Max

I’ve not yet found any specs on what output I can expect from the car’s 110V system. I will look into that Monday morning if I can’t answer it online somewhere this weekend.

Thanks for any replies.

2

From your owners manual, Looks like it should work just fine

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1 Like
3

Thanks for the quick reply. I saw that same page this afternoon.

I do know how this works, with the AC button on the dash.

My concern is that the power bank would be a big draw, far bigger than the low demand LED desk lamp I used to test with. What I don’t know is what concerns me.

I just want to be fully informed before I go plugging in my power bank and cooking the alternator, or built-in inverter, or the power bank.

4

It’d be more efficient to convert the 12VDC of your car to whatever your laptop uses. I have one.

5

My reading is you’ll be fine only if you plug the Ecoflow power bank into your car’s 12v DC receptacle.

According to the specs for your power bank, EcoFlow River2 Charging Specs, when charging at 12v, it will only draw 100w max (and will take 3 hours to fully charge).

However, that same page says when recharging the power bank with 110v AC, it will draw up to 360 watts. Your car’s 115 AC power outlet won’t support that, as it’s limited to 100 watts.

5 Likes
6

Yes, that’s exactly what jumped out at me, prompting my question.
Thanks for the reply.

7

I have an inverter that I’ve used in my older Sienna for charging my MacBook Pro.