Bed Outlet Mod

Hey hey... I did some quick searching and couldn't find much so figured I would ask... Has anyone done a MOD to add the TRD bed outlet for those of us who have non-TRD trucks? Its one of the many reasons I wish I had splurged for the TRD over the SR5 4X4. I like the idea of being able to hook up a small appliance or TV to my bed for glamping/tailgating purposes.

Also... for those of you who have it... do you use it often? Any drawbacks I should be aware of before spending the time and money on this?

Thank you!!

 

If you like the OEM look I would buy the outlet assembly for the bed and hook it up to a better inverter than the 400W OEM one.

 

It good to have but its not as powerful as you think. the outlet runs on 400 watts while idling in park and 100watts when in drive, for safety reasons. theres not much you can run on 400 watts. its good for work lights, small power tools, charging batteries. your better off investing in a nice power inverter

 

is there a way to upgrade the existing inverter?

 

Far cheaper, easier, and more powerful to buy an aftermarket power inverter and just hook it up when you need to use it.

 

well yah but for just as an example, what if a person wants to charge their power tool battery while traveling from job site to job site, having an existing 110 outlet would be better than trying to run cables and wires from the engine bay back to the bed while on the road, methinks...

 

No idea, don't have one. I would imagine so, though. It would most likely require replacing all of the existing wiring, however you could probable reuse the switch in the cab. A higher power inverter is going to require much larger wiring than the stock one. You have to keep in mind that current increases much more quickly with power draw in a 12V system (such as your truck) than in a 120V system (such as your house, or what the inverter outputs).

For example:

400W power draw in a 12V system pulls a ~33A current from your battery. This is considerable. On the 120VAC side of the inverter (the side your appliance is plugged into) we're outputting a very manageable ~3A current.

Say we step this up to a good-for-most-cases 1200W inverter.

Running a 1200W load pulls 100A from your truck's electrical system, with a still manageable 10A current on the 120VAC side. Keep in mind your truck's alternator can output 120A or 150A depending on your engine. Obviously you can pull more than this from the battery for short periods of time, but your truck won't be able to keep up with the constant power draw after a short time.

The implication of this is that you quickly need larger wires running to the inverter with even a small power output increase. The amount of heat dissipated from the wires is described by P = I²R, so for every extra Amp you pull from the battery, the dissipated heat from the wires is squared.

I would imagine that Toyota sized the wires for the OEM inverter appropriately and thus, there is not very much room for upgrading without replacing the wiring harness.

 

you are absolutely correct, I'm not an electrician which is why I do appreciate being able to ask these dumb questions here... thanks!!

 

No problem. Electrical engineer here so I love being able to answer these types of questions. Just remember, with 12VDC -> 120VAC inverters, for every 1A your applicance pulls, the inverter pulls 10A from your car.

 

The OE inverter is good for this

 

so, if the in bed outlet is 400w how many amps is that?

 

It's the first example in my above post. 400W on the OEM inverter pulls 33.3A from your battery and you can plug in a 120V appliance that pulls a maximum of 3.3A.

 

Plug a small power inverter into your cig lighter and you will get 3X the power out of an aftermarket inverter than you will the factory one while driving. While driving, you are limited to 100 W, that may not even be enough to run your charger. Just my two cents worth but the factory inverter is very very limited while driving.

 

I was running 100 LEDs in the Christmas lights picture I posted above without issue. But they probably pull very little juice.

 

The cig lighters are limited to a 10A current draw. That equates to max 120W from the cigarette lighters. (assuming perfect conversion efficiency) compared to the OEM inverter limited to 100W while driving. You're not really gaining very much with a DC outlet inverter.

Also, it'd be very difficult to find a battery charger (assuming the type used for battery powered tools, etc.) that charges batteries at 100W without detonating the battery within seconds.

EDIT: I just looked it up and I stand corrected. Some portable battery chargers (esp. those that can charge multiple batteries simultaneously) pull upwards of 240W. Nonetheless, you're not going to get that kind of draw out of the cigarette lighters without blowing a fuse. You'll have to use an inverter run from the battery.

 

And unless modified to provide full time 400W output that 3.3 A is only available with the engine idling, and the tranny in park. When underway only 100W (0.83 A) is available. I just checked a couple of single battery power tool chargers, a 20 V DeWalt and an 18 V Ryobi; they both draw 85 W maximum so the 100 W "down the road" capacity could run one but not both...

 

You electrical guys are totally nerding out. But I like it.

 

but the electrical guys are saying that to upgrade the outlet in the box we would need to run a larger wire back there to handle the extra power of an upgraded inverter, wouldn't we need to run a larger wire to the cigarette lighter to handle the extra power as well?

 

Yes however the typical cigar lighter plug/socket combo is only good for 10-15 A or so, 20 A "maybe". The OEM inverter is powered through a 100 A fusible link to allow for surges (the 100/400 W are continuous power ratings).

For more than that you would need a better connectors.

Like these--the 50 A style connectors are also available in 120, 175 and 350 A (1440, 2100 and 4200 W capacity)

30 A good for 360 W:


50 A good to 600 W:

 

I think I better be happy with what I have altho I would like it to be 400w while under way.