Author Topic: SEA22inverter  (Read 4779 times)

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Offline A of J

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SEA22inverter
« on: January 26, 2015, 12:56:40 am »
At my place of employment where I am "the maintenance man" (and do not forget that is all that I am) I had an interesting moment last Friday. I had been told that on Fridays when a different person shuts down one of the buildings and in so doing changes from generator to inverter supply that the water pump will not work. There is a house attached to this building that is occupied by one of my fellow workers.

Ready to depart, the taste of that first scotch in my mouth I was called to that building, yep water pump would not start after changing over to inverter supply, when I arrived the occupant of said house was busy changing from generator to inverter with gay abandon, unable to grasp a large hammer quickly enough he got away with it..

Now I have to admit I am no longer a spring chicken and it is bloody hot and humid here so I was more than ready to decamp. Yep sure enough it wont start,  OK simple solution was to swap that pump for the spare, (being remote we need such things) but alas it also would not work, bugger.  I did find that the duty pump motor's start capacitor was down to half capacity so home I went for another capacitor, installed it but to no avail. I had told the BOSS to lock up and piss off which he did, which meant he shut down the generator on his way out.

Said inverter is a Selectronics 1600W Max Continuous
2100W 1/2 Hour Rating
5000W    Max Sururge

http://www.selectronic.com.au/inverter/se22.html

Not new by any stretch of the imagination but Ozie designed and built a true workhorse. Not being able to solve the immediate problem I decamped telling the house occupant to come to my place for a shower, which he did. Before I left I checked the inverter, voltage 239v good enough, but bloody hot, I asked the occupant what was running in the house he checked and reported back that very little was running. Here was a hint I missed.

Friday nights for said occupant is his night for and I can't spell it but them round pastry based with topping thingy's  and a bottle or two of wild turkey.  Now the house stove is gas hot plates but electric oven, yep a 2.4Kw oven heating dinner with no head room to start a water pump. Note to Allan......... disable oven. Needless to say all was normal next day as far as I know, at least I have not been called in to see to any problems, such is life here in the tropics.

Offline rossw

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2015, 05:00:36 am »
http://www.selectronic.com.au/inverter/se22.html

Ya sure had me worried there for a minute Oz!

My faithful old PSA RAPS5 which had been running non-stop for 10 years and 6 days gave up the ghost at 5:25am a few weeks ago. I tried to get (at basically zero notice) two Outback VXR3048 inverters to replace it, and give me some "redundancy" - but it seems all the "generator interactive" and "battery assist" features that I need are only in the domestic version and not in the export version! What numbnut made THAT decision?!!!

The alternatives were either so far out of my budget they were not even in consideration, or simply not available.

I settled on a Selectronics SP-PRO 481 (5KW continuous, 48V) unit. Idiots despatched it from Brisbane, not Melbourne like they promised, to it took an extra day (and a lot of yelling and screaming) to get here.

It has about eleventy-billion programmable variables, but so far it's pretty much been a dream.
I'm still in somewhat of a "recovering from a major event" state, so excuse the terrible mess and incomplete wiring, but here's the beast:

They've made it HEAPS better to install (physically getting it into position and mounting it on the wall) than the old RAPS unit was, and at a mere 50kg odd, it's something I could manage by myself.
So far it's laughed at every load we've given it.

Offline bj

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2015, 05:43:09 am »
   Shame about the failure Ross.  Ten years is not bad, but I guess nothing lasts forever.
   Tidy looking unit.
   How are the lithiums working out?
"Even a blind squirrel will find an acorn once in a while"
bj

Offline A of J

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2015, 08:41:44 am »
Hi Ross (house on the hill) I have been out of the loop for a while, you can not better the SP pro I personally am on my second, first was installed at the farm in WA that I sold, now I have one here in FNQ.

One has been installed at my place of employment at the main building ( there are two buildings and thus two systems and I sort of insisted on one)

Rest easy as you can expect many years of service from your SP pro,as we say built like a brick $#!+ house.

Allan

Offline A of J

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2015, 08:54:21 am »
Ha Ha you have got to love it , this site replaces "swear" words with symbols

Offline tomw

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2015, 12:33:27 pm »
Ha Ha you have got to love it , this site replaces "swear" words with symbols

I see your crude word for turds as the word not symbols.??

BTW, how ya doin ya old fart?

I finally retire and was ready for my Southern Hemisphere tour and you've sold the fruit stand I was going to work at awhile.

T

Do NOT mistake me for any kind of "expert".

( ?° ?? ?°)


24 Trina 310 watt modules, SMA SunnyBoy 7.7 KW Grid Tie inverter.

I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise, We climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies

Offline oztules

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2015, 04:37:47 pm »
He he nice story there AofJ

And good to see some posts from the top end too.

I had a similar experience the other day, where I plugged in the 2500w jug, and the power went off.... I was shattered..... luckily I have a few spare inverters >6kw, so I wandered out to the power shed expecting a dead inverter.... inexplicable, but figured that was the cause... as I know who built it ( me)..

It was with some glee I noticed the big o/load RCD on the front ( 6KW ) had thrown. I flicked it back on and away it went.... power meter was showing 7.8kw.....
I walked inside and turned the jug off, and then proceeded to find what was wrong..... turns out it was running the hot water, the washing machine ( heating cycle as well)fridge, freezer, tv,  and main waterpump ( Mono ). The relay held fine at that level, but a few minutes of an extra 2500watts pushed it over the trip /time in the 6kw o/load switch.

So the home brew unit was fine....... funny how you doubt yourself first....

Ross, better to have built a new unit, and spent the change on more panels..... never need the programmable stuff in the inverter then...... most folks could not do that but you certainly could. ..... and thats why for less than a thousand I have three spare units to plug in. Have not ever needed them as yet.... early days I suppose.


Although this unit is not near as polished as yours......
3686-0


......oztules

Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline rossw

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2015, 06:02:43 pm »
Ross, better to have built a new unit, and spent the change on more panels..... never need the programmable stuff in the inverter then...... most folks could not do that but you certainly could. ..... and thats why for less than a thousand I have three spare units to plug in. Have not ever needed them as yet.... early days I suppose.

Oz, you don't know how close I came to looking you up and calling you at the time!
Yes, I could likely do what you've done, although I always doubt my abilities. (I usually do ok, but the self-doubt is always there).

I also have to consider that I need an autonomous "system" that can work even when I am not here. I don't have infinite battery capacity, and (particularly in winter) the others in the house (who don't "get" the idea of home-made power and its limitations and implications) NEED for it to call for generator and seamlessly transfer the load, etc. Or to start at 3am because they've used too much power for the sunshine we had the day before, etc.

Even a moments power fail here causes significant problems. The computers that need restarted, and all the things that need to be done in proper sequence else they just don't work. All the home automation stuff that needs checked and possibly have things updated. It's such a far cry from 30 years ago.

I've just bought 7200W more PV to help with power availability for the batteries on less than ideal days. Hopefully even on fairly poor solar days I'll get enough to fully charge the batteries, but it'll be some months before I get to install them, I bet.

Offline A of J

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2015, 07:17:22 pm »
Tom W you crusty old bastard, I simply went one better, many people pay thousands of dollars to stay at Port Douglas (not actually sure why as I despise the place, too many tourists). Anyway here I am nestled in the oldest rainforest in the world, walking distance from the pub offering you free accommodation and you complain!

Albeit it is good to see that you are still whole and hearty.

My 10Kw of solar sees me through even in an air conditioned house, I am in the process of installing a salvaged generator from my place of employment, a project I will post on when I finish it. Just need to salvage the "old"cable that connected it to my workplace, I see it as doing a community service, helping to clean up the environment, oh did I mention that I can use the cable and it's free. Oh and once installed my SP pro ionverter will be able to start the generator as required, dam spiffing.

I managed to score the "old" 48V inverter from my place of employment, buckshee, the "manager" (Allan must never forget that he is just the maintenance man) went into bat for me and convinced the owner that I deserved it for service above and beyond, go figure. It is a Latronics 3.8 I think Kw OZ made work horse, so now I have a spare 12v, 24v & 48v inverter.

Pan AKA AofJ

Offline oztules

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #9 on: January 26, 2015, 10:11:22 pm »
Ross,
In your part of the world, when you get that installed, you will need to run the genny once a month just to see if it still works... otherwise, there is no way I can see you without a full bank by night fall.... just can't see it. every day  cloudy or not... you'll have a hundred kwh of spare power on the sunny days... but thats no crime either... they are making nothing now in the shed anyway.

Maybe you will find something you can do with all the extra power..... I'm full on a sunny morning by 9am ish..... 8/8 heavy rainy all day clouds by 5-6pm... normal 8/8 cloud cover by maybe 11am. ...... an indecent amount of solar makes everything idiot simple.... no switching systems, no need for trackers... just decent solar controllers.
.... I am guilty of having another 2.5kw in storage for possible deployment come winter.... we'll see...

If your inverter can stand a grid tie on it's tail, then one of those too.

Mine is really set and forget now, but as I am home most of the time... I check it during the day ... just because it amazes me that something I have built up ... works this well :o

The selectronics are very very good devices, but criminally expensive..... I could buy 12kw of solar for the price of one of them, and build an inverter as powerful ( much more actually) for very very little... so a lay down mazaire for me...... but the selectronics do fail ...

One 6kw unit over here had two new mother boards and a complete replacement in it's first year of operation... after that it worked fairly well... but would never drive the asko clothes washer without a toaster or pump on.... now a power jack conversion runs in it's place. He uses the selectronic for battery charging only now.... real shame for such an expensive device.... bug in the programming somewhere I guess.

"Oz, you don't know how close I came to looking you up and calling you at the time!".....yes, I have three >6kw continuous inverters on the shelf, and two power jack 6 and 8000w originals with the choke conversion on board.... those are only good for 3kw and 4kw continuous at best... not sure what chinese continuous means, but it is about 50% of what I would consider roughly right... both have run the house fully successfully... less the hot water unit. The biggies run everything I can throw... but the 6kw o/load will throw after 30 mins at much over 6.5kw or more....and just  minutes at 8kw, and almost instantly above that.

..........oztules
Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline rossw

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Re: SEA22inverter
« Reply #10 on: January 26, 2015, 10:55:24 pm »
Ross,
In your part of the world, when you get that installed, you will need to run the genny once a month just to see if it still works..

Yes, and on those rare events I've previously managed to go more than a month without having to run it, I have run (or let the inverter autostart) it, just to remind it what it has to do. Being propane-powered, at least the fuel doesn't go off!


Quote
Maybe you will find something you can do with all the extra power.....

I'm musing with the idea of running a chiller (in summer), which we can then use to provide cooling over the hottest part of the day, and into the evenings. In winter, reversing the chiller to provide additional heat into the hydronics. It's just a thought, but it's something we could do with the "surplus".


Quote
If your inverter can stand a grid tie on it's tail, then one of those too.

The Selectronics specifically states it can, although it's a fairly expensive one by the looks of it.


Quote
The selectronics are very very good devices, but criminally expensive.....

Yes, but when your back is against the wall, you do what you have to. Due to bad design or circumstances, power is absolutely necessary here. Want water? Need the pressure pump. Want to get back into the house? Need the proximity card.
Want to flush the dunny? Effluent treatment plant needs to be running (at least a few times a day). Etc, etc.

This unit cost a little over $7K including freight.
It claims 5kW continuous. 6kW for an hour or something, and 12kW for 30 seconds or a minute.
It's installed in a "nice" environment (no salt air, no rodents, insects, children, dust, etc. No rapid temperature changes, not much temperature variation over a year (perhaps down to 18C overnight in winter and up to 28C daytime in summer)

It is perfectly happy running the dishwasher, the washing machine, water pump and effluent system, microwave, etc, etc.
Haven't tried it with the welder yet, but I have little doubt it'll do it fine.

Quote
The biggies run everything I can throw... but the 6kw o/load will throw after 30 mins at much over 6.5kw or more....and just  minutes at 8kw, and almost instantly above that.

I have 20A breakers on the power circuits. 63A on inverter itself and 32 on the generator.
I really need to get a "spare" inverter, but it'll have to wait.

I just splashed out on a new standby generator, something a little smaller than my home-brew baby. It's a 5kW inverter unit (7KVA). Having a nice, clean, 50Hz output will make the inverters job a little easier, be kinder on my domestic loads, and should I ever have another inverter failure, should be able to limp along on the inverter-generator until a replacement can be sourced. At least, that's the plan!