guess who bought a power jack inverter

[techitout]

thanks for the info, Oz, I must be looking in all the wrong places, I'll be buying a few of those gauges I think,

cheers Dave

[Mike]

Hello Oz,
              I made an offer on a 5000/20000W PJ and it was accepted.
It arrived Friday but it is a 6000/24000W, great, except for the case length.
I thought I would be in trouble with room in the Electrical Box I made but it's all good.

I was a happy Man when that Pool Pump Kicked into life.
The Batteries handle the Start current, the Solar Panels maintained 24 Volts.
The Inverter does not notice the Beer Fridge start.
The Fan started after 10 minutes and then Air out of the Inverter was only 5 Deg C above Ambient.

Thanks for your advise.

Have you seen those Panels you Purchased ?

Mike

[oztules]

40 arrived on the island today, should get to see then later today or tomorrow morning.... let you know.

[oztules]

3 broken from lousy packaging, but the rest were good panels.. happy overall.
Even the three busted ones put out 6.5amps or so, and will be used for electric fencing  instead... way over driven, but what the heck.


................oztules

[Wolvenar]

* Wolvenar longs for images 

[techitout]

Good news on the panels, Oz

Got the temp compensation sorted on the solar reg, drops the charge voltage a tad when the ambient temp rises, PJ was alot happier but the alarm was cutting in and dropping out when the batt voltage got to 57.6V (regulating voltage @30degC), So I took a punt and did the resistor/Over voltage mod on the PJ. Original voltage measured across 10Meg 3.6V, Added 1M across, now 90mV, I guess that'll do it. Can't wait for those gauges to arrive. pic of my inductor mod, if anyone is interested, sticks out of the hole where the power meter used to be. plastic cover over. (power meter was U/S)

[oztules]

Looks the part.

I must do some real research on what resistor I need to go across the 10m to get some semblance of control and still not have a shut down i don't want or need.

My controller is pretty grungy, and the pwm freq is fairly low, so the spikes are probably significant... must get some time allocated for this dammit.

Wolv, the broken panels are out on another farm down the south of the island.... may never get a picture in the short term at least.... will try to remember.

Also if I can get some time I will get some pics of the new controller/charger... I did mean to do an article on both the 15kw inverter and the 3kw charge controller and charger.......... and the grid tie controller,shutdown system..... gee where does the time go???

Interestingly, if you set the grid tie controller to say 60v, and the solar control for 58v, the hysteresis on the grid tie is such, that it bulks up to 60v, the (off grid) grid tie shuts off, and the solar controller maintains the absorb at 58v till the sun starts to fail.....at 56v, the grid tie starts up again, trying to get the last of the days sun No point in pretending to float, as cyclic batteries neither need that function, nor is it even remotely called for with cyclic use  flooded cells on solar in my mind..... happy to entertain a counter argument though, but thats how i see it. Flooded cells will thrive on incidental over charge, but die on under charge.

As I can make over 700 liters of <1ppm water every day, water for the batteries is not an issue.




..............oztules

[techitout]

now there's a question I forgot to ask, how often do you get to water the t105REs?

I've only had my (8 x T105RE) bank up for 3 months, still looking pretty good for water, despite lots of bubble and charge every day.

I went flooded as I like the idea of being in control of the water level and a little bit of resilience to over charge. (and of course the price difference).

When I get the next PJ, I'll be doing a little reverse engineering as well, see what we can hack / find out, I like the idea of a decent enclosure, lots of lamps and meters etc. jeez I'm starting to have fun here!

cheers...Dave

[oztules]

I figure that every three months is easily enough for the t105-re batteries, as they are larger than the normal t105.... so they can hold more water.
I am far happier to over charge than under charge.


Here are the latest mods to the inverter... more gauges.....


Now we can see the grid tie shut-off circuit board on the front door as well.

I have successfully managed to make a complete shambles of the inside.... and I did have high hopes of making it neat too
Just didn't happen. The fans have not come on on the last few weeks other than a 5 second check it seems to do every few hours to see if the fan is there and functional i guess.



This is the charge and charge controller combi.
The knob controls the voltage pwm point for max voltage.




Most of the stuff in there are old fashioned transformers and chokes ( to limit the current to 40 amps or thereabouts).
The solar controller is incorporated in there as well... you can see the hot glue holding it to one of the chokes from the inspires.




..oztules

[techitout]

Awesome machines, Oz, I went for a totally abstract method of one mppt per panel, each can handle about 5A @ 58V, they're simple boost converters, and regulate  panel voltage @ 78% of OC voltage (32V¬ish) until charge voltage gets up there, only 4 on line now, ( 2 more coming soon), but I've seen 3.2 A @57V into the battery (182W) from a 190W panel, so quite happy with that. Charge voltage controlled by the contraption with the lcd display (Gen indicating -9.74A is an error btw, clunky firmware!)

cheers ... Dave

[oztules]

Looks to me you have it well in hand there.
I use 60 cell 250 watt panels now, and that makes the mppt part far less useful, in fact when it gets up to equalise, it can only scratch up 20 amps or less, as we are way past the pmax voltage.
Down lower ( 55v etc,) 60 amps is possible, more usually in the 40-50amp range..

Most charging seems to be in the 53-57v range, which is not too far short of the max power of the panels anyway, so I don't see me making the an mppt to work on those panels.

The HV panels have the mppt of their 1.5kw grid tie unit anyway, so I don't have to do anything there either.....most days the batteries are back to full by 11am .... so the urge to improve things is not immediate..... maybe by next winter I might see a reason, but I have way too much RE power available from the looks of it, and I have just gotten another 10kw of panels......looks like they will end up pumping water for cows for the neighbors.



................oztules

[techitout]

Yes, its getting there, though, if I had the space to accommodate enough panels to do the charging the way you have, I think I would go that way.

Too much capacity is something I am dreaming of, and when I've finished building here, I may achieve that.

I went the mppt route as I was limited on roof area, and what I have, experiences partial shading in summer (early morning /late afternoon),  and of course, to maximise what I could squeeze out of those panels.

It was a fair bit of work to get a usable reliable set up, maybe a little over complex, but the system is still young, I reckon the tech. stuff is mostly done and now its down to fine tuning and building the system up.

Immediate plan is for 10x 250w panels on mppts, another 8 x t105s and 6 x 200w panels through a grid tie (not forgetting a heavily hacked, modded and pimped up powerjack ). That should keep my machinery turning.

I've learned alot about what can be achieved thanks to yours and others work on this forum (transformer hacks rock!).

I guess that's what we're here for.

cheers ..Dave

[jamie aust]

The 6000lf should have two transformers in it.
never seen  a 6KW single transformer one. 5kw unit has only 1 tranny.

My 6000 has two "3kw" transformers.

Hello, can you confirm if the 6kw has the same transformers as the 8kw, with the 8kw just having bigger drivers to the same transformer ?

Regards
jamie

[oztules]

No Jamie I cannot confirm anything like that.

It seems to be a lucky dip as to how they configure the units.

It is likely the 6000w unit will have 1 less fet/bank... but that can be easily added too.

The programming is slightly different, OR the resistor across the current transformer is different for the different power  settings.

The transformers will be 1 plus a fan or 2 and no extra fan, or even 2 plus an extra fan ... impossible to tell from all reports.... they differ markedly on whats inside... but they all seem to work fine.... will be good when they standardize them a bit.

They seem to have the idle current sorted out in the newer ones, ad that is a very good thing.
The 6w unit will run a normal off grid house just fine... but not the hot water as well as other heavy usage stuff concurrently. It is not s "real" 6kw continuous unit by any means.... unless you do a few mods, then it shure is..... but 3kw is realistic, with very very high surges available to run compressors etc.

Prefer my own transformer.



.............oztules

[jamie aust]

Thank you for the quick reply.

I now understand, Im looking at getting the 8kw unit this week, and doing your mod if needed.
I already have 9 x 250w panels, 2 x pmmt charges on the way here.
I hope to run most house hold item accept aircon, stove and dishwasher.
thanks