guess who bought a power jack inverter

[lighthunter]

Hi Oztules, regarding post 414 " only good if you have the later model PJ.. no good on it's own..

...............oztule"
 

Im just not following, hope you dont mind sharing your thoughts
as to why the 48v 10kw power bd wouldnt work with older pj or egs002.

Thanks!!
LH

[ClockmanFrance]

I have posted these pics before.....

PJ changed there design of boards. From around 2013/14 they started using sub boards on the new main board that just had the MosFets on and the matching resistors, and a led. These will bolt on to the Heatsink.

I can only guess that PJ went down a more substantial connection process, as its getting the assembler to use a bit of skill to assemble each FET and solder correctly, and getting enough copper around those FET's.

The old board and the new bolt on boards.

[lighthunter]

That makes sense, thanks for info on that Clockman.

LH

[off the wall]

I understand that the 8000 LF unit now is supplied with one transformer rather than two . . . and PJ swear that the new single transformer is better than the two before and that performance is unchanged . . . They say 4000W continuous. . . .

Has anyone had experience of these new units?

By the way, in this thread I have documented a changeover switch to change house circuits from grid to offgrid. I'm now modelling the battery bank to provide a control circuit using a 500F supercapacitor and will document this on another thread.

Best wishes

OTW

[davidwillis]

Just an update to my issue with connecting to the grid tie system.  I connected the pj to my 5kw grid tie system using 8s lithiums and my pvpowered hf inverter with zero issues.  I used it in all conditions from low sun, to at noon, with loads, and no loads.  I could not get it to fail, just a slight flicker in the lights when putting on a load that was more than the GTI was producing.    So it looks like the problem is with the Delta Solivia GT inverter.  It must be more sensitive or something.

I have a magnum MS-PAE inverter that is designed to do this and I will see if it works with the Delta Inverter...??

This is getting very frustrating.

[lighthunter]

David, yeah, very hard to troubleshoot. Especially if you dont know what.
The errors are, Is there any way you can get the error code info? At least.
Look up the list of possible errors and analyze each + rule out one by one.
Mine had ground fault stuff that had to be satisfied, L1-N parameter N-L2
, and L1-L2. might not hurt to take the delta solivia and swap it with your HF
Inverter to see if it works better in that environment??? Who knows maybe
He has a load that has an arcing switch or connection in it. That will cause
em to go offline.

Good luck!
LH

[off the wall]

The most bombproof of inverters have large transformers in them. The old Sunnyboy for instance. These have a significant advantage over the HF units . . . The HF units do not provide isolation between mains and panels whereas the big transformer ones do so. As a result the HF errors are set to be very sensitive to "ground leaks", measuring the impedance to ground. The Sunnyboy merely shows an error light and keeps on working.

I use thin film panels in places, which require negative DC to be grounded - so the Sunnyboy is the only GT inverter able to run them.

Best wishes

OTW

[davidwillis]

David, yeah, very hard to troubleshoot. Especially if you dont know what.
The errors are, Is there any way you can get the error code info? At least.
Look up the list of possible errors and analyze each + rule out one by one.
Mine had ground fault stuff that had to be satisfied, L1-N parameter N-L2
, and L1-L2. might not hurt to take the delta solivia and swap it with your HF
Inverter to see if it works better in that environment??? Who knows maybe
He has a load that has an arcing switch or connection in it. That will cause
em to go offline.

Good luck!
LH

The problem is that there are no new error codes that show up when connected to the pj that are not also showing up when connected to the grid.  And Delta does not even know what the codes mean.  They say they are "internal codes" and they don't know what they are.  So they seem useless.    I am going to do some more testing this weekend.  Thanks for the suggestions.

[lighthunter]

Hi David! any luck with the inverter faulting? Hope u.
find out what it is. I must admit even though mine
wasnt totally unusable, i got so frustrated with it stopping.
at will i went and bought a water heater element to match.
my panel voltage and direct connected it for nearly a year.
no inverter trouble then.... it worked great and lowered my.
power bill too. In January i decided to hook my wood fired.
boiler to the water heater so i then had a solar panel sitting.
idle which inspired me to solve the problem. Worst comes
to worst you could always buy new inverter and put the solivia.
on ebay. they have better resale valu than cars

Best of luck! LH

[davidwillis]

No luck with is so far.  It is very frustrating.

However talking with support for the grid tie inverter it sounds like this inverter may be overly sensitive.  They said homes that have GFCI breakers were making the inverter reset (just like I am seeing), and they had to connect a ferrite ring on the AC output of the inverter to fix it.  He was wondering if that would help in our situation, but did not know.

He also said they had a division of the company working on battery backup for the inverter.  So maybe they have had requests for this, and the inverter simply will not run unless it is connected to the grid?  He really did not even know, other than there is a division working on it.

Thanks
David

[davidwillis]

I tried connecting with a magnum inverter that is designed to ac couple with grid tie inverters, and it failed as well.

So I contacted Magnum to see what they had to say, and they said it does not work with all grid tie inverters.  These are the ones they tested:

SMA inverters work
solectria inverters work
solar edge work
power one works with the newest ones.  The old ones work, but its voids the warranty, and the frequency change does not shut off the inverter when the batteries are full.
micro inverters work

kaco inverters do not work
frontus inverters do not work

They have not tested my Delta inverter.... So I think it just may be the inverter does not work with ac coupling.....

[oztules]

Looks like next project is for a simple grid tie unit... to go with the simple pure sine wave inverter... for off grid installations... not the real grid.


Actually I have a letter here from the chief engineer at the state level..... where he says that the BSI ( Bass Strait Islands ) SHOULD change their frequency range from .5Hz +- to ... wait for it 3-4hz +-    so the head honcho decided the AS4777 is nonsense anyway... and 1 second wait time for disconnect...
Trouble is I don't have the password for my units to change them... anyone have the aerosharp pass words??? It  is official I am allowed to change them... if I can.

So all the nonsense arguments that say that if you stray outside the AS4777 is deadly...... well now thats officially bollocks. A sensible range is not only possible, but now is encouraged by the authorities.


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

[lighthunter]

Thats amazing! somebody in power making sensible decisions?!

Oztules,I could really use your experienced opinion. My GTI is working perfectly and
I'd like to keep it that way. I'm now using 1 of 2 inputs at actual values 250-275dc  mp ;
 ocv is around 310. I just puchased 4 more 37v panels. Should I do two strings at lower.
voltage or add em in series for 400vdc mp 500vdc open circuit?
Im worried inverter may fail prematurely??

Inverter is rated 150-420 mppt 600vdc max. Pic of specs is posted.
in product support section. Its 3stage hf topology. Two seperate buck/boost input boards, a dc-dc hf transformer section and output stage with waveshaping LC. Thank you so much I value your judgment.

LH

[lighthunter]

I agree with the need for an inverter that will sync to another without.
all the picky stuff. Ive looked at several schematics online. The hardware seems.
possible, its the control software for the output stage that baffles me. Theres.
some pretty clever programming in there. Im not even sure how they do it? If
voltage increase is how you feed grid then it has to be over the entire waveform.
not just peaks.

If only the powerjacks had an external sync input... 

LH

[RFburns]

I am not sure what you really want here (is it sync two inverters together? ) two inverters synced will be really straight forward if that is what you want and I have a few ideas for this. RF

Looks like next project is for a simple grid tie unit... to go with the simple pure sine wave inverter... for off grid installations... not the real grid.

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