Author Topic: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack  (Read 7389 times)

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Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2020, 01:27:24 pm »
Hi Solarnewbee,
This is the first day I've been able to access this site for a week.  I got the Anotherpower header and a message saying I was banned because I "look like a bot".  Anyone else have problems?  Today I tried and everything is normal.

Anyway, glad to hear you got your new inverter.  Mine will also sit up high on a ledge (5 ft) so will need help when ready to put it in place for use.  Heavy sucker!  I've been very slow in getting mine ready to use, probably because I have my older unit that is working fine.  Could it be because I'm lazy?  Nahhhh....
Also, with winter here we don't get to use it as much.  Short days and long nights and lots of clouds lately.  Snowing today.

Bottom line is no new progress to report.  At least I can get back on the site!

I do have a question.  If your controls are wifi or cloud-based, what happens when the internet or your wireless goes down?  Check out Genetry Solar on youtube. He is developing a replacement lcd for powerjack inverters that is wifi controllable with many setpoints user adjustable that we couldn't access before.  I'm waiting till he gets more testing done before jumping into that one.  Interesting though.  I prefer my inverters to be independent of outside influence whenever possible.



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Offline Wolvenar

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2020, 06:43:56 pm »
Unless you are using a commercial  VPN, the false ban should have only been about 42 hours.

As I posted in the bulletin board:
Sorry this was not intentional or meant to be personal.
Recently this forum has had a flood of spam bots finding their way past the spam protections.

In tweaking the automated anti bot/spammer a rule got put in that was missing a character.
Instead of banning a single email address, it banned an entire domain.

Also, since spammers and bots use VPN *a lot*, a significant amount of the commercial VPN IP are blocked from signing up a new user.
Modify message
Trying to make power from alternative energy any which way I can.
Just to abuse what I make. (and run this site)

Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #17 on: February 06, 2020, 04:03:30 pm »
Thanks for the info Wolvenar.  I figured it was some kind of error.  Glad it didn't last too long. 
I'm sure it takes a lot of behind the scenes work to keep this forum going.  Thanks for your efforts.  I'm sure everybody here appreciates it.  I sure do.
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Offline solarnewbee

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2020, 03:29:32 pm »
Hi doc,

I have a gsm module attached to my rpi4 with the SIM card from my iPad that has unlimited data. I was worried about that very thing you point out as the iot site that’s a non pay site was going to make triggers a part of the local system but never did. Scheduling is the only thing that is local. I tried a router that takes SIM cards but is was a piece of crap so I returned it.

I thought about starting a thread but the project and work has me worn out so I’ll follow along and learn/help if I can. Interesting so far and no matter how smart I am or get someone always teaches me new stuff. If I can help someone with new or better or stop stupid or even the eternal celestial dirt nap 😝 then that’s good too I think. Besides, more typing for you ha! 😂

Take care my friend

SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline Wolvenar

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #19 on: February 09, 2020, 01:36:09 pm »
Solarnewbee

Can you share the gsm module you use please
Trying to make power from alternative energy any which way I can.
Just to abuse what I make. (and run this site)

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #20 on: February 11, 2020, 05:23:15 pm »
Hey Doc,

Are you a doc btw or they just call you that? Medic, corpsman?

Anyway pic to follow of an extra I have. This one has microphone and headphone jacks but of no use to me. Antenna comes off and I extended it outside the server cab.

Are you going to try the Oz mod with the choke? I found the e-chokes and the bobbins somewhere and could locate them again if you want. If I can’t find them I have extras, I’ll give you one. The 220v side always did read 0w and the 110v side went from 97w to 2w according to PJ algorithm.

Gcsupermarket on eBay is where I bought the gsm quite some time ago. Just have to order a vintage SIM card 🤔.

Rock on can’t wait!
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #21 on: March 26, 2020, 08:19:45 pm »
Hello All,
Hope everyone is safe and healthy.  As of today we are supposed to stay home for 21 days.  God has spoken! (Or at least the Governor of Idaho)  That tearing sound you are hearing is the shredding of the constitution.

Since last posting, finally got this big powerjack into its place, connected up all my fan controls, and set up to run half the house for first actual load test.  Ran a minute and a half, then blew out all the led light bulbs in my basement.  Shut it down. Cussed a little.  Hi voltage episode.  Now output voltage drifts around from 204 to 248 as read on the front lcd screen (with no load) so output voltage control is kaput.  Voltage is probably spiking much higher than what the meter shows to be blowing out led bulbs.  Very disappointing.  Later discovered a fried surge protector and my old 1990 garage door opener was toast. 

Spoke first with Sean at Genetry Solar (powerjack warranty repair guy).  I told him what happened and about the imbalance of the 2 mainboards and he said there is nothing in the powerjack control board for balancing the two mainboards.  He stated that sometimes (in his exprience) the 2 boards tend to fight each other.  He also said for his own personal unit he has removed the second mainboard and runs with just one. I was thinking along those lines already.  Now its definite.

Powerjack is sending me a new control board, so will wait for that.  While waiting will be removing second mainboard and rewiring another little issue I didn't notice before.  Some bright boy at powerjack thought it was a good idea to connect the 2 breakers on the front panel in parallel!  Might as well have no breakers at all. 2 breakers wired in parallel means its likely neither will ever trip at rated value.   I usually rewire the battery charger breaker into the L2 leg since I always disconnect the battery charge setup on my powerjacks.  This unit didn't have battery charge function (fine with me!) so I get 2 breakers in parallel on the L1 leg instead.  And these guys are the experts?  Makes me feel a little better about my own stupid mistakes...

Anyway, since will have just the 1 mainboard in the case, might turn the fan on the empty side around and use as an exhaust fan.  Alternatively, I'm considering not using the top cover at all.  Instead building an exhaust plenum over the whole top of the unit from styrofoam board and piping the hot air outside.  Add a separate input cool air plenum from outside to the back of the unit to keep my utility room from cooking up (as much) in summer.
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Offline solarnewbee

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #22 on: April 04, 2020, 10:42:03 am »
Hey Doc!

Glad to see your project progressing. You didn’t grid tie this did you? Did yours come with a charging board or did I read that wrong?  Anyway I got mine in too just grunted and groaned lowered the sliding server shelf down and slid it in. You think I can just unplug the ribbon cable going to the second main board to take it out of the picture in case I want to incorporate it back quickly later?  That top fan I used some brass standoffs and screwed it to the xfmr bracket so the top cover comes off easily. The fans sure go on and off often. Waiting for a pwm Control from AliExpress that runs 4 48v fans. Takes 2 months for China stuff to arrive now.

Piping the hot air outside sounds like a great idea. How about dryer vent hose? Intake and exhaust?

BTW pm me your address I will mail you this gsm module as I may never use it since it’s a spare. Still looking for the python and Arduino codes I’m using. They’re lost in the great github beyond.
 
Pics please when you can

Stay safe everybody!

Later Doc
SN

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Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #23 on: April 04, 2020, 09:50:17 pm »

Hi Solarnewbee,
I'm glad to hear you are going to use just one mainboard.  I think the instability of the two in tandem was why my control board lost voltage control.  The fact that the two boards ran at different temps means to me that they were not balanced, and possibly fighting each other, thereby wasting power.  I too thought about just unplugging the 2nd mainboard but decided to remove it since its not that hard to do with this big case.  Also, unless you disconnect the dc input to that 2nd board it will use some power and could suffer damage if the first board pops.  (Probably not but who knows)

8495-0

Also the extra space should help with cooling the transformer.  Connected the transformer wires from the 2nd mainboard to the remaining board.  Thinking about adding one more positive wire to the dc input side of the remaining board too.  My older units all had 3 pos wires and 6 neg wires. 

I played around a bit with running my gridtie unit with my powerjacks last summer.  It seemed to work ok but I never felt comfortable doing it that way.  I was always afraid the gridtie unit might damage the powerjack or vice versa.  I know Oz and some others did well with theirs but those guys are way more knowledgable than me about that particular configuration.  So I can still do it on need but prefer to run straight off grid as much as possible.  With my current setup I should have more than enough capacity to power my house under most conditions so don't plan to experiment more with the gridtie/powerjack merging. 

No charging function on this one.  The charger board also is the output board so its there but with several empty spots where charging components aren't there. 

Did yours have the two fuses/breakers wired in parallel like my unit?  Still shaking my head about that one.  I rewired them one in each leg.   Also the breakers are 70a!  With that rating they are really only good as short ckt protection.  I run my powerjacks through 3 pole 32a output breakers for good isolation when out of circuit and never tripped one.  32a should be fine as I'm realistic about the real capacity of a "15kw" powerjack. 

Just for fun one day I tried using the dryer while running the house on the older powerjack I'm using now.  It ran it but with the other house loads at the time I read around 7000w total and the red light on the endpanel of the pj started blinking and beeping so turned off the dryer after about 1 minute.  This new unit will probably do 7000w without complaining after its repaired but have no intention of trying to run the dryer on it.  Or the central air unit.  Both hooked only to grid now.

Stay safe and healthy
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Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #24 on: April 18, 2020, 06:08:23 pm »

Today I received my warranty replacement parts for the big inverter.  Got a new v9 control board and a new charger/output board.  I have to check a couple of things before installing.

The control board has a 24v sticker on it.  My pj is 48v.  Hmmmm.
It is my understanding that all v8 and v9 control boards can be used for 12, 24, and 48 volts depending on jumper settings.  There are 5 sets of jumpers;
One on the source board.  One on the protection board.  One on the bottom side of the signal board.  And finally two on the bottom of the cpu board.  All of mine were set for 48v so should be good.  Gotta peel off that darn sticker.

The charger board.  My original had no charge components and was just an output board.  The replacement is a full charger board.  There is a large contactor and a small daughterboard with resistors not present on my original, so likely not needed (by me).  I'll probably just remove the two components. 
Two large caps are in a different spot and have a wire attached that ends in a ring terminal, and no instruction for where it connects.
Then there are the dip switches.  Function not labeled.  Ten places.  My original had 1, 4, and 6 on and the replacement has them all off.  Don't know if that's because of the different components, or if its for a different voltage (24v like the control board?), or if they just forgot to set them before sending it out.

So I have some questions emailed to Sean on these things.  Hopefully will be cleared up soon.






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Offline Pete

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #25 on: April 18, 2020, 11:38:17 pm »
Hi Doc, seems that many of these Eastern electronics devices forget to send or have any meaningful instructions. Even when they do have instructions it appears at times that someone is having a got at them by translating the instructions into gobbleygook.
Pity some of them are quite reliable others not so.
My PJ has been working well for a few years now. Then I don't ask much of it. Being supposedly 5kw on 12 volt is pretty ridiculous as the best it can manage is really about 2kw. Even then it struggles.
Good luck with getting it sorted.
And good luck with the Corona virus stuff. Seems like the US is being hit pretty hard.
Cheers
Pete

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #26 on: April 19, 2020, 09:54:58 pm »
Hey Doc,

As far as the dip switches go mine are all set To off. My board is a new version and pretty much bare. I believe the dip switches are for voltage adjustments. This may have been what caused trouble for your led bulbs. It appears the switches are tied to the resistor ladder next to it. On the other hand it could select hz and battery voltage but I’m leaning towards voltage adjustments since PowerJack had a lot of feedback about folks wanting adjustability and they mention that in ads and the manual. Misplaced my manual somewhere so I’m pulling out my hair looking for it. The push button and 2 dial switches on the front are still a mystery. There was mention of voice and pressing the button to select hertz and voltage etc but not sure. It’s outputting 60hz but I still don’t understand why the don’t ship these to the US at 240v. Wonder if anyone has ever brought that to their attention. As far as 110v goes I won’t need it so no adjustment needed there. Adjusting 220v up to at least 230v would be advantageous in the Philippines. You should be able to adjust yours for 240v and naturally bring up 110v to a healthy 118-120v. Disappointing is the fact that mine is off grid only and I really would like to have one with a built in charger for rainy days and no wind days.

Do you connect yours directly to the grid? I asked the seller about connecting mine to the grid and he said it would blow the output board. It seems they stopped selling any large grid tie inverters. Haven’t seen much over 4kw that’s grid tie.

I checked my breakers for tightness only when I got it because my 24v had loose screw terminals. I haven’t traced them out yet. I blew out everything with air for good measure and turned it on and voila it worked. Never have have had any problems with operation except the time the 24v unit showed up bent with broken fans. Then one time I back fed 24v thru the processor board and burnt a copper trace. I solder a piece of 32awg wire in place and was back in business. I’m still trying to figure out what the point of having 2  power boards. I know the coil has been wound a specific way for a specific amount of wattage. How many windings do the power boards drive and how many won’t be driven if I disconnect one power board. Will I be cutting my rated wattage in half? Questions I don’t know the answers to but Doc that’s what your here for ;).

Regards!



SN

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Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #27 on: April 19, 2020, 11:26:43 pm »
Hi Pete,
So far we're doing ok here in Idaho, virus-wise.  Could change I guess...
My oldest pj purchased in 2013 still works and heats water for us every day.  It is still on all original fets and stuff.  Never a problem.  Hopefully it will run for many more years.

I just noticed something while looking at the pics of the dip switches.  The dip switch on the new board is installed backwards!  Also there is no component at the Adjust5 position.  Wonder if that component (cap?) is important?
Sure would be nice to have a schematic.

Hey Solarnewbee!
The right hand pot on the front of your inverter is for output voltage adjustment.  There is a pic in my post "2019 48v/15kw Sort-of Powerjack" that shows this.  (Different inverter but same layout)
No, there's really no good reason for 2 mainboards.  Its the transformer that really determines your output wattage.  When you take out the 2nd mainboard, move the transformer wires that were connected to the output heatsinks to the remainng mainboard output heatsinks.  (Match the colors up or you would short it out.)  Then all your transformer wires are still utilized and your power level should be unchanged.  Also your mainboard  should run somewhat cooler as it won't be fighting the extra mainboard.
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Offline solarnewbee

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #28 on: April 22, 2020, 10:13:49 pm »
Hey doc.

Good timing, right before I read your latest I was on powerjacks website and saw the manual they have there, go figure right. The push button is the hertz. I started to buy the charging board and saw that the boards available aren’t anything like I have in my unit. My control board is one piece.

My only worry about connecting that much transformer to one power board is it might be too much for it if I’m pulling 6 or 7 Kw continuously. That and trying to shed all that heat. One of the previous processors was an Atmel 2560 like the one on the Arduino 2560 (lots of digital i/o ports to drive gets)and I’m guessing the code has that second power board kick in when theres a call for more current. Will the control board push the transformer past say 4kw if 8kw is a reasonable continuous output as designed if I pull 8kw and pwrbd2 is missing will the control board default to crank pwrbd1 up to achieve the desired load? Does that make sense? 🤔

Things to ponder
SN

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Offline dochubert

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Re: Just got my new 48v/15kw powerjack
« Reply #29 on: April 27, 2020, 11:27:54 pm »
Hi SN,
The inverter will still respond exactly the same to loads with only one mainboard installed.  That is actually the real problem with powerjack's dual board models.  There is no balancing or load sharing function in the control board.  It doesn't even know there are 2 hooked to it.  That's why some inverters (like mine) can't handle it.  The 2 boards are probably not  quite matched in some way, resulting in an imbalance.  An imbalance could also be the result of different length transformer wires.  Removing 1 board is actually making the unit run cooler and probably with a better efficiency level.  Even the output sine wave is likely cleaner (although I haven't checked that.  Just assuming).   One board has ample potential power handling capability to put out 6-7 kw, as long as you can dissipate the heat produced.
Likewise the transformer will get exactly as hot with 1 board at a specified power output as it would with 2 boards at the same power output.  It might actually run a bit cooler.  The mainboard drives the transformer, not the other way around.  If you're interested in a cooler transformer, I recommend removing the mounting bolt and plates, raising it up on blocks, and blowing a fan down the middle.  Doing that will actually improve the transformer's power rating/ power handling capability.  Theorectically, if you could remove most of whatever heat the transformer produces, you could output almost any power level the mainboard is capable of producing.  The control board has setpoints that are influenced by heatsink temp and transformer temp, but note that it only looks at the temp of 1 mainboard.  A red flag there!

Hope some of that makes sense
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