My free power.

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  • Bala
    Solar Fanatic
    • Dec 2010
    • 716
    #1

    My free power.

    So I turned my inverter off to do some battery work, it would not restart.

    So now we have the twin lister burning diesel when we are home and the EU20i running the fridge and feezer when we are at work and at night.

    We dont live close to a major centre for freight and work does not make it easy to get to freight companies to send the inverter for repair. It will be close to two weeks by the time I get it back so the cost of running the gensets, additional hrs requiring more oil changes quickly erodes the free power aspect of stand alone systems.

    Plus the fun of fueling and changing over gensets daily.

    But when I tell people we have stand alone solar most will reply, "So you have free power"
    Tags: None
    • Mike90250
      Moderator
      • May 2009
      • 16020
      #2
      Disconnect all your inverter loads, so that it's not trying to start the fridge and all the lights when you switch the inverter on.

      Do you have good DC voltage at the inverter terminals ? You usually get a bit of a spark when connecting the inverter to the batteries, as the caps charge up - did you get a small spark when connecting the battery to inverter ?
      Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
      || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
      || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

      solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
      gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

        Comment

        • Bala
          Solar Fanatic
          • Dec 2010
          • 716
          #3
          Nothing was disconnected, it was all shut down. I needed to clean some battery terminals.

          When I turned it all back on the inverter hummed loudly and tripped on its own internal overload.

          I tried it a few times but same thing. It had been getting noisier for some time.

          When I rang the manufacturer, which is an Australian company he said dont keep trying it should only be a problem on the circuit board and they should be able to fix it easy enough.

          Its 12 years old and in a wet tropics environment so not to bad,

          Just inconvenient.

            Comment

            • Matrix
              Solar Fanatic
              • Oct 2017
              • 360
              #4
              Originally posted by Bala

              But when I tell people we have stand alone solar most will reply, "So you have free power"
              I know what you mean ... I get "I bet you save a lot on power bills"

              Hope you get it worked out

              285Wx9 / MNClassic 150 / CSW4024 / TrojanL16H-ACx4

                Comment

                • Bala
                  Solar Fanatic
                  • Dec 2010
                  • 716
                  #5
                  Originally posted by Matrix
                  I know what you mean ... I get "I bet you save a lot on power bills"

                  Hope you get it worked out
                  The inverter is in transit hopefully back this week.

                  Its inconvenient but not to bad really as the 10Kva Lister is all wired in. If I ever have a Stand alone failure I start the Lister from the house flick a couple of switches and we have power.

                    Comment

                    • Raul
                      Solar Fanatic
                      • May 2015
                      • 258
                      #6
                      Maybe this is to late but it has happened to me as well. The inverter will not turn back on after shut down for maintenance. It will light the overload led and turn off. So I used my back up smaller inverter instead at that time. Then I tried it next day when the PV array was holding the bank on absorb. I turned it on and bingo, all working as it should. It had LVD shut down set at 48v BUT, I missed de LVD re connect that was set at 52v. So if the bank was lower than 52v will not turn back on, despite the fact that I was certain the shut down was set at 48v and the bank at the time was just above 50v.

                        Comment

                        • Bala
                          Solar Fanatic
                          • Dec 2010
                          • 716
                          #7
                          Mine has been getting noisier for some time.

                          I did inherit a 240V lathe a while ago and when starting up its contactors would chatter, I was going to run it off the genset to see if was any different but before I did that I used it for a long time it tripped the breaker on the inverter. It is an asian made lathe probably 30 years old.

                          That was the only time in 12 years my inverter tipped its breaker and I think that may have damaged it??


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