Fried Tristar TS-60

[dlenox]

Over the past 2 weeks I have fried 2 TS-60 units.

I have been using a Tristar TS-60 as diversion controller for the past couple of months, however recently have issues with it under mild wind conditions, when turbine was only putting out a couple of hundred watts.

Here is the scenario: Xantrex XW 6048 inverter is not too responsive to voltage increase so at 57.6v the Tristar starts diverting power to my dump load. All of the sudden the inverter kicks in and immediately pulls 65 amps of power, this apparently causes some sort of surge that causes the Tristar to blow.

I have seen references to large electric motors and using a diode to solve similar issues, and was wondering if using one at the TS-60 might help this condition? And if so what to purchase?

Dan Lenox

[Flux]

Can you explain what you are doing?

"Here is the scenario: Xantrex XW 6048 inverter is not too responsive to voltage increase so at 57.6v the Tristar starts diverting power to my dump load. All of the sudden the inverter kicks in and immediately pulls 65 amps of power, this apparently causes some sort of surge that causes the Tristar to blow."

I take it you have a nominal 48v battery and the Tristar is diverting above 57.6V that makes sense and as long as the dump load is sized within its rating all should be fine.

I don't follow the bit about the inverter and not too responsive to voltage increase. Do you mean that the inverter is tripping out on over volts?

The Tristar shouldn't be bothered by what the inverter is doing if it is directly connected to the battery. If you have common leads with the inverter then there may be issues. If connected as a normal diversion controller I can't see why it should be interested in what the inverter is doing, that is just an independent load.

At best all the inverter starting should do is cause a voltage dip at the battery, this shouldn't bother the Tristar, it should just stop diverting.

Flux

[scoraigwind]

This is very strange.  Morningstar have a pretty good warranty.  Have you asked them to explain it?  I assume that the Xantrex is pulling power to export to the grid?  Are they wired on common wires?  Have you tried connecting them each on their own wiring from the battery?  What size and type of battery is it, and what is the source of charge?  The battery should smooth out any voltage fluctuations pretty well and I can't see how the inverter would have much affect on the charge controller if the wiring is big and comes directly off the battery to each individually.

[dlenox]

Flux/Hugh,

The TS-60 is not on common wiring with the inverter.  Each is on it's own wiring and I am using #2/0 copper from a common bus bar to inverter and #6 to the diversion controller. I am running a 17' wind turbine, nominal 48volts.

Normally I run the inverter to sell to the grid at 54-55 volts, if the inverter is not selling then once the voltage reaches some point past this sell at voltage the inverter kicks in, draws power and sells to the grid.  My statement about the inverter not being too responsive to voltage increase is that sometimes I see volts increasing for 15-20 seconds before the inverter eventially begins selling to the grid.

I have not yet had the opportunity to discuss this situation with Morningstar with it being holiday and all but will shortly.  They have great equipment and I just received a replacement for the first blown unit.

My log files show that both times the TS-60 was diverting power, and the inverter kicked in drawing about 65amps. At that time the logs showed the battery voltage very quickly (seconds) dropping down to 50v with the TS-60 fried.

I know that it was fried as without the TS-60 volts occasionally go over 60v before the inverter goes into sell mode.

Dan

[Flux]

Can't think of any reason to fail. The thing is obviously failing with s/c mosfets and the dump load is enough to pull the volts down to nominal quickly ( removing surface charge) with little power from the windmill.

The dip in battery voltage when the inverter starts should be within its normal capability.  Unless your dump load can draw in excess of 60A at 57V there should be no problem.( that means a resistance of 1ohm or more).

Flux

[electronbaby]

Dan, are the batteries cold?

Are you using the "battery voltage sense" option inside the wiring box of the TS-60?

Are you using temp compensation on the TS-60?

Are you using temp compensation on the XW?

[dlenox]

Flux,

I have dump load of .5 ohms

Dan

[dlenox]

Roy,

The batteries are in my basement so are usually about 67 degrees.

I am using the battery temp sensor connected to the XW, nothing to the TS-60 since I am using simply as diversion controller.

Dan

[Flux]

I am not familiar with the TS60 but I assume it is a 60 A controller. If you have .5 ohm dump resistor then it will draw nearly 120A at 57V. Whether this is permissible depends on many factors but you really can't be sure that it is acceptable to use a resistor that will draw more than 60A. The mean current it is dumping in PWM mode with only a low input from the wind may be well within rating but the peak current is beyond the rating. I have no idea how much margin they have in the design but it is not something I would consider justifiable after having one failure.

Flux

[electronbaby]

One other thing...how long are your power wires, to and from the battery and inverter, and to and from the TS and the batteries?

I would try using the TS batt voltage sensor terminals. You might have some type of harmonics on the DC line, and it might be screwing things up. Ive noticed this happening with some of the Outback equipment when unevenly loading axial flux machines into my battery bank.

If you cant choke out the harmonics easily, I suggest using the remote voltage terminals on the TS and using some ferrite chokes and or .o1uF caps to ground off of these terminals. This allows a very stable voltage reference for the TS controller that is not susceptible to any inductive interference you may have. I cant say for sure, but it might be worth a shot. Before I did anything personally, I would call Morningstar.

[fcfcfc]

Hi:

Try this link....

http://www.xantrex.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=687

.....Bill

[dlenox]

Bill,

thanks, already applied the firmware upgrade and in my case made no difference.

Dan

[dlenox]

Flux,

Apologies up front, my thinking was all off.  I assumed that the diversion controller was dumping the difference of the set voltage and what is at the batteries, not the full voltage.  One of my reasons for this is that when looking at the TS-60 display it typically only showed between 1-4ah dumped.

Since my turbine is designed for 3000 watts and very occasionally can put out 4500 watts, I can reconfigure my dump load to be 1.2ohms which at 57.6v will draw 48amps (4800 watts).

The question is if I do this I must have to use 2 TS-60 diversion controllers, if my thinking is right they should be connected in parallel right?

Ideally what I would like to set one of them at 57.6v and the other one slighly higher, or should they both be set at the same voltage?

Dan

[dlenox]

oops, wrong calculation on the dump load, should have read 2764 watts not 4800.

[fcfcfc]

Hi:

I wonder if putting a fairly large capacitor bank across the TS60 would help stabilize the voltage spikes. Rig one for say 100VDC maybe a dozen large computer caps. This would buffer any sudden spikes in and slow any drops out. When the inverter kicks in, there has to be a pretty big rapid change in the "current state of affairs" (no pun intended). A fair amount of caps would slow that. You could always put a large diode across the caps in the opposite direction to prevent oscillations...

Just a thought.....

.....Bill