Author Topic: Power Jack Inverters  (Read 6366 times)

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Harold in CR

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Power Jack Inverters
« on: September 02, 2015, 08:48:31 AM »

 Since watching all the info Oztules has provided on the 6KW inverter build thread, I have been looking at Power Jack battery inverters. Prices seem reasonable for a battery inverter.

 Are these inverters decent quality. I know nothing about electronics and can not afford to throw money at a cheap inverter, and can't afford a Xantrax etc. so, I'm needing some input on these brand inverters.  5000W-20000W max LF PSW 24V Split Phase 120-240V 60hz 90% efficiency w/80A battery charger.

 I have a battery (Chevy Volt) that I can cut the cell connections to make 6 cell blocks. These are 4.2V cells rated at 3.8 nom. Also have a few Nissan Leaf modules that I can configure at 6S to match the Volt Cells. This is 345 total Amp rating at 24.9V is 1.311Kwh pack. I plan to get another Chevy Volt battery after the 1st of 2016. That would add at least 8Kwh to my pack.

 This is the only way I can afford to get nearly off grid. Mostly I need refrigeration on the inverter and shop tools later on, when I get a larger pack built, and yes, this might be overkill, until I get more generation capacity built.

 This gives me a 4.15 max HV and a 21.6V LV if I go at 6S 24.9 HV and 3.60 LV.

 The specs on the 5KW are 21V low V alarm, shut down at 20V and 29V high V alarm and 30V shut down. I should have no problem staying between these parameters.

 Also, have a 2KW gasoline generator if needed to maintain the battery.

mab

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2015, 07:06:53 PM »
if you can see the anotherpower forum (sorry mods - hope you don't mind), there's a lot more of Oztules exploits with the PJ and powerware inverters.

Having read about Oz's experiments I decided to buy a PJ8000LF 24v and have been very happy with it so far.

The plus points:-
great value for money
great surge capability - starts anything I have.
replacement boards available at reasonable cost if needed (in fact you could buy an entire 2nd inverter for the price of a 'name brands' and still have money left over).
if you need to tweak the voltage limits for your battery, Oz can probably tell you how.

negative points:-
poor quality control - it's worth taking the lid off and checking the connections, loose screws etc when it arrives
the 'continuous' ratings are wildly out due to the small transformers used (hence clockman and Oz building their own TX).
if you need to use the charger function you need to turn the inverter off before disconncting the gen (or connecting to be sure).
Whilst they doseem to provide some sort or warranty It's probably best to assume if it fries you'll have to fork out for new boards as shipping back to china for warranty repair won't wash.
it looks like cheap chinese tat rather than a serious inverter.

ultimately it's your decision as to whether it's worth the risk or not. Personally I simply couldn't justify the cost of a name brand inverter as I do have access to grid power if needed.

clockmanFRA

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2015, 03:03:28 AM »
"Personally I simply couldn't justify the cost of a name brand inverter as I do have access to grid power if needed. "

Just to throw a spanner in the works, so to speak.

For years I had been using a APC UPS 5000va unit that has a 48vdc input, but it used about 100w to 200w just on standby.

So I saved up and bought what I thought was a named Rolls Royce of a Brand, a SMA SI6, and yes I studied the published tech specs.

However, straight away its HZ was not stable, shot to 60HZ, especially when DC coupling and AC coupling were combined. Washing machine and Microwave went kaput, and I damaged my precious battery's as the float charge on the SI had to be set high.

SMA response was p poor with the, "to much DC coupling" (other DC charging sources to the battery), but SMA would not specify how much is to much, and "Buy loads of our specialty expensive add ons" mentality.

So, as you can see I reverted to making my own Oz Inverter after spending $3000 on a so called named brand.

Today self Empowerment is very important when money is tight.

My Mrs reckons I am an 'Idiot' for writing/creating "How To" booklets about my adventures with RE stuff, but at least my 3 boys will be able to understand, maintain and create in their future futures.

Thanks for folk like 'oztules'. 
« Last Edit: September 03, 2015, 03:12:23 AM by clockmanFRA »
Everything is possible, just give me time.

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3 Hugh P's 3.7m Wind T's (12 years) .. 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (8 yrs) .. 9kW PV AC coupled to OzInverter MINI Grid, back charging AC Coupling to 48v 1300ah battery

Harold in CR

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2015, 07:52:05 AM »

 DIY is all well and good, as long as one understands electronics. As I stated in your 6KW thread postings, I, and I imagine, many others just don't have the training and experience to do DIY electronics. Also, at 72 years of age, I can't remember my name half the time, so, learning this stuff is not an option.

 I really admire those that took the courses and learned electronics. This is why I am asking rather simple questions all the time. A lot of times, Google articles just don't explain things the way that Oztules, Flux, and MANY others here, take the time to get the info across.

 Most of these forums are populated by engineers, high tech individuals, etc. Anytime, anyone wants to know how to build a successful portable sawmill, capable of sawing 36"+ dia. logs, or how to locate sunken/buried logs in black (coffee like) alligator infested stained water, build machinery that does what it's supposed to do, etc., then, I can provide assistance. Things I can SEE working, are easy to understand and use. Electronics "theory", not so much.

 I for one, really appreciate ALL those that take the time to post their projects and answer all the questions.

 OK, Power Jack battery (Non grid connected) inverter experiences, good or bad, greatly appreciated. Thank you Mab for your input.

 Harold in CR




Bruce S

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2015, 09:16:54 AM »
if you can see the anotherpower forum (sorry mods - hope you don't mind), there's a lot more of Oztules exploits with the PJ and powerware inverters.
quote]
mab;
No worries about us being snooty about anotherforum posts! Most of the people there used to or still do post on here  ;).

Bruce S
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oztules

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2015, 04:46:45 AM »
Two trains of thought Harold.

You may be better off if you just grid tie if that is available... cheapest use of solar power..

If you do want to go off grid ( even a little bit )you don't want to over invest.

Name brands are very very good for back up, and this is part of why they are expensive, back up and service are not cheap any more.

Being expensive, does not make them immune to failure, as we had some early failures with ten thousand dollars inverters.... and while their service was exemplary, it does not help when your remote...

So........ remote WITH redundancy is very important, the further you get away from transport routes that you can rely on and are economic.... sadly...... to fly out that big inverter, cost more than the power jack..... so warranty was excellent, but expensive anyway.

Different horses for courses, there is no right answer for everyone.... but for remote locations with scratchy or expensive shipping, I go for redundancy, and so failure now is fixed in 10 mins, not 10 days or a few weeks all going well.

 I have had an excellent run out of the PJ, but there are others that have not. I would expect them to fail very early on if they were to fail, but a recent example shows up that 15 months later it failed ( somewhere in the thread recently ).

Their QC is poor..... no getting around it. If you brew your own, you take all of that out of it.... but if thats not your bag, then a problem.

So for you, if you can get quite a few cheapies for the same price as the dear ones, then your redundancy is taken care off, but we are still only a few years into this as yet... still many unknowns.

Piece of mind is important as well, and that may push you towards the high end equipment... every one has a different tolerance to risk, and everyones situation is different.


I know not terribly useful, but it is a decision that you have to live with and sleep at nights..... and thats important too.

It may well be that it is best to do nothing... you need a few years to amortize this cost over..... or put bluntly, are you likely to live long enough to cover the costs from the savings ( if any).

I use them because it suits my purposes, that does not mean they suit yours.... weigh up the costs and the benefits first before you make a move perhaps.


..................oztules
Flinders Island Australia

DamonHD

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2015, 05:11:08 AM »
@oztules: an excellent analysis IMHO; no one-size-fits-all solution available really.

Rgds

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David HK

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2015, 06:38:01 AM »
Clockman's narrative above about documenting the details of electronics, mechanical hardware and such like is truly a matter for future generations to enjoy.

I have built lots of RE stuff and followed people like Ghurd with his simple circuits, and because I have no son and am 67 years old, I am now being forced to give away, and even visit the local scrapyard with priceless wind turbines that have never flown.

Its a cruel world.

I am trying hard to give away my RPM/Tachometers for wind turbine hubs and so far I have received just one nibble. Years ago this website would have been alive with takers.

David in HK

Harold in CR

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2015, 09:12:41 AM »

 Oztules
 My situation is more like MaryB's. I have grid power. It is spotty. That means, constant outages at 1-20 second blips. Usually when the fridge is running, and you can see the lights dip pretty well, every time the power surges back on. The fridge has held up to this abuse, but, it makes all sorts of weird noises from time to time.

 We have had light bulbs explode, literally. We have had 3 tv's burned out. No service people here to even try to repair. 3 computers burned out. Several telephones burned out, literally. Sometimes, there are 3-4-5 off on -off on episodes. The light bulbs get extremely bright and burn out.  I know from X lineman experience how the power company regulators in the substations work. Did many call out jobs seeking line faults and restoring service. This is not always regulator induced surges, more shorts from tree limbs-leafy wet clumps hitting wires and causing surges, quicker than regulators can sense the problems. Sometimes, the roar of plasma arcing can be heard half a mile away.

 A lot of our problems are lightning strikes, many from long distances away. May not be a cloud in sight and you can hear the snap as phones short out, phone connecting lines arc and need replacing. I keep a couple of the connection boxes and connectors on hand.

 We are also at the "end of the line" and lightning often travels until the lines end, so, we get hit by that.

 Being on fixed income, and paying 30 cents US per Kwh is costing us $100.00/month. Doesn't sound bad, right? Add up all the burned up stuff and possibility of lightning burning down our house, from tv's etc actually flashing and smoking, I have to do something.

 I am about to receive a smart phone from my son, and use it to receive wi-fi and connect to my laptop. Disconnect the phone line modem. I'm about to install Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf battery bank to get away from power company to the laptop, am adding LED lighting, etc. Fridge is the main thing. IF I knew refrigeration, I just nearly bought a 12-24V fridge compressor, but, don't trust the locals to convert the fridge. Right now, I'm fighting with a shop for "losing" critical parts of my Stihl chainsaw, just from cleaning and rebuilding the carburetor.  ::)

 I want to buy a 12V X 22" TV and run it straight battery power. Charging batteries at this time is where I'm at. Building a couple wind turbines, and trying to store rain water in a pond to create Hydro power. We get massive amounts of rain here, 8-9 months every year. I have a 30,000+ gallon pond I dug, by hand, and the liner is bought and my son will ship it down here next month. I am about to build the hydro turbine and place it 120' away and 100' below the pond. I don't drive much anymore, so, have built an electric motorcycle/bicycle to get around locally, otherwise use the buses. Gasoline is equivalent $6.00 a gallon and diesel is slightly higher.

 My shop power tools are always subject to lightning, so, I'm constantly plugging and unplugging them, even while working on projects. Ever cut wood on a tablesaw and have the power go off-on a couple times. That can have the wood thrown up into your face or worse !!

 So, you see why payback is not my concern. Protection and longevity of items and mind are my priorities.  I am even thinking about selling out and use that money to travel before I check out. At 72 years old, that can happen at any time.  ::)

 I will gladly entertain ANYONES ideas on alternative ways to live a simple life with modest items. We grow most of our food and taxes are not an issue. Phone and power is where my money goes.

Bruce S

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2015, 09:17:57 AM »
David HK;
It is the very nature of getting old  :(, All our sons have moved away ( the closet being a highspeed 2 hour drive away). Our daughter has the "bug" but has taken it to organic farming instead of power.
Those people who would've jumper all over freebies, I assume are now finding their knees are creaking in the morning (me included).
It is a shame that your mills have to go to the scrap yard, I remember your posts of some beautiful builds!

A kind word often goes unsaid BUT never goes unheard

Frank S

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2015, 08:46:37 PM »
Harold, I have felt your pain in many ways.
 While I was living in kuwait my factory was run on 1 and sometimes 2 Generators everything ran nicely on 1 500KW unit most of the time. but during heavy production usage we had to use the 2nd one. Since I didn't have the correct switch gear and other hard ware to match in 2 power sources we would switch half the factory over to the 2nd unit. sometimes though one or the other generator would get the hiccups especially when approaching full load current. This as you can expect would raise wholly havoc on CNC and other power equipment My solution for my office was that I ran everything on my desk off of a UPS with 2 75 AH batteries in 10 years I never lost a monitor (32" TV) or a PC tower  or printer/ploter, or scanner due to power fluctuation.
  I had the computer part of each CNC machine on their own UPS as well. There were many times though that I wished we could have had one of those half million dollar Hospital 1 MW hospital UPS setups with their container full of batteries for back up but my best solution that I could do at the time was to have a warning alarm on the primary generator that went off after a 5 minute sustained 75% power load. then the 2nd generator would start up and someone would half to tell all of the welders to stop for a minute while that half of the shop was switched over to the 2nd generator that way none of the other machines were effected "MUCH"
  Like has been said there is no simple one size fits all plan.
 I like European spec TVs or maybe I shoulod have said the ones we used in the middle East because they were rated from 100 to 250VAC the only way I could kill one was to shove it off my desk and that happened a few times not always killing the TV either.
  David I would love to have 1 of the tach units but the reason I haven't chimed in is like another has said by the time I would ever get around to using one IF EVER I wouldn't have any idea where I had stored it.
 And I am sure that there is someone in more need of one than I at this time since I don't even have a turbine at present.
I live so far outside of the box, when I die they will stretch my carcass over the coffin

dnix71

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #11 on: September 04, 2015, 09:44:39 PM »
Harold in CR in many places the distribution system is designed to make a certain number of attempts to burn off a short circuit.
http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080727/news_1n27power.html
That can do seriuos harm to your connected equipment.

http://furmansound.com/product.php?div=01&id=PWRLINK  We have something like this at church protecting the amps in the rack. It locks out if the power fails and restarts in sequence so you don't trip breakers or blow fuses. Sensitive equipment is protected by battery powered ups's. A direct lightning strike, though and all bets are off. I made over $500 one day repairing cement mixing equipment after the mobile home the operator worked in took a direct hit. The APC ups's were destroyed, and a varistor protecting a transformer was blown, but that protection was enough to save the computers and most of the relays.

Mary B

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #12 on: September 04, 2015, 10:26:14 PM »
Had a bad news power failure here last week. I just swapped to battery or shut down as needed. Voltage dropped to zero, came up, dropped, came up, dropped, came halfway up and settled at 70 volts... U think half the people in town are replacing fridges and freezers judging by the boxes out for recycling... I just unplugged my freezer for the 12 hours it took to fix things, fridge was on battery as was the ham gear so I played radio, had lights, had a fridge, could have dropped the freezer onto battery also if needed. When they got power back up it bounced from 95-140 volts for 4 more hours... lots of stuff in town damaged and lots of complaints filed against the power company. No storm anywhere near to take it out, not harvest season so nobody hit a pole with a tractor or plow...

Harold in CR

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Re: Power Jack Inverters
« Reply #13 on: September 04, 2015, 11:47:29 PM »

 Yep, All y'all are experiencing exactly what I am. I have 3 used UPS's to use as inverters IF I have to. Bought 'em cheap a few years back, and dnix gave me one with an on-off switch added, that I have used in remote locations several times.

 Freaks the natives out how I can "make" electricity.  ;D ;D ;D  Now, they are all waiting to see what else I can do. I have the Lenz vertical freewheeling, and, always get questions of how much electricity I make. Of course, I fudge that info just a wee bit.  ;D

 Tomorrow, Might get to try out the bici/moto after the upgrades. Then add the fairings I made from PVC pipe and washing machine plastic cabinet.  ::)

 MaryB, I'm gonna pester you about that fridge/freezer you rigged up, just not now.

 Really nice to have input in this thread. Thanks guys and Mary.