I finally got my "fridge inverter". I toyed with the idea of putting a "super start" cap (or whatever it's called) on the fridge so it wouldn't draw so much current on startup, but decided I'd rather not dink with it. (I was told they can be pretty hard on the compressor.) I don't anticipate running it on the inverter very often, so it isn't too big of a deal anyway. I'm sure I'll come up with excuses to use the inverter elsewhere as well...!
So I ordered a Samlex 1500W true-sine inverter. Took forever... (Well, a couple of weeks!) Apparently 1500W 12V TSW inverters aren't in high demand (gee, wonder why?) and they make them as ordered. Finally arrived today.
Some quick wiring, and it's ready to go - tried the fridge, nice. Starts just fine! The Outback Mate logged a peak current reading of 83A @ 12.4V - 1030W! - on startup. Only pulls 10-11A while running though.
The wiring is... A potential problem. I didn't think about this in the beginning. I set up my system with a "distribution block". It's originally intended for a piece of 3-phase equipment, has a huge hole on the input side (up to 300MCM) and twelve holes/lugs for up to 4AWG connections on the output side. Works nice, I have some 3/0 cable salvaged from a chiller replacement job feeding it from the battery bank. But the inverter needs something like 1/0 or 2/0 - which won't fit the terminal blocks!
Right now I have used some 4AWG, which handles the inrush for the fridge okay (the wires are all of 18" long) but if I ever really want to use the capabilities of the inverter I'll have to come up with something a bit beefier. Perhaps I could just double or triple the 4AWG, taking up two or three slots on the block? The inverter came with some crimp lugs, not sure if I could get a decent crimp like that or not... Just stuffing three 4AWG wires into the terminal block I don't think will work too well either - there's quite a bit of room to the sides of the bolt that holds the wire, I think most of one or two wires would just end up on either side.
I also bought my fourth panel this month. Brings my solar system to 540W STC / 380W PTC. I've been pleased to find Kyocera must be somewhat conservative on their ratings as I regularly see 400+ watts, usually 440 or so. At one point I thought to myself "doing pretty good" with 32-34A going into the battery bank. Then realized that just means I've made it to a whopping 5% charge rate...! (660AH bank.) Ah well, it usually makes it to absorb then float by 1-2 in the afternoon. Yesterday, a nice sunny day following a week of overcast, there was plenty of charging to do and I saw just shy of 2.5kWh produced. Nice!
And I finally had a chance to try equalizing the battery bank for the first time. Was home early yesterday (started work at 3AM - yawn...) so had lots of sunshine to play with. Told the FM-80 to equalize, and set the voltage to 15.0V. Wow, I wasn't expecting quite that much noise from the batteries! Far more "vigorous" than I expected it would be.
I also wasn't expecting that much noise from the gear attached to the batteries. Oops, had some high voltage alarms screaming at me! (The DC power strips for my ham gear have voltage monitors built into them.) Turned the equalize voltage down to 14.8, and still heard a nice "fizzing" sound so I guess it was still doing the job.
I can definitely see where equalizing could generate a considerable quantity of gas to watch out for! :-)
