Comments on Xantex XW for PV/Wind/Hydro?

[Jedon]

The price for the XW6048 seems better than what I would need from Outback ie 2 VFX3648 + MX-60 and it has a higher surge rating for when my well pump kicks in ( 1800W ).

I am planning on having PV, wind and hydro all hooked up to this, will it work for that?

It has grid-tie but I have no need or interest in that, no power anywhere near me.

I read Midnight Solar is coming out with a unit, not sure when though.

The Magnum inverters look simple, maybe too simple?

Plan:

Otherpower 10' Wind generator

240. W Harris or APM pelton hydro ( 100ft head, 20gpm )
     
1600. W of PV ( Kyocera 205's ? ).
      
13. HP 6500W Onan generator
    
    

Start with 3 banks of 8 6V golf cart batteries from Sams Club for a 48V system.

I'll probably do the PV first since the hydro will require lots of trenches and stuff and the wind requires an expensive tower.

Thanks for any feedback!

-Jedon

[Jedon]

Hmm I was reading more and it looks like the XW6048 charger is not MPPT and you have to pay another $500 for the MPPT charger?

[dlenox]

Jedon,

I am currently using a Xantrex XW-6048 in my wind turbine system and like it very much.  I am pretty sure that the other XW inverters are becoming available pretty sure that there is a XW-4548 at around $2500.  I would also purchase the SCP which is a lot of help in configuring settings, with out it you are blind...

If you are doing wind then you don't need the MTTP controller, it is only needed if you are connecting solar.

One other point is that currently no one has any data logging software that works with the XW inverters - not even Xantrex.  I am currently working on software for logging data from my system, and it is beginning to shape up nicely

Dan Lenox

[Jedon]

Dan,

Thank you for the info, I'll be running solar and wind and hydro.

What OS & language are you using for the logging? I just happen to be a programmer that does that kind of thing. I need the larger inverter capacity of the 6048, if I go the Outback route I would need two 3600W inverters since I don't want havoc when my 220V well pump kicks in. Speaking of that, can the 6048 have 110 and 220 at the same time? I guess having two charge controllers would be good anyway, I could use the built in one for wind and hydro and a separate MPPT for the PV.

Thanks!

-Jedon

[dlenox]

Jedon,

The inverter connects to 220v for grid connection, as well as putting out 110v & 220v to auxillary panel.   BTW: the SCP is the system control panel, a separate item that gives you an interface to configuring the inverter.

Again you do not need charge controller for wind (and probably hydro), only solar.

Been coding for 30+ yrs now, everything from Assembly, Fortran, VB to Java and all flavors of C (C, C++, C#).  Last couple of years I have favored C#.

Dan

[Jedon]

Well no grid within 10 miles for me so that's out.

I'd want the SCP for sure.

I've only been coding for 22 years, about the same languages but switch Fortran for Lisp. C# is cool, I've been using it to data log over TCP/IP from device servers getting reports from radio telemetry from remote agricultural sensors. Data also comes in over satellite. So anyway, decoding incoming byte streams is nothing new, you using C#?