Hi Volvo,
I'm good with conserving power...its the wife and child who like the stuff...they are getting better at this game, but its a slow process to swing them over.
I think I will heed everyones advice and hold off until I get the other three batteries.
Ah heck, I only have 8 golf cart batteries for the 48 volt system on the 17 footer....eight more and my batteries hopefully wont top off so soon....it doesn't take long to fill up 8; maybe 16 is the charm….that 17 footer can make some power, I find it difficult trying to keep it under control; using the excess that is….but then again I don't have all my circuits from my transfer switch hooked up yet. as of right now it's like trying to control a wild horse.
Here in the south just about everything runs off of electricity... hardly anything is natural gas or propane except heaters in the winter time. Oh, I'm under no illusion about trying to run power hogs like stove, water heater, AC or any type of 220 device....the closest I might approach this idea would be to dump the excess from a charge controller into a water heater.
My eventual ...ideal goal is to run most of my 110v to meet my daily use stuff off of the wind generator and eventually add a grid tied solar system too....that is why I needed an inverter for the wind-gen side that could be grid tied to a transfer switch and I found a new 7000 watt AIMS inverter on feebay for a sweet price..
Chris Olson told me about the ability of the AIMS inverters having the ability to be grid tied…this I needed because I could then toggle individual circuits back and forth from grid to battery bank.
I'm on one of the highest cost power grids in this region of the US….and many people around here gripe about it but do nothing other than take it on the chin each month. I have even spoke to the exec's within the power company about their future cost projections and they have told me the rates will be going up again soon, however the recent downturn in the economy has granted many of us around here a reprieve, but as soon as the economy improves and coal prices shoot back up, the game is back on.
If up to me I would pull the plug on the grid meter tomorrow but alas, I have the wifey and child to consider
But back to the point, If I was at work and a dump load failed and not much power was being consumed on a good wind day, this 17 footer could easily run my 48 battery bank voltage up to 65 volts… I have stood there many times and watched my inverter kick out from over voltage protection at 60 volts…this was while I was working on my dump controller configuration.
