Figured this should go in 'controls', least of the offenders... Mods, of course, correct me if I'm wrong...
I'm limited on where I can physically put the new freezer, and like everything else that is doomed to become part of one of my projects, it ended up in the office.
Problem with this is, a single circuit handles the two downstairs 'bedrooms' (one of which is the office), and of course, there's a lot of experimenting (as well as full time equipment) running in here.
With nowhere else to plug it in, it shares an outlet with my grid charger for the RE, and on the first day having the freezer, I didn't notice any problem because I was running the DC system completely off of solar.
Had to rearrange some priorities due to circumstances beyond my control, and so I brought the panels inside for safe keeping, and switched the system over to what I call 'Grid Maintenance' - a couple diodes get bypassed, the grid charger gets turned on, and it floats the batteries at ~13.8V.
But when the compressor kicks in on the freezer, it's actually enough to trigger one (more likely more) of the 7 relays in the charger briefly. In all actuality, it's probably the 339 comparator responding to a spike it's seeing. But it must be induced somehow - The 'brain' board runs entirely from the sense lines that lead directly to the 8D's terminals.
It's not strong enough to trip the 3 UPS units that reside with the freezer circuit-wise religiously; however every once and again I'll hear a UPS jump to battery momentarily along with the charger. Seems to happen during the day, possibly due to heavier loading than at night. I have no idea. The charger however flinches every time, regardless of the time of day.
I've considered things like an EMI filter (got a zillion of them laying around from old PC de-mans), but seem to be in an argument with myself as to where to place it (or them).
Thought the ultimate solution would be to filter the line going to the freezer as much as possible, but these filters are rated for computers, not compressors. While the compressor only uses ~1.6A RLA (which in theory should be fine), the LRA (startup surge) is something like 12A. Well outside the rating of the filter, I'm sure. I'd bet they're no good for more than 5A or so (no labels
). Trick is, is it a short enough surge that it wouldn't bother the filters?
The other thought that came to me was to put a filter on the mains for the grid charger. But then what about the other equipment that's seeing the glitches? Might not even 'protect' them from dropouts in the same way it would smooth out the surge at the compressor by attaching it to the freezer.
Or maybe both? But is that overkill?
Here is the link to the charger, if it helps, and
this is the link to the freezer (from Lowes) that is giving me problems.
Steve