Homebrewed Electricity > Controls
Demonstration of Generator Support
Windmill1:
Great video
Thanks for sharing this with us. Notice you have a midnite battery capacity meter, are these very accurate. Thinking about getting one.
Great setup,
ChrisOlson:
The MidNite battery capacity meter is quite accurate - it is a digital at-a-glance voltmeter. So you have to expect that when the bank is at, say, 80% SOC and you put a heavy load on - the voltage sag on the bank will cause the meter to drop into the yellow, or whatever. Then it recovers and comes back up into the green when the heavy load is off. Using voltage to tell what battery SOC is is only accurate if the batteries have been at rest - no charge, no discharge, for at least 2 hours. And that never happens with an off-grid battery bank. But it tells you at-a-glance what the status is of your bank, and therefore it serves its purpose well. I wouldn't be without it - we have ours in the kitchen next to the ICM25 panel for the inverter.
The other thing the MidNite meter does is tell you if your bank hasn't been properly charged in the last week. If the light on the left stays green it's good. If it turns yellow there's been a problem with not enough incoming RE power (or not enough gen charging) to keep the bank desufated.
My wife actually pays more attention to that MidNite meter than I do. She glances on it when turning high-load stuff on to see if she's over-taxing the bank without the generator running. And if it drops down into the red under heavy load she knows there's a problem so then she goes over and looks at the load amps on the inverter and if's below 40 amps it's OK. If it's above 40 amps and the generator hasn't started she gets worried and shuts her stuff off and calls me on the cell phone wondering what to do.
That only happened once when I had serviced the generator and forgot to re-enable the starting relays after servicing it. The MidNite meter was down in the red, the inverter panel was flashing an error for gen failed to start, she knew it wasn't right so she called me. I was able to tell her what to do over the phone to re-enable those gen relays, have her clear the error and get the gen started. And that's what makes having that stuff in an area in the house where you can monitor your system worth every dime you spend to install it. The inverter had been delivering well over rated continuous amps for almost two hours and if it was any lesser inverter it would've already been overheated and off-line. That MidNite meter being in the red due to severe voltage sag under heavy load is what caught her attention and saved the power from going out.
--
Chris
Windmill1:
Thanks Chris
I enjoy reading all your post and all the info you have on this site
XeonPony:
To me a genset is a crittical part of any real off grid system, with mine 12G usualy lastes me well over a month and it gets used fairly often top of my list is geting a system with that capability, right now I am using a hacked Noma 1800 battery back up unit, so best I got is a transfer switch :( But it does the job till I can get a real inverter!
thankful:
Hello All,
Does anyone have the latest skinny on what inverters do a good/bad job with Generator Support? I am digesting Chris' great posts, sizing a couple inverters & one new battery bank, and also looking at charge controllers. My experience is with Outback & Trace/Xantrex. I have plenty of experience with power systems.
48V, -30F possible in winter, off-grid, one system needs no more than 8K of inverter, the other (in a different location) no more than 16K. Of course these sizes can be "a bit" lower dependent upon how well the Generator Support works, and I know these sizes seem high, but the numbers have been ran.
Thanks y'all!
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