Ok, it has been a long day. LOL Watts out equals Watts in. LOL hello Einstein.
So what equipment is available for me to utilize a small system to it's maximum? Say I am making 500 watts and gradually, maybe in a day, maybe in 3 days, my pack gets down to 80% and shuts off. If I put in a automatic transfer switch it will switch back over to grid power. But I do not want it to go back on off grid power until the battery bank is fully charged again. That may take a day it may take 2 or 3.
I am thinking that a regulated output of 12,24 or whatever volts on the charge controller when it goes into dump load would be nice (because the pack is now fully charged) then I could fire a relay and trip the automatic transfer switch back to off grid power until it runs down to 80% again. Or just a set of contacts to wire into on charge controller that are tripped when it goes into dump load, would work as well.
SO what I am asking is, how am I going to keep the transfer switch from switching back to off grid until the batteries are fully charged?
Does someone make something like that or am I stuck trying to figure it out with a transfer switch and how to trip it back to off grid once the batteries are fully charged?? Maybe a voltage or current sensing relay on the output of the controller to the battery bank or dump load output??? I do plan on making another mill in the future obviously if I want to get both the fridge and freezer off grid, but I would like to get every ounce out of the one I am building now.
Sorry for the dumb questions, I have no idea what is available on the market for off grid controls. Totally new to it all and am dumb to what is available. If they do not make it, they should and if not I kind of already gave the answer, of how to do it, by you guys letting me ramble on and on and talk it through.
Good news is my wife has been not interested in this idea at all. She does not understand it and just lets me ramble. But running the numbers in this post, I told her that if I can get just the fridge off grid, we will save what our highest bill in the summer is (about 1700 KWH) by not running the fridge on the grid all year. Suddenly she is like "REALLY??"
Whoops. EDIT. If the Xantrex c40 can take 50v I could be pushing 1,000 to 1250 watts. on 14 awg coils correct?
So I might want to go with a c60 instead of a c40. Correct? IDK what kind of voltage I am going to be making, but it seems like a good idea to just go with the c60.