3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

Here's an example of what Loretta was eluding to, where we don't get a straight answer from the contractor.
When we first got the TM500 monitor installed (by him) it's actually a Trimetric 2020 monitor made by Bogart Engineering but does the same thing. We noticed that it read backwards. When we were making energy it had a (-) minus sign and when we were using energy it had a (+) plus sign in front of the reading...exactly opposite of how it should read. Loretta suspected it to be wrong so she emailed him. He didn't respond to the email, but he was up this last weekend to install that HUB. When we got here last night, she noticed the Trimetric was reading correctly now.

I realize people can and do make mistakes, but he doesn't catch them all the time. It's only when we report "we think" something is wrong that it gets looked at. Leaving it up to us to trouble shoot or evaluate is not the best idea, since we don't know didly squat about whether it's right or wrong. Nor do we know if what he's doing is the appropriate remedy, or if it IS a remedy at all?
We are using the system and it works pretty good so far, but it needs further tweaking. His latest report is he thinks the batteries never got their initial first charge. The Surette manual has some very specific instructions on energizing a new battery bank. Including taking the specific gravity of each cell and keeping that information for the life of the battery. If the batteries were not started up according to the instructions, what does that do?

In the past, he told us if he did something wrong or hooked up something wrong but he caught it and corrected it. I guess he's just talking about the stuff he catches, not everything that's wrong (if any). Like when he told us about the system not being fully turned on during the home construction and he remembered it in the middle of the night about a year later. And now about the "initial battery charge". Honesty is cool, but when a guy tells me "Hey, I just remembered ... I loaded your .460 Weatherby round backwards in your gun, lucky you didn't need to shoot that lion", I start wondering about him.
OK, I'm rambling now...

 

[tommu56]

Rob
I would put a current transformers on the Ac lines with a switch in them and you would hook it up to seance shop load and start generator and run it for a predetermined amount of time.

Veris Industries

On my generator at my cabin I have a key fob remote to start the gen when
I need it.
Auto Roll 2 Channel RF Remote Control

tommu

 

[schmism]

We are finding that the batteries never got their initial charge, so they have not been performing and maintaining a charge like they should. He set the system to a very low performance while the home was being built and forgot to switch his settings. Turns out he did not have all the battery banks hooked up. We noticed this because the generator has been running more than what we expected. We are at this point now, although he was up there this weekend while we were at Rancho doing the connections. He also needs to "equalize" the batteries by overcharging them. He's afraid (not sure though) a couple might be "sulfated", but apparently, there is a cure for that too he says through some procedures. While working on the system a couple weeks ago, he accidentally blew the HUB 10 so he was putting a new one in this weekend too.

wow... you know i never thought much of your solar contractor from day 1 when when he set the collectors in the shade. If i lived in the area i would certainly want to know who it is so i could avoid him. What you describe is not what i know of as "usual" issues associated with a system.

i havent read all the post... just a few hear an there... have you guys moved out there permanently yet?

 

[3RRL]

Rob
I would put a current transformers on the Ac lines with a switch in them and you would hook it up to seance shop load and start generator and run it for a predetermined amount of time.

Veris Industries

On my generator at my cabin I have a key fob remote to start the gen when
I need it.
Auto Roll 2 Channel RF Remote Control

tommu

Tom, you know way more than I do, so what does that do for me, exactly?

 

[3RRL]

wow... you know i never thought much of your solar contractor from day 1 when when he set the collectors in the shade. If i lived in the area i would certainly want to know who it is so i could avoid him. What you describe is not what i know of as "usual" issues associated with a system.

i havent read all the post... just a few hear an there... have you guys moved out there permanently yet?

Yeah, we've moved in as permanent as possible.
We still have to commute back to Rancho 2 days a week for at least a year of two. I remember your comments about the shade on the solar panels. Since then, I've had to cut down several Oaks. I just cut 2 more last week! There is also a short time late in the day when one array of panels shade the other. Lucky it is for about an hour and only 1 or 2 panels out of 12 on that array get that shade. It is only in the Summer also. About this time of year, the sun ducks behind the opposite mountain range late in the day.

 

[tommu56]

Tom, you know way more than I do, so what does that do for me, exactly?

If you had your generator hooked to the inverters for the shop then you could start it with key fob on demand or automatically with the ct switches when the load got high.

I don't understand why he wouldn't hook all your inverters up to gen.

I had thought all the inverters outputs were hooked together (from other post in 3 phase thing) for the house and shop.

He should give you a power diagram to the breaker boxes and main disconnects and one of the dc circuit.

tom

 

[RavensRoost]

Rob:
What Tommu56 was saying about a current transformer (CT) -- a thing that looks like a black donut -- is that you could run the wires from the output of the inverters to the shop/barn load center through them and connect a panel ammeter to the CT voltage output terminals and instantaneously and easily see how much the shop is pulling at any given time.

[You would really need two CT's as the two legs of 230v may not be balanced if you have any 120v loads running (120v means they can be an unbalanced load), need one CT for each leg but you can use a toggle switch to select which leg to watch and get away with just one meter.]

However, you should be able to use the Mate to see how much load is on any of the inverters, assuming you know which two of the six are for the shop/barn. I think you have two Mates, but are any the Shop or are they all in the house or the power shed?

Tommu56, Rob has a power converter that is essentially a motor that runs off of 230v 60Hz with a 3-phase generator that is either belt driven or close coupled so he can run one (or more?) pieces of 3-phase shop equipment. (So far, Outback does not have a way of deriving 3-phase power from inverters, at least not that I am aware of.)

Rob, I am going to be curious to see how well, or even if, the two barn/shop inverters can start the 10Hp converter motor, that is a huge motor -- for inverters anyway -- so keep us posted. (Fuzzy here and from aprevious life, but I recall that converters usually use a synchronous motor, and also fuzzy, they have a huge inrush current requirement aka starting current.)

Regards,
RavensRoost

 

[RavensRoost]

Rob:
You wrote "Lucky it is for about an hour and only 1 or 2 panels out of 12 on that array get that shade." in reply to schmism.

The shading can be a worse issue than you thought. By that I mean each of your arrays are made up of series strings of 3 panels each with 4 such strings in parallel for a total of 12 panels per array. You would need to know for sure that the 2 shaded panels are all in the SAME series string (best case). Might it be that 3 panels are shaded at same time? If so, and if all 3 are in different strings, it effectively kills 75% of the capacity of one array/37.5% of total panel capacity during the shading condition. (As the days get shorter, an hour of shading becomes an even bigger deal.) Need to look at the array wiring to know.

If it turns out to affect more than one string, it can be re-wired so it really does only affect one string, not perfect, but perhaps better than existing circumstance.

Regards,
RavensRoost

 

[bindian]

Then for more fun, we bought his and her's 17 HMR rifles, a righty and a lefty.
They are Savage model 93. They shot pretty good right out of the box.
That Accu-trigger is fantastic. Check out the groups at 75-80 yards once we got them on paper and dialed in.
So we have been enjoying ourselves a little bit too for a change.

Rob,
When I deer hunted with my Dad, I had a Lefty Remington 7mm 700BDL. It sure was a sweet shooter.
hugs, Brandi

 

[bindian]

Why not just plant small ones & fertilize well?

Defective,
I'm with you on fertilizing. I don't fertilize and don't have any.
hugs, Brandi