Backup system in Washington State

[onanparts]

Spanked it with a 50% plus load for 30 minutes and still no magic smoke escaped.  Onan load bank. Not as pretty as 3-500Z's glowing in the dark but on a cold December night the extra heat was nice......

Now to finish up the 2/0 interconnect cables and put some full output loads on this thing!

[onanparts]

The Radian got some test run time today connected to the actual loads I want it to power when the grid fails. Since it was a bit chilly outside, around 39F and the battery bank was not much higher at about 50F it was a good chance to see how the system performs under below average conditions.

Furnace/burner running nearly continuous, two PC's, fridge, chest freezer, 46" TV, all lighting on that would be burning with the grid up etc. Spectro Acoustics audio gear blasting out my favorite tunes...

After a 3 hour test the battery bank was at 56% SOC. Considering the temps I'm OK with that. With an insulated battery box and a few more LED lights scattered around I could live with maybe 4-5 hours run time at 30-40% SOC. The oil furnace blower normally runs 24/7/365. It draws 6 amps AC, 10 amps when the burner kicks in.

Should be interesting to compare battery run times with it on continuous and then set only to cycle with the burner. 60 amp DC surge on start up for about 2 seconds....test...test...test.

[boB]

What is that web page ?  Is that what the Mate 3 serves up for system status ??

boB

[onanparts]

What is that web page ?  Is that what the Mate 3 serves up for system status ??

boB

Yup. Time for a 3rd party app that does a much better job with the data stream. I've seen several that look interesting. This one for example:
http://www.jeperez.com/monitor-solar-outback/

[onanparts]

For those of you cringing at my "temporary" rats nest of interconnects I finally found the time today to do it right. 2/0 welding cable with liquid tape at the terminals and heat shrink to double seal them up.  The temp install had bad voltage drop under load. Spanked it with a 5K load test for over an hour and it never dropped below 48.6 volts. Same test with rats nest it was dropping down to 44-45 volts. 

Now that the battery bank is properly setup it's time for some PV and a Classic!

[boB]

Now that the battery bank is properly setup it's time for some PV and a Classic!

Be sure to wipe the foam off your mustache after sipping !!!

[onanparts]

No sipping around here! First fill the pint glass half way with some Guinness, then pour Baileys in a shot glass half way and top off with Fireball or Jamison, carefully drop the shot glass in the Guinness and then it all goes down the hatch in one fast but smooth move. Ahhhhhh! Sippin schmippin!

[dgd]

No sipping around here! First fill the pint glass half way with some Guinness, then pour Baileys in a shot glass half way and top off with Fireball or Jamison, carefully drop the shot glass in the Guinness and then it all goes down the hatch in one fast but smooth move. Ahhhhhh! Sippin schmippin!

Sacrilege..
Guinness needs to be filling the pint glass (straight sided, no mug handles) and allowed to settle until black with a creamy head
then you drink it, no sipping but not downed in gulps. Certainly NEVER drop or float foreign objects in it or contaminate it with
stuff. It needs to be savoured and enjoyed.
As for Baileys its either for the women (no sexist comment intended) or only imbibed in desperation when the single malt has all evaporated. And Jamieson, although a decent blended Irish Whiskey should be kept for visitors or if you are a generous type then
the best Irish blended Black Bushmills is served to them
In any case the single malt Irish Green Bushmills whiskey or a scotch whisky is top shelf only, rarely shared.

dgd

[cpm]

Bah,

Straight corn.

mebbe cut with some crick water for those who can't handle their licker.

[onanparts]

It's lonesome away from your kindred and all,
By the campfire at night where the wild dingos call,
But there's nothing so lonesome, so dull or so drear,
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJW19nlzb3Q

[onanparts]

48.8 volts under a 3KW+ load. Much better than the 44 volts under the same load with a rats nest of interconnects!  Next load test will be at a full 8KW output.

[onanparts]

45.3 volts with an 8.2KW load and 44.8 volts with almost a 9KW load. With typical loads well under 3KW the battery bank I have now should be fine....for now..

[onanparts]

Although the Miller welder/generator I have is a keeper and not too bad on the fuel consumption, about 1/2 GPH at 50% load it will not be able to handle the full charging output of 115 Amps DC from the Radian when I need or want to do a bulk charge. Extended cloudy days etc.

The Radian draws about 25-28 amps AC to get the full rated charging output. The Miller is rated for 5KW/21 Amps at 240V. A new addition to the RE system is a nice Onan 12.5KW genset good for 52 Amps at 240V and 104 Amps at 120V. With the 12.5KW unit I can easily bulk charge the battery bank and still have 25 + Amps available for house loads, heat, lights, fridge etc.

It's in need of some fresh paint but mechanically and electrically it's in great shape. On the plus side the unit is rated full output at 12.5KW 1PH and 3PH with multiple voltage configurations from 120V all the way up to 480V.

It has a Tri Fuel carb so I can feed it NG, LPG or Gasoline. Inline 4cyl air cooled engine. Built like a tank!

Just under a 50% load test in this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dx59I_Gz38

[onanparts]

So much time so little to do......I wish!

Finally getting around to pulling the trigger on some PV panels. looking at 6 SolarWorld SW 270 mono's to get me going. Two strings of three in series is the plan with a MNKID.

MNKID sizing tool indicates it will be just right for that array with a little room to spare, barely.

Opinions on those panels? Keep in mind I'm still on the grid with zero RE sources at the moment and want to start pulling some plugs while it's easy and painless. Baby steps!

A small step yesterday gets me very close to my PC network easily being 100% RE powered, especially on cloudy days, we get a few of those around here.... One desktop PC shut down and replaced with an Asus Netbook. The desktop PC and APC Smart UPS it was plugged into were eating up 145 watts.

Netbook is pulling 10 watts with battery at 100% and AC adapter plugged in. The other PC will see a similar change but since I'm not giving up the 26" monitor it will be drawing around 40 watts total. Still not bad going from just North of 350 watts down to 50 or less!