I noticed in news that the Surge protection devices are now ETL listed for all three models. Have we any more information on the 3 models available and likely shipping shedule .
Nigel
Quote from: nigel on January 27, 2011, 07:55:39 AM
I noticed in news that the Surge protection devices are now ETL listed for all three models. Have we any more information on the 3 models available and likely shipping shedule .
Nigel
Nigel
On our home page there is an article about the SPD's. We will also be adding the manual for the SPD's to our website today. Look for a link to the manual in the SPD article. Production parts have been ordered and should be here in about 8 weeks. We expect it to take about 2 weeks to get production rolling after that.
Just wondering about these, looks like I'd have to buy a case of 12, when I only need 4? (one 115, three 300s) Any distributors stocking them yet ?
MNSPD-300 $119.00
Shipped in boxes of 12 only!
Shipping: 17x13x5.5
Ind box: 4x4x5
Reply was: vendors: Try Hitney Solar, AEE or Solar Biz
I have them in stock, well next week when they clear customs, but I guess you will find them a little closer to home, Im in Spain :o
Nigel
What can be said about the SquareD (Schneider Electric) SDSA1175?
Does it clamp as well as the Midnite SPD?
mike,
i don't see them listed at naws, but i'm sure they could get them. anyway, in a search i found this place,
http://www.gogreensolar.com/products/midnite-solar-lightning-arrestor-150-vdc-mnspd115
i don't know of them and you can check for other places if these don't suit you.
Our direct customers buy quantities of twelve. Regular customers can buy just one at a time.
Quote from: mike90045 on June 01, 2011, 07:22:44 PM
Just wondering about these, looks like I'd have to buy a case of 12, when I only need 4? (one 115, three 300s) Any distributors stocking them yet ?
MNSPD-300 $119.00
Shipped in boxes of 12 only!
Shipping: 17x13x5.5
Ind box: 4x4x5
Reply was: vendors: Try Hitney Solar, AEE or Solar Biz
As Robin already stated we sell them to the distributor's in cases of 12 they will sell them 1 at a time.
I just looked up the Schneider surge arrestor. It has no UL or ETL listing. The data sheet they provide is void of any meaningful data. This device is intended for a 120V AC circuit. You can go up to 175VAC. There is not data on how strong the unit is. How many amps and at what voltage will it clamp to? It is not listed to UL1449 Revision3. That means it may have no overcurrent protection. The lack of overcurrent protection can lead to fires!
It costs almost as much as the MidNite SPD anyway, so with such little information available, why would anyone want to purchase this device?
What was the application for this device.
Quote from: Robin on July 09, 2011, 05:04:49 PM
I just looked up the Schneider surge arrestor. It has no UL or ETL listing. The data sheet they provide is void of any meaningful data. This device is intended for a 120V AC circuit. You can go up to 175VAC. There is not data on how strong the unit is. How many amps and at what voltage will it clamp to? It is not listed to UL1449 Revision3. That means it may have no overcurrent protection. The lack of overcurrent protection can lead to fires!
It costs almost as much as the MidNite SPD anyway, so with such little information available, why would anyone want to purchase this device?
What was the application for this device.
Thanks, this is kind of what I expected. As you probably heard know, Schneider Electric/SquareD bought Xantrex so I was thinking they are trying to pitch this at PV market but it doesn't seem so.
Great topic,
I,ll get more information from here.....
Thanks all. ;)
Quote from: nigel on January 27, 2011, 07:55:39 AM
I noticed in news that the Surge protection devices are now ETL listed for all three models. Have we any more information on the 3 models available and likely shipping shedule .
Nigel
I got a couple of these MNSPDs installed two weeks ago -- a 300 for the 240V A/C out and a 115 on the DC in. They are wider than the Delta surge suppressor units. The blue LED is kind of cool and having an o-ring included in the box is kind of handy -- nice touch! For now I paralled these with my Delta units, cannot go wrong with having extra protection. Kinda wishing for an electric storm to see how they do.
Quote from: laszlo on July 31, 2011, 02:37:38 AM
Quote from: nigel on January 27, 2011, 07:55:39 AM
I noticed in news that the Surge protection devices are now ETL listed for all three models. Have we any more information on the 3 models available and likely shipping shedule .
Nigel
I got a couple of these MNSPDs installed two weeks ago -- a 300 for the 240V A/C out and a 115 on the DC in. They are wider than the Delta surge suppressor units. The blue LED is kind of cool and having an o-ring included in the box is kind of handy -- nice touch! For now I paralled these with my Delta units, cannot go wrong with having extra protection. Kinda wishing for an electric storm to see how they do.
laszlo,
although paralleling the midnite spd with the old delta unit does not hurt, it is also somewhat redundant. because the midnight spds trigger at a lower voltage they would have to be nearly destroyed before the deltas would be allowed to trigger at a higher voltage. i should also point out that, although using an spd does help make your equipment more apt to survive, there is much voltage and current that can rear its ugly head before the trigger point and there's also the possibility of the spds being overloaded allowing the excess to destroy your equipment, the latter of which would be more unlikely, but certainly not impossible.
another point may be how fast they would trigger to ground the offending voltages. gas discharge tubes are faster, but once they've triggered they are no good for a 2nd offending trigger.
the last point may be how much power can be handled from an offending trigger. the midnite movs are larger and with many of them can carry more power. would i want to see lightning strike it let alone 20ft away. no, as that kind of power may prove to be too much for any kind or number of protection devices employed.
so in general, it would be unwise to wish to have a showdown with mother nature like as if you are bullet proof because you are not. there aren't any guarantees when dealing with lightning or emp, but there is nothing wrong with improving you chances of survivability even to the point of backing up the midnite spd with a delta if you have one laying there and have the extra room to mount it. spds can be placed in say a combiner box or even at a solar array to allow the added protection of handling these trigger voltages outside and essentially adding more protections than just one inside the home or building, but they should be placed where a ground wire to the main ground rod is available. i might add that an spd requires there be proper grounding in place to work or you could be just spitting in the wind thinking you have some protection. as you can tell i've been blunt about the subject and i've talked about this kind of stuff before. there are many threads concerning lightning, emp, and grounding that can be seen on the forum at northern arizona wind and sun if you wish to read up further on the subjects.
Good points Niel!
I have several surge protectors on my system, the Midnite SPDs are just the latest addition. Each PV combiner has a Delta DC unit on the DC side, plus one across the DC input to the charge controller -- and the A/C side, likewise, each output and input is protected.
I just added on the Midnite SPDs since I was to lazy to remove the Deltas, figuring it probably won't hurt. I looked at how Midnite is placing the SPDs in their pre-assembled power panels, and they are putting them on top -- and they seem to be protecting all inputs and outputs as well.
Are there any plans to make a MNSPD in 3 Phase low voltage for wind generators?
Not at this time. We are recommending a pair of them on 3 phase. I have even had one customer use 3 doubling up the leads 2 per phase after he got hit by lightning. They make great RPM indicators for wind turbines the blue LED's blink in time with the frequency of the turbine at lower speeds it is pretty cool.
You may not like this answer regarding a three phase SPD for wind turbines. A wind turbine is a lightning magnet. Most people think towers are to get the turbine up into the wind so you can watch them twirl around aimlessly. Lightning knows better. They have trained us humans to build these structures so the lightning doesn't have to work so hard to reach earth. Lightning isn't very picky about where it touches down. It likes trees, roofs and especially wind turbine towers. After all we make them out of conductive materials just so the lightning bolts will give preference to the tower over trees and other not so conductive surfaces. Now if you were that little propeller thing sitting on top of the lightning tower, wouldn't you want the best protection you can get? After all, if a direct strike was to happen, that little turbine and all the electronics connected to it are in a world of hurt. I would suggest putting both sections in parallel and using one complete SPD per phase. That gives you 115,000 amps of protection per phase. Give your turbine a reason to thumb its nose at the lightning Gods.
Has anyone had trouble with operation of the MN SPD with the Aurora and Xantrex XW series of inverters on the DC side causing the inverters to go into a ground fault state? Is the SPD not compatible with transformerless inverters or the Aurora and Xantrex XW built in ground fault protection designs?
I can officially say the Aurora transformer-less inverter can not use surge protection on the dc side any mov based device will confuse it according to there engineer. We are working with a couple installers to see if removing the LED circuit will allow it to run though. I do not think this is common across the board on transformer-less inverters though?
The XW charge controller seems to be a different issue all together. It will show an active fault on the screen but not blow the fuse. In discussion with Xantrex (Schneider) they claim this to be false they claim there is no fault do to ground fault displayed unless the fuse blows so it sounds like they have an issue in software?
Quote from: Halfcrazy on September 20, 2011, 09:54:00 AM
I can officially say the Aurora transformer-less inverter can not use surge protection on the dc side any mov based device will confuse it according to there engineer. We are working with a couple installers to see if removing the LED circuit will allow it to run though. I do not think this is common across the board on transformer-less inverters though?
The XW charge controller seems to be a different issue all together. It will show an active fault on the screen but not blow the fuse. In discussion with Xantrex (Schneider) they claim this to be false they claim there is no fault do to ground fault displayed unless the fuse blows so it sounds like they have an issue in software?
Both of these, Aurora and XW charge controller appear to have some kind of ground fault detection bug. Our SPD draws around 2 milli-Amps on each leg at around 500 to 600 Volts and these inverters/CC's are not supposed to react until around half (1/2) an Amp of wayward current, so there is some kind of problem with them.
At lower voltages, say, 400 Volts DC, the SPD draws even less current (< 1 mA) and if you clip out the LEDs, even less and may solve this problem but they really need to take a look at how their ground fault works. At least it sure looks that way to us at the moment.
boB
This is about the fifth question regarding a three phase SPD. We cannot fit 9 TMOVS in our current plastic outdoor case. We presently have 8 and there is really only room for 7.5 when you get up to the 600V units. Things are very tight! We could drop down to 6 TMOVs, but that would leave only two per phase. I wouldn't feel good putting only 2 per phase. That is only 34,000 amps per phase. Sounds like a lot, but previous testing showed you really need three to have a reliable product. We did something a little strange on the power board of the Classic controller. That board is a 4 layer, 4 ounce copper circuit board. There are two holes where the power inductors poke through. We have to fill the holes up until after wave solder otherwise solder may get on the component side of th board during the solder process. We have twist out inserts in these holes. The inserts are actually part of the board that is routed such that you can break out the inner board and discard after soldering. We didn't want to waste that much board space, so we put the circuitry in each of the discardable inserts that are actually a 4 TMOV SPD. Yes, every power board we manufacture also gives us two boards that can be made into a half of our current SPD. We haven't figured out how to hold these small individual boards in position so we can actually run them through the pick and place machines, but we will eventually get to it. We will then need a housing to hold them in. This will all take a lot of work and expense to bring it to market, so for now we are merely saving these small boards. They are all gold plated so they won't corrode while waiting for us to figure out how to use them. Give us some time and we will have single SPD's and possibly a triple too.
Quote from: boB on September 20, 2011, 06:41:32 PM
Quote from: Halfcrazy on September 20, 2011, 09:54:00 AM
I can officially say the Aurora transformer-less inverter can not use surge protection on the dc side any mov based device will confuse it according to there engineer. We are working with a couple installers to see if removing the LED circuit will allow it to run though. I do not think this is common across the board on transformer-less inverters though?
The XW charge controller seems to be a different issue all together. It will show an active fault on the screen but not blow the fuse. In discussion with Xantrex (Schneider) they claim this to be false they claim there is no fault do to ground fault displayed unless the fuse blows so it sounds like they have an issue in software?
Both of these, Aurora and XW charge controller appear to have some kind of ground fault detection bug. Our SPD draws around 2 milli-Amps on each leg at around 500 to 600 Volts and these inverters/CC's are not supposed to react until around half (1/2) an Amp of wayward current, so there is some kind of problem with them.
At lower voltages, say, 400 Volts DC, the SPD draws even less current (< 1 mA) and if you clip out the LEDs, even less and may solve this problem but they really need to take a look at how their ground fault works. At least it sure looks that way to us at the moment.
boB
Did we ever draw any conclusions if clipping the LEDs allowed the SPD to be used for Xantrex XW (and/ or Aurora PVI inverters)?
I know it is not your job to find issues in other manufacturers products but it sure helps out our industry especially in the state of ground fault electrical codes. It also helps prevent your products being called incompatible and if so eliminates us installers from purchasing SPDs that cannot be used with certain product lines and looking bad in front of the customer. Thanks
Yes Clipping the LED's does fix the problem and after much discussion with some of the inverter engineers we will be redesigning our 600 and 1000 volt SPD's to not reference to ground to fix this.
Will there be an exchange program for XW owners with original versions ??
Yes we will work with anyone on transformer-less or XW based units when we get the new boards in. Send an Email with the details of the installation and number of spds etc to Ryan at midnitesolar dot com and I will contact you when we have the new ones ready.