Hello group,
I am in the process of setting up a small 3Kw system for an off grid communications site. The site is located at 7230' in the eastern Sierra's. I have a Classic 150 for charging the battery bank.
I am new to solar instillations, I mostly work with RF doing filters, antenna and cabling design. This site was once a Cable TV microwave headend and ran nearly 40 years on diesel generators. Those are gone (thank goodness), now I plan to operate the site off solar primarily and considering installing a backup LPG diesel genset to charge the batteries when the solar cannot keep up.
I have read in the manual(s) the where I can use the AUX outputs to control a LVDC relay, and switch a genset on when battery capacity drops to a preset value. Which leads to my next question, the batteries are housed in insulated battery boxes these boxes will have vent near the bottom and a power vent at the top which vents to the out side of the building. In order to conserve heat the brand of vent I am using has a flapper that only opens when the fan is running. According to the vent manufacture the fan can be switched on and off by the charge controller when the batteries are charging (on) and off when they are not being charged.
Ensuring the batteries stay warm is a primary concern. The building is a two story con-block building (12'X12'). The block wall is filled and the floor above and ceiling are both insulated. However there is no form of heat (other than equipment). During the winter the site very rarely sees temps above freezing. Capitalizing on any heat production during charging is critical. I have even considered moving equipment such as IP switched and routers into the lower level (the power room) to utilize the heat produced by this equipment. Upper Floor houses the radio, microwave and IP equipment.
Summer isn't such a big deal as I can open a vent and run a small fan to maintain "cooler" temps.
Can someone give me some pointers on how I can configure the Controller to do the following
1)Control relay for LVDC. I also would be interested in a tiered LVDC ( shutting off less critical equipment commiserate to current battery capacity)
2)provide an output to start a genset when batteries drop below predefined limit (any details regarding interfacing to Generac would be great!)
3)provide power or signal to trunk vent fans on when charging and off when not charging?
I am not opposed to using some sort of low current third party interface, Arduino (with relays), Raspberry Pi etc.
The site with have an IP microwave connection for remote monitoring and backhaul for radio systems.
And for the hams who read this, yes there are ham radio repeaters that will be operated from this site too ::)
TNX in advance Jim.
If you go to the first page of the forums and do a search I am pretty sure there were discussions in the past on using Classic to start generator. The search doesn't work right from anywhere but the home forum page.
Regarding the monitoring , there are some very good options that came about recently thanks to Matt and Graham using a Raspberry Pi . Check out the Open Source area of the forums , there are also options to use Esp32 and android app via the Raspberry Pi mqtt .
http://midniteftp.com/forum/index.php?action=collapse;c=13;sa=collapse;c6815922c=80e5b42cfc34e1a0d26b48b589572101#c13
Also check out wiki for above projects
https://github.com/ClassicDIY
Kind of depends on if you are going to install Whizbang because then Aux 2 is used up and you will only have Aux 1 to work with. The manual explains the different Aux logic available. You could also use the raspberry pi running node red , or an arduino to do control using the data from the Classic . Some of those things are explained in Open Source section.
There are a few of us hams on here , myself , Vic, Bob , Matt , and others so that is great on your remote repeater site.
Larry
Larry,
TNX for the reply. Yes I have the Whizbang, I need to be able to remotely monitor the site and its systems as much as possible. IP connectivity was a major selling point of the Classic for me.
I have started looking into programming using Node Red but that is very new to me! I barely write simple scripts using Arduino IDE. My deployment of RPI has been stuff written by others that need minimal modification. I can wrap my head around filters, if you want to know how much isolation you need between antenna, or receivers and transmitters or if you wan to combine as many transmitters onto one antenna or filter interfering signals I can do that!
Back to my problem, if there is a way (which seems possible) to parse serial data, define variables, then trigger pins on an arduino to drive relays to switch things on and off that would solve my problem. I guess I am leaning towards an RPI mated with an Arduino driving a relay shield.
I have until next year to have something fully functional in this realm. This year is focused on getting the array up, battery bank(s) installed, IP link up and running plus one ham repeater running. This will give me a feel for how the site will preform.
Yes you can do what you want to with Pi and or Arduino. I am a bit of a novice like you when it comes to writing the code to do those things. If you want to look at some example code for Arduino look at Will Ert's project - he has an Arduino that gets the modbus data from Classic and uses it to turn his car charger on and pwm it when extra power is available. It is a lot more complex than you want to do so we know it is possible and reliable to accomplish.
Larry WT9M