Midnite has brought a lot of new products to the Renewable energy market and obviously has more in the workshop coming through.
Have you considered a section on the forum for members to suggest new items , for consideration, just as an example I have a couple.
They might be flawed of have impact on sales of other items so would not be considered,
Item 1 . A breaker box that fits directly below a Classic MPPT Controller that houses enough breaker space to accomodate
the correct PV in and Battery Out breakers. Styled of course be in keeping with the classic shape and looks. Plus it should have 4 cable glands more for cabling fixing & security than water protection .
Item 2 A simple metal case of bracket that allows surface mounting of a MNEDC 125, 175 or 250 amp breaker again with strain relief glands
Nigel
Great Idea. I like the Classic breaker box idea.
Ryan
I like the idea of a spot where people can suggest products or changes. Most of the features we do have come from people in the industry, so we do actually listen. Ryan can set up a place for this type of discussion. Now with that said, I must warn you that 95% of the suggestions that I get cannot be done for one reason or another.
1. We must first consider the marketability of each idea. (can we make money at it?). That is pretty important and we have cut margins extremely thin as it is.
2. What resources would need to be reallocated to this project and do we have the manpower to spare? All ten of our engineers are pretty well booked up with projects that will last them for another year.
3. What are the agency approval costs. A simple little box like you suggested is very similar to our Quad Box. That was $4000 for ETL. We only make a few dollars on a Quad box, so if it is going to take 10 years to recoup the ETL expenses, we probably won't do it. The ETL costs are always a @&%@, but must be part of the evaluation process.
4. What do we have to do to the suggestion to make it pass code? The suggestion for these boxes mentioned glands. The glands do not meet code and would need to be able to accept conduit. We cannot build products that do not meet North American codes. (Conduit holes do just happen to be the same as 1/2" gland holes though). Sometimes the scope of the project grows tremendously by the time you take everything into consideration. We do not want to discourage people from asking for things though. Most of our products and features did come from questions just like these.
I still haven't figured out how to insert a picture here, so I will send a couple of pictures that installers have sent me that are along the lines of what you suggested. Although I would really like to make an art deco breaker box out of die cast aluminum, I do not think we could justify the $30,000 in tooling required to make it. I'm afraid we will have to stick with sheet metal.
I just measured a Quad Box. It has knockouts on 2" centers on each end. This is a standard that was set in the late 1980's at Trace Engineering. Most all charge controllers have two conduit holes on the bottom located at 2" centers. Our Quad box is a bit small. Ryan and I were discussing this a few days ago. We will probably increase the size of the Quad for ease of wiring. That will be a very minimal ETL charge, but a big change for those attempting to wire it.
We already have the least expensive breaker box made for the 125, 175 and 250 amp breaker. We sell tons of them. They are the MNDC enclosure. You can get it for less than $200 with the breaker installed. It is a listed box and has the mounting for additional din rail or panel mount breakers, a shunt, terminal busbars etc. It has a variety of knockouts too. I do not think that creating a bracket would be much of a product since it would still need to be put into an enclosure. I talk to people periodically that do buy the big breakers and figure they can just go to the store and buy a $20 box to put it in. Good luck to them, they just do not exist. This is all very special stuff and DC breakers and enclosures are not something that your local electrical supply house will carry. In fact you will get a blank stare from the counter person because you already know more about the DC stuff than they do.
How about making the cover (plastic dust cover) with easily replaceable cooling fans that connect to the Classic? Fans can and do go bad and the board fans mounted behind everything can't be user serviced easily. Replacing a fan should be a 5 minute operation and this item could be sold as an accessory.
Some other items could be best in class splice connectors (for going from #4 or less to 1/0. Dig enough and you can find good ones but why not just offer them up? Bet they would sell well.
Then, how about a combiner box with voltage indicators for each array? It would be a toggle on/off but what a neat way to check instead of opening the box, using the multi-meter yada yada. Press the toggle, read the voltage and eliminate or confirm. Yes, the Classic reads the voltage but only the combined and when you have a question, maybe you are trying to verify what is getting to the Classic? Could be the same on Junction boxes.
These items might not be anything big solar production folks want but for end users with smaller systems, they pay for convenience.
tinman,
it would read the same for all strings as they are combined. if you switch off breakers to all the strings and measure them one by one by turning that breaker on, then it will read a string's voltage accurately. nothing special for anybody to make.
Niel, agreed there but the typical consumer (who probably isn't well represented in forums such as this one) likes turn key stuff, no volt meters to drag out.
Read the voltage before the breakers combining bus bar, no need to turn them off.
The consumers ability to spend money for seemingly simple things is astounding. Lots of folks want to install their own solar on RVs and more and more each day. Trying to find turn-key solutions for things like that is virtually impossible. I take the ice maker as an example. You can simply open the reefer door and scoop out some ice from the bin. People pay dearly for nothing more than a chute that drops the ice into their cup. Tachometers in auto transmission cars, that kind of thing.
The 6 Combiner with nothing more than volt meters (led numbers or something) for each string or panel could sell for 4 times the standard price and might end up adding $30 to manufacturing costs. These are the same people that buy the led battery meter, only because it is simple. I don't rely on it but it sure makes my wife happy, best part of the solar install as far as I'm concerned.
Very high markup item. Just a thought.
"Read the voltage before the breakers combining bus bar, no need to turn them off."
i am not sure this is possible for once they combine all readings everywhere go to the same level.
With the breakers combined the voltage before the breakers with them on will all be identical. This device would need the breakers turned off to tell. It would be simple to do though. you would need a digital voltage reading display and a Push Button for each string. these could be fit into the Dead front and would require some form of plug. The hardest thing would be how do you connect it because we are not suppose to land 2 wires under a breaker/fuse so it may require a small circuit board on the input side? Interesting thought here though as this could be a "Kit"?
A side note on all of our arc fault disconnecting combiners we will have string monitoring built in allowing you to see this from a PC anywhere.
Ryan
Quote from: Halfcrazy on April 26, 2012, 05:39:44 AMA side note on all of our arc fault disconnecting combiners we will have string monitoring built in allowing you to see this from a PC anywhere.
Wow. You make it very difficult for us to think of things that you have not already thought of. --vtMaps
My terrible bad, yes the breakers would need to be off. The convenience of being able to simply flip the breaker and see the voltage reading has the same merit as far as convenience is concerned though and that being the biggest payoff.
Otherwise, you are stuck getting out the meter and either climbing on the roof to check or opening the combiner box, removing the facade panel and then checking there. For the retail end user it becomes a PITA when they could just hit the breaker and press the meter button and know if the array is working and if not, which one.
The scenario goes like this (and why people would pay for it): Wife at home and calls wife's husband ;-) Not much power today, sun is out and Midnight meter is at 70% (a reefer on electric will do that). Wife's husband asks wife with patience and utmost respect, to check the power from the arrays.
Using the multi-meter, opening the combiner, removing facade (after flipping breakers) - in 99% of cases it ain't happening.
With meters built into combiner...she flips breaker and reads out numbers. Right then and there you know if the arrays are ok or not, for the most part.
What is that worth? Ask the guys who spend thousands on push button shades for motorhome windows.
As a kit? Just give me the order page on the site and I'm in. Like I said, I never look at the Midnight battery meter but my wife looks at it each evening. She uses it to see if we run the reefer on battery/inverter through the night or switch to propane. Convenience pays for both seller and buyer.
So, when can I order my kit? :)
Oh yeah, nothing I said is meant to imply women aren't capable or knowledgeable enough to do it the manual way, just light writing okay?
The Classics have a USB port and could it be that the port could be used to drive a display? USB displays are easy to get and although there is a limitation on distance, that has been overcome with the newer USB display systems.
While the local app provides good functionality it also means using another computer with all of the complications of data exchange and making sure it is available. A display size on the order of 8-10" using USB would be useful to some.
There are also super solutions for display over ethernet and the distances then go much farther with a simple cat 5/6 wire. Since the current remote already does this, could the Classic be enhanced to output additional information or higher resolution displays on something larger? Again, looking for a way to avoid using another computer for this.
A good display can use as little as 10-15 watts while a laptop uses around 30-70 depending on if it is charging or not. Not a big deal with large systems but when every use of stored energy counts and you have practical limitation on how much you can store, it matters quite a bit.
Running the menu system could be accomplished using virtual buttons, maybe.
Tinman, do you have something in mind for the 'display'? brand , model? off the shelf, tailor made?
I am totally unfamiliar with this topic as well as your comment about using more than one computer. ?? can you expand on the CPU limitations that can cause this (2 computers).
tks
Yes. The USB connection could be used for this.
BUT that external display must have USB host capability because the Classic is client only.
The only suggestion I have, the classic charge controller looks good, however it has large holes..very easy for the incests to make a home..I used nylon fly mesh and some glue as a mod to give some insect proofing.
As the classic is a world product some inscet and tropical proofing would not go astray.
Quote from: phonetic on June 08, 2012, 08:06:09 PM
The only suggestion I have, the classic charge controller looks good, however it has large holes..very easy for the incests to make a home..I used nylon fly mesh and some glue as a mod to give some insect proofing.
As the classic is a world product some inscet and tropical proofing would not go astray.
Ahhhh ! We have discussed doing this very thing that you describe ! I think that it will eventually get done.
Thanks for helping us to decide this is a good idea !
boB
The mesh should be brass. Steel will rust, plastics can be chewed through. Or galvanized hardware cloth on outer layer, plastic mesh behind it.
i'm thinking maybe stainless steel.
The same mesh used on the knock out covers would be perfect !
Yes, conductive mesh hopefully electrically connected to the chassis/casting to help even more with EMI.
boB
My .02:
"insect proofing" the classic is going to be an engineering challenge, and ultimately going to raise the end use pricing, which is always a sensitive subject. One /could/ in theory offer different versions at different price points, making the product line even more undecipherable, causing ordering mistakes and miscommunications, or leave it up to the integrator/owner to do final environment-proofing providing proper parameters for airflow/heatgain and keeping the existing, approved product as it is.
Bugs are pretty tenacious, and they love electronics, and they are well adapted to adapting to whatever scheme you developed to keep them out. I wonder how many equipment failures are directly related to bugs setting up housekeeping.
Quote from: cpm on July 05, 2012, 09:09:32 AM
Bugs are pretty tenacious, and they love electronics, and they are well adapted to adapting to whatever scheme you developed to keep them out. I wonder how many equipment failures are directly related to bugs setting up housekeeping.
A lot more than you may think..... I just lost a Mate on my outback system and you guessed it a dead spider shorted across something in there.
Quote from: Halfcrazy on July 05, 2012, 09:46:12 AM
Quote from: cpm on July 05, 2012, 09:09:32 AM
Bugs are pretty tenacious, and they love electronics, and they are well adapted to adapting to whatever scheme you developed to keep them out. I wonder how many equipment failures are directly related to bugs setting up housekeeping.
A lot more than you may think..... I just lost a Mate on my outback system and you guessed it a dead spider shorted across something in there.
Yipes!
Are you going to try to repair it?
Nope. I had a new one laying here anyhow. Bugs do cause a lot of issues with electronics and have for some time. Conformal Coating does help a lot but still does not make them completely bug proof.
Quote from: Halfcrazy on July 05, 2012, 12:59:03 PM
Nope. I had a new one laying here anyhow. Bugs do cause a lot of issues with electronics and have for some time. Conformal Coating does help a lot but still does not make them completely bug proof.
Ummm, ,
So whatcha gonna do with the busted one?