Battery Fuel Gauge (and AC lockable requirement) [RE-wrenches]

[Joel Davidson]

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Thank you all for your battery fuel gauge feedback. Since we have had less 
than 50 hours of utility outages since 1998, we do not use our backup 
batteries so we will continue to just monitor battery voltage. Here's a 
follow-up report:
10/29/06 3:52pm ~25 minutes utility power outage.
10/29/06 9:30pm battery inverter shutdown; low grid voltage caused inverter 
to go off-grid to 4 each 8-1/2 years old Johnson Controls Dynasty GVC12V100B 
batteries.
11/6/06 notified SCE.
11/7/06 SCE technician came to home when no one was home and reported 
nothing wrong with grid. His report says "reset breaker." We returned home 
1/2-hour later and the house main 200A breaker was turned off (not tripped). 
We turned the main breaker on and turned the inverter bypass switch off to 
run backup loads with grid power.
11/18/06 replaced old batteries with 4 each 2 years old C&D Dynasty 
UPS12-475 batteries and everything is back to normal except that we still 
get nighttime low grid voltage so we set the inverter cutout to 105 VAC.

Comment: SCE technician did not pull the kWh meter or switch off the clearly 
marked PV System backfeed breaker. Instead, he turned off the panel main 
breaker and left it off.

Joel Davidson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: Battery Fuel Gauge


> Wrenches,
>
> I had another SW4048 inverter shutdown last night and had to switch the 
> inverter bypass breakers. Grid power was 108 VAC. I think (in addition to 
> worn out batteries) the inverter menu 11 AC Inputs > Set input low limit 
> VAC 108 default may be too low. Has anyone else with grid-tie systems 
> experienced regular "light brown-outs"? What corrective action did you 
> take?
>
> Joel Davidson
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Joel Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net>
> To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 5:00 PM
> Subject: Battery Fuel Gauge
>
>
>> Wrenches,
>>
>> So where's this going? Last Sunday afternoon, I experienced a Southern 
>> California Edison (SCE) power outage followed by 3 evenings and counting 
>> of grid power brownouts (101 VAC). My SW4048 line-tie inverter saw the 
>> low grid voltage and went to stand-alone mode, but my four old Johnson 
>> Controls GC12V100B batteries did not last long and the inverter did its 
>> low-voltage shutdown. So I flipped the inverter bypass switch and put up 
>> with low grid voltage (thank you SCE for shortening the life of my home 
>> equipment). Trouble-shooting and flipping switches by flashlight and 
>> re-programming the inverter the day may be interesting for techno-guys, 
>> but the average on- or off-grid PV system owner (our customers) would be 
>> frustrated and angry if their battery bank ran out of juice leaving them 
>> in the dark.
>>
>> Finally, the question: What "battery fuel gauge" do you think is the most 
>> non-technical customer-friendly (easy to use, intuitive, reliable, etc.)?
>>
>> Joel Davidson
> 


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