Smoke detector flameout [RE-wrenches]

John Blittersdorf, Cent. VT Solar & Wind cvsolar at aol.com
Sat Mar 31 09:23:47 PST 2001


Lyn,
   I think the days of worrying about the 25 watt phantom load of the SW 
inverter are over.  I gave up the sleep mode years ago on my system.  Anyone 
with a home office off grid now has to have 24 hour power.  I just tell my 
customers that it costs one or two panels to "keep the power on".  A fact of 
life just as it costs a panel or two to run the breadmaker or the auto coffee 
maker.  It just gets back to my basic realization that these same folks drive 
a SUV.  They will be more than willing to pay a little extra to make their 
house "Normal" and I get to sell another PV or two. The only systems that I 
install where I still use the sleep mode are on the small AC (DR series) 
cabins and camps.      Sometimes I yearn for the "good ole days"  when I 
could run my place on (4) 35 watt panels and (6) T105's but just think how 
hard it would be to make a living if all system were that size!  
   To keep the system load at minimum,  I go overboard insisting on the most 
efficient appliances and lighting which more than offsets the phantom loads.  
There are a lot of advantages of full time power.  You can run conventional 
clocks which run very slightly fast (unless you use a slow generator a lot) , 
you don't have the annoying flashing digits on all your appliances etc.  My 
microwave insists on having the time reset before it will work so a power 
interruption is a pain in the neck.  Lets face it, big inverters deliver a 
lot of power and most American are willing to pay plenty for convenience.

John
Central Vermont Solar and Wind,
from my solar and wind powered office buried in 44" of snow.

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