Ethical dilemma [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar]

One option that has plenty of drawbacks...
If you have the time fix it for free. You can write it off as a donation to
a non-profit.

Travis Creswell
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Miller" <wrmiller at slonet.org>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:37 PM
Subject: Ethical dilemma [RE-wrenches]


> Fiends:
>
> Here's a dilemma and how I dealt with it.  I am still wondering if there
is
> a better solution.  Your thoughts are appreciated:
>
> I was called by the operations director for an off-grid elementary school
> to replace fans on an SW inverter.  While on site, I took some time to
> learn how the system was built.  There are 4 SW inverters with outputs
> summed through 2 levels of transformers.   They run their generator during
> the school day and ran on batteries and inverters during the afternoon and
> evening for extra curricular, janitoring and etc.  The system runs great
> while fed by the generator, but when the generator shuts down, inverters 1
> and 2 are not synced to inverters 3 and 4.  You can measure the voltage
> from phase to phase and over a half hour or so it goes from 240 to 0 and
> then back up.  The output of the equipment room is two hots and a shared
> neutral.  When the inverters are out of phase, the neutral is properly
> shared.  When the inverters drift in phase, the neutral current will
> increase, possibly until the current is double the rated current.  It is
my
> understanding that power is distributed throughout the school in this
> manner.  At any point where a neutral is shared--on a feeder or multi-wire
> branch circuit--this condition is possible.
>
> I wrote a report describing this problem as clearly as I could.  I
followed
> up with phone calls to the operations director.  Last conversation I was
> told that there was no money to correct this problem and that all they
> could do is, "conduct extra fire drills."
>
> I wrote to the school and told them I could not work for them until this
> issue is addressed.  I do not want to be even associated with a system in
a
> public school that has an obvious design defect.  I feel pretty
comfortable
> about this decision, but I am curious what others might have done.
>
> William
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> William Miller
> SLO Communications: Communications and Power Systems Consulting
> PO Box 50, Santa Margarita, CA 93453
> Voice :805-438-5600 Fax: 805-438-4607 VMail: 805-546-4875
> email: wrmiller at slonet.org
> License No. C-10-773985
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