Subject: Re: Trace PS2512 drop out problems [RE-wrenches]

[Steve Willey, Backwoods Solar]

Since 2 of the computers did hold up, I would not look for relays not fully
closing.  More likely the duration of the gap in power is marginally too
great for some of the computers.  I have seen SW carry computers over the
transfer, and Prosines not able to do so.

A neat cure would be to increase the size of capacitors in all your computer
power supplies to slightly extend the carrying of DC output and thus the
power input gap they can span without losing output DC voltage.  This could
be an unpleasant custom modification, or an add-on you create that just
plugs into the power supply output, or just swap to a power supply brand
with much larger filters.
Steve Willey,
Backwoods Solar Electric Systems

Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:42:20 -0800
From: Richard Perez <richard.perez at homepower.com>
Subject: Trace PS2512 drop out problems

Hello Wrenches

Quoted below is a problem that an Home Power reader is having with
his Trace PS2512. I am at a loss as to how to help him. Perhaps one
of you Wrenches have solved this problem.

Richard
Home Power

At 12:10 -0700 12/16/2003, Jim wrote:
>We've been fighting with a problem involving a Trace PS2512
>inverter. I thought perhaps you might offer some insight into what
>is causing the problem and what (if anything) we can do about it.
>
>Our Moab, UT office experiences power interruptions lasting anywhere
>from under a second to several hours. While relatively infrequent,
>they can be quite costly to our programming effort. So, using my
>experience at Ray Mesa Power & Light, we built a grid-tied
>uninterruptible power supply for our software development
>environment. Currently, the system relies entirely on the grid for
>charging -- although we anticipate adding solar to it next year.
>
>The system (dubbed "MOAB", Mother Of All Backups -- see attached
>photo) consists of a Trace PS2512 and about 675 AH in a 12v battery.
>It's sourced from a single 30 amp circuit breaker thru the inverter
>and back to a secondary breaker panel with two smaller circuits: one
>for our server room and one for the programming office. We calculate
>the system will carry us for about 8 hours under worst case
>conditions. All in all, it works as intended. When we pull the 30
>amp breaker, the inverter kicks in with no visible interruption -- 
>not even a screen flicker. Cut-over is seamless and never fails;
>we've never had a computer go down in this situation.
>
>On the other hand, we have had several instances in which the office
>fluorescent lights barely flicker, the inverter kicks in and 10 out
>of 12 computers in the programming office instantly go dead. The two
>computers that seem to ride through (both Macs) are always the same
>two. Other nearly identical Macs on the same circuit leg as well as
>all PC's always go down.
>
>We have called Xantrex tech support and although they admit to
>having had the problem reported, they are unable to offer either an
>explanation or a solution. They claim that there is no firmware
>upgrade available (the unit is 18 months old) and don't know what to
>suggest. I hinted that maybe they could furnish some means for us to
>perform line monitoring to see what was actually triggering the
>problem -- they didn't bite. We had already tightened up the grid
>voltage limits in the hopes of catching the outage as early as
>possible -- no help. Xantrex suggested since tightening the grid
>voltage limits doesn't seem to work, maybe we should try widening
>the limits. Since there's nothing to lose, we'll probably try it but
>I'm hardly optimistic.
>

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