Outback Inverters - Master / Slaving [RE-wrenches]

[Matt Tritt]

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Christopher,

A new and interesting twist to this generator situation: When we dialed
in the gen control program and left the site last night every thing was
g r o o v y. Then, I got a call this afternoon from the ranch manager
telling me that the lights were shutting off and then coming back in
about ten minutes,

I figured that the generator wasn't being called to start for some
reason and that the system was shutting down just long enough for the
batteries to rebound to the re-connect set point of the inverters. My
theory was correct. So what?

Problem is that there is a 12 amp flow to ground on the generator 12
volt circuit, the same one that is also sent up the remote start wires
to the gen. start contacts in the Outback in charge.

The question is, considering that this two wire start system worked
perfectly for 7 years with the SW's, is there some path to ground now
that we are using the Outback's control circuitry? Is that possible? If
so, what the heck do we do to fix the problem?

Also, we have a set of big contactors that instantly disconnects when
the run signal is taken off the gen starting circuit, so I doubt that
that is the problem, but hey; I'd go for any answer! ;-)

Matt T

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Freitas --- OutBack Power
[mailto:cfreitas at outbackpower.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 1:09 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: RE: Outback Inverters - Master / Slaving [RE-wrenches]


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Matt Tritt wrote:
> When the generator powers down, there is a very noticeable transfer 
> time
> (with flickering) before the inverters take over. This was what was 
> happening when the inverter failed to begin with so we were a bit 
> nervous during testing. 

I have seen this with many different models of inverters - are you 
stopping the generator with the inverter's control or via the 
generator's control?  What often happens with large generators with good

voltage regulators is that the generator spins to a stop in a ugly way -

but it is able to keep the AC output voltage acceptable while spinning 
down.  The inverters have a hard time deciding if the generator is dying

or is just having a hard time - but since the voltage is good, it stays 
connected longer than it probably should...

I've fixed this on a couple of systems by adding a contactor to the 
output of the generator - the contactor instantly opens when the 
generator is told to shut down - it can be wired into both the 
generators control panel and the remote autogenstart circuit as well 
usually.  With this contactor installed the shutdown/switchover were 
really sweet - I had to do this on all of the multiple SW series 
installations I was setting up a few years ago (the original QUAD 
configurations - a few of which are still running today - but were a 
huge amount of work to program and tune back then...).    

>The other thing has to do with the MX 60 apparently being involved with
>some comm. error messages.  

This is not something I have encountered - so its hard for me to 
comment.  Your solution of isolating it from the HUB/MATE is probably 
the best approach (and it solved the problem) so I would stick with that

for now.  I asked others here at OutBack if they had any ideas and will 
contact you off-list with any suggestions.  
 
> Many thanks to Outback again for all their help! I feel that any 
> wrench
> should feel comfortable in working with their equipment and their 
> technical service.

Thanks to you for sticking with us while we worked this out! 

Christopher Freitas
OutBack Power Systems, Inc.
cfreitas @ outbackpower.com  
www.outbackpower.com
Arlington WA USA
Tel 360 435 6030  

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