Out in the outback with OutBack [RE-wrenches]

Todd Cory, Mt. Shasta Energy Services toddcory at finestplanet.com
Mon Apr 16 06:17:43 PDT 2007


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The grid tied version of the FX is very fussy about what it will kind of 
AC input power quality it will accept. Yes, you could possibly set up a 
manual transfer switch on the bidirectional inverter AC input with an AC 
inverter generator. You could use an external transfer switch, but the 
customer would still have to go to the mate and tell the FX the input is 
now "gen" rather than "grid". This is mighty complicated for your 
average customer to manage, plus I have not seen large wattage inverter 
generators. The SW used to do that all automatically... so rather than 
just have the inverter automatically start the genny and go, you have to 
change the transfer switch position, change the input configuration in 
the mate and then start the genny.... and when the grid comes back up 
you need to reverse everything back.

That is why the other "work around kludge" for what most see as an 
obvious design fault in the FX is to use a 2:1 step down transformer on 
the genny output (_any_ genny will work for this), rectify to DC and 
dump that as another input to the MX60. Yes, this is clunky and home 
brew (which I try to avoid now days) but workable, and presents nothing 
to do on the customers part but start the generator (or let the mate do 
it) when the grid is down and the batteries are low.

What we really need is a battery based inverter that can seamlessly and 
automatically be able to accept two AC sources... one it can sell to and 
one it cannot. Whenever this comes up on the wrench list Christopher 
either is silent or when pressed becomes defensive saying things like 
"the inverter was never designed to do this anyway so they do not 
consider it a defect".

Whether it was or was not designed to do this is not the point. A 
battery based system is chosen for its back up capabilities, so IMO it 
/should/ have been designed to accept several different AC sources. The 
fact that two AC inputs are listed in the mate menu menu system leads me 
to believe this was part of the original design of the inverter, but 
because of the tight UL1741 window they could never get the inverter to 
work on generator power.

I would like them to
1) admit this is an issue and
2) serve the customers that want this feature to work.
At this point (as far as I know) they are doing neither, so this is 
reminiscent of the problems with the SW that Xantrex never addressed. I 
would hate to see us wrenches move to yet another inverter manufacturer 
to get what we need, but at this point that looks like the only hope as 
Outback appears to not be interested in addressing this.

I hear Xantrex is coming out with a new battery based grid tie able 
inverter. As much as I hate Xantrex, it would be hard to not consider 
buying from a company that provided the gear with the features we need. 
As much as I like Outback products and use them on most all of the 
systems I do, with boB and Robin gone and these issues still going 
unaddressed, and the issues with tech support... these days are sadly 
looking more and more like the days after Xantrex took over Trace 
Engineering.

I am not out to "dis" Outback here, but would love some straight talk 
and resolution to this ongoing issue.

Todd


Marco Mangelsdorf wrote:

>What the latest situation with the grid-tie versions of the OutBack
>inverters?  Have our friends Chris F. et al. figured out how to have their
>units be both grid compatible and sell back power and accept a back-up power
>source from a generator?  Or is it either/or still?
> 
>thanks,
>marco
> 
>Marco Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., President
>Electrical Contractor License C-26351
>69 Railroad Avenue, A-7
>Hilo, Hawai'i 96720
>(808) 969-3281, 934-7462 facsimile
>www.provisiontechnologies.com <http://www.provisiontechnologies.com/> 
>


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