OutBack Innovation and Support [RE-wrenches]

[Todd Cory, Mt. Shasta Energy Services]

There is also the issue of having the customer manually tell the 
inverter through the mate that the AC input is now AC2 (generator) 
rather than AC1 (grid). I am not sure what the inverter would do with 
gen power connected to the inverter, but hopefully it would not try to 
sell to it if the PV input exceeded the loads when the grid was down.

There was talk a couple of years ago about an external box the inverter 
would control with two AC inputs. As the inverter switched the inputs it 
would also reconfigure the mate to the other AC setting. Here is a 
message from Robin Gudgel about this "computerized transfer switch" from 
April of 2004. I guess this product never got fully developed.

Todd

> The Grid tie units have some new features that we want to use for 
> off-grid, but it is all so new, we don't know if it works very well? The 
> feature I'm talking about is generator support. Grid tie has it and 
> off-grid does not. It is very complicated to do generator support on the 
> FX series. It was very easy on the old SW because that is a low 
> frequency machine. The FX is a high frequency switcher and that opens up 
> a whole new can of worms. We know that some guys are going to be using 
> the grid tie in off-grid applications just to see how generator support 
> works. We flat don't know. We had 4 generators here when we did that 
> testing 3 months ago. It worked just fine with the good generators, but 
> not well on a crummy Honda. It couldn't sink up with it. The darned 
> Honda was one of those that wouldn't sit still. It kept on revving the 
> engine and the FX couldn't catch it. We decided that we had to quit 
> working on gen support in order to get the grid tie done, but we left 
> the code in the grid tie version as it was. I'm sure we can improve it 
> given enough time, but for now we will be taking a breather on the gen 
> support issue. We are pretty sure that if the generator doesn't have 
> wheels and handles, that gen support will work well.
>
> The computerized transfer switch will change the inverter defaults 
> depending on which source is selected. There are some really bizarre 
> features that will be possible with the AC transfer switch. The Chilean 
> Navy has some very special requests that we are going to try to 
> accommodate too. We will be exercising one generator at 60% of the time 
> and then a second one at the remainder. This way, they both don't need 
> maintenance at the same time.
>
> Hope this answers your questions.
>
> Thanks,
> Robin









Doug Pratt wrote:

> Gents,
>
> I think there's a basic misunderstanding here. Correct me if I'm wrong
> please Todd.
> I have it direct from two of the principals at Outback that the grid-tie
> version will stop battery charging if AC input voltage or frequency 
> drifts
> outside the tight IEEE standards, but it WILL NOT disconnect from the AC
> source unless voltage drops below about 90 volts or the frequency gets 
> more
> than 5 hz out. So under generator support we might lose battery charging 
> for
> 5 minutes when the well pump starts (which might not be such a bad 
> thing),
> but the main AC contactor stays engaged and the generator will continue
> running the loads directly.
> Christopher, can you verify this? I heard it from Marty and Roy last 
> week.
> If true, this doesn't seem like such a big deal. It might take a bit 
> longer
> to charge the batteries, but it isn't like customers are going to be 
> stuck
> without power unless they've got a really nasty generator.
>
> Cheers,
> Doug Pratt
> DC Power Systems
>
>  
>


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