[RE-wrenches] Outback Grid Problems

Wed Mar 31 16:14:50 PDT 2010

I saw the fault "high ac input voltage" at least three times. I changed
out the boards in the inverter TWICE, both times freebies from OutBack. I
checked battery spec. grav., programmed it and re-programmed it, talked ad
nauseum on the phone with tech support....nothing. It was OutBack tech
support who originally suggested grid problems. The utility sent out a
tech and they put a data logger on for a week. When they took it back I
never heard from them until I called and said that I was sure it was the
transformer as I had eliminated, twice, every possible possibility. My
transformer was from the early 70's. Even today, a rainy day, I made 6.2
kwh, just about what I use in a typical day.

Daryl

> What faults were you seeing when it wouldn't sell? Was grid voltage or
> frequency off? Or was it power factor issue?
> I might need some technical ammo to persuade the Utility into swapping
> their transformer.
>
> R. Walters
> ray at solarray.com
> Solar Engineer
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 31, 2010, at 1:32 PM, penobscotsolar at midmaine.com wrote:
>
>> Ray, Believe me when I say I have gone through all the exercises
>> described
>> so far by our esteemed colleagues. I think you will find the problem is
>> with the customers transformer. I continue to make impressive amounts of
>> kwh since the swap out last week.
>>
>> Daryl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Battery bank is in great shape, is brand new HUP set.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> R. Walters
>>> ray at solarray.com
>>> Solar Engineer
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 31, 2010, at 6:19 AM, tump at hughes.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ask the customer to ck the cells for bubbling during the charging
>>>> period
>>>> to make sure the cells all are good OR Isolate the battery banks to
>>>> make
>>>> sure there isn't a dead cell the OBs are trying to charge. BB1 one
>>>> day,
>>>> BB2 the next & so on.
>>>> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: R Ray Walters <ray at solarray.com>
>>>> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:42:58
>>>> To: RE-wrenches<re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
>>>> Subject: [RE-wrenches] Outback Grid Problems
>>>>
>>>> We currently have a Grid Tie system with a pair of Outback inverters
>>>> that are regularly dropping out of sell mode, and letting the arrays
>>>> spend all day charging the battery bank.
>>>> It seems to do this several times a week, and the customer is losing
>>>> substantial production, and gassing the batteries too much.
>>>> It will reset itself the next day, or the customer resets it by
>>>> turning
>>>> off the inverters manually.
>>>> The system is 24 v, with an old array of 1800 watts running through 2
>>>> FM60s, and a new array of 2800 watts running through another pair of
>>>> FM60s.
>>>> The battery bank is HUP about 4100 Ah @ 24 v (3 strings of 1375 Ah
>>>> each)
>>>> Big battery, I know, but the customer is an electrical engineer, who
>>>> wanted maximum storage capacity.
>>>>
>>>> Outback tech support has not resolved the issue, and this has turned
>>>> into several service calls, and customer frustration.
>>>> We've tried running the controllers through the HUB, and also
>>>> independently, and that doesn't make a difference.
>>>> I have numerous Outback GT installs dating back to 2003, and have
>>>> never
>>>> had a problem like this.
>>>> Any help or advice would as always be greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you in advance fellow Wrenches,
>>>>
>>>> R. Walters
>>>> ray at solarray.com
>>>> Solar Engineer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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