Walt Ratterman here.
All of my work is done overseas, but I gave up on automatic generator starting years ago. I now make extensive use of the relays for alarms, and load shedding, but not automatic generator starting. I am a firm believer that this needs to remain a people-thing for operations, maintenance, and buy-in. I felt that this opinion only had merit in the developing world. Maybe it applies more broadly. Take care, Walt Ratterman SunEnergy Power International www.sunepi.org <http://www.sunepi.org/> -----Original Message----- From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Todd Cory Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:52 AM To: RE-wrenches Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] mate issues AND MORE ISSUES I know this is not the topic, but I never set up auto genny starts and this thread only confirms the correctness of that decision. Having a machine automatically start/stop while unattended is IMO a recipe for, at best damage to gear and, at worst a fire that could destroy the entire homestead. If people are too mindless to know how to fly their off-grid system by looking at the weather forecast and battery SOC meter, then they should move to a on-grid home. I tell my customers when they are away from their off-grid homes, to shut the inverter's DC breaker off and leave the PV charging sources on. There is no chance for failure with this setup. Murphy will get you every time you try to automate what should be done manually. Todd cvso...@aol.com wrote: Matt & Tom, Guess it's time to put in my two cents. I have also had the same random failures to start and/or stop the generator automatically from the mate in 3 installation. Managed to boil dry 8 L 16's and run through 90 gallons of propane before we went back to the unattended second home over three days after checking it out and found the generator had been running since we left. As you have noted, all tests checked out good at the time. We are looking into 3rd party auto start modules as an alternative or continue to tell all customers not to use auto start if unattended. It seems that all auto start problems occur when the customer is not home. We had one Trace SW4024 start a Kohler generator flawlessly for 3 years and when they took their first extended stay from home, it failed.... Turned out it was a bad spark plug but it shattered their faith in the system. We have also had problems with The Xantrex SW Plus with similar problems. We have also had a problem with several Outback systems shutting down the generator prematurely at about 70% charge even though we reset the mate and Inverter to factory defaults. I still have trouble convincing the rich second home owners that the only reliable system is 2 generators with a person to run them. We are currently using a honda 2000i as our backup for our off grid home so our VFX3624 does just fine taking in the power. Love the low fuel consumption. My customer with the runaway Kohler used more fuel in one weekend than we have used in a year. John Blittersdorf NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer tm Central Vermont Solar & Wind, LLC. 104 River Street Rutland, VT 05701 802-747-0577 802-773-0924 fax 802-770-8625 cell www.cvsolar.com <http://www.cvsolar.com/> __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3714 (20081223) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com
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