Todd,
Excellent points to which I'd add I've been wondering just how well-designed
these off-grid homes are that need generators to be running when the home is
unoccupied for long periods of time. A home that uses that much power with
no one in it is simply badly designed.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: Todd Cory
To: RE-wrenches
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 7:52 AM
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
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