John; I had quite a few Trace DR series in the field back in the day, but only one left alive today, fortunately in my guest cabin and not at a client's house. They had a pretty OK waveform for a modified square wave inverter, but some modern appliances were just a no-go with a DR, including some microwaves, LED lights, cordless tool chargers, fridges, and washers. I also found them particularly sensitive to lightning damage, we had a single strike that took out every DR within a 1/2 mile radius. Good product at a nice price point for the era, but honestly if given a choice I'd take a Trace U-series over a DR now. Fortunately we have better waveform options now too! Dan Fink Owner, Buckville Energy Consulting LLC IREC Certified Instructor for PV and Small Wind Installation NABCEP Certified PV System Inspector NABCEP PV Associate d <dan.f...@greendustrialtraining.com>anbo...@gmail.com 970-672-4342
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 8:50 PM John Blittersdorf via RE-wrenches < re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote: > I have a new client wanting to upgrade an old system with DR inverter, 4 > golf cart batteries Trace C40 CC and two small PV panels. The system was > definitely installed by a professional with breakers and switched and I am > looking at the photo the customer emailed to me and other than upsizing the > PV array and new batteries, there seems to be no reason to change the > inverter which is very energy efficient. His loads are minimal with a > vacuum the only load to be > added. Another customer called about 18 years after I installed his DR > system, Seems that the inverter failed. He had replaced the batteries once > or twice and no > other issues. Got there to check out the failure, I had voltage at the > inverter DC connections. So I pushed the TINY little black start button and > it fired right up. > This system had been so reliable that he had forgotten that there was and > on/off reset button. For now though, I'm sticking with Outback in spite of > the FM100 > seeming to have hair trigger GFCI circuit As with many of my clients > off-grid second home with a view, access is sometimes difficult so I rely > heavily on OpticRE > to make sure their lights are on and to keep micro managing customers off > my back when they call ask why the solar input is only 1200 watts when they > have 7K of panels on a perfect sunny day. I look at optics and their > batteries are full... DUH I even have two Magnum systems (not my install) > with FM60's with AUX Relay so I can use MATE3 & OpticsRE to check battery > voltage, charging, setting charging perameters and start and stop the > generator remotely. > > John > >
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