Wind/diesel installation....

[frotter]

Sorry for the gap....... weekend you know, things to fiddle with.
So - we have liftoff. Yay! Take the top off the scaffold, release the brake, engage batteries and goggle in awe as the big choppy thing starts to go round!





Ooh look! er, 4 amps? Whew!





I rushed back out to get a pic of the blades - they were whizzing round, a blur to the naked eye.
At this point SpeccyBloke was busily finishing off painting the pole in smart Smoothrite white. Suddenly we heard a sharp 'thwack' as something hit the ground hard. We looked around... then shrugged and carried on. Then poor SpeccyBloke cried out as another of the lead solder balance weights worked its way out from under the smart red tape and struck him smartly on the shoulder! It made a hole in his thick jumper, shirt and back. Ouch!




We scampered away in fear of our skins and engaged the brake which slowed the beast really nicely to almost a dead stop. On closer inspection ALL the weights had been flung off the blades. I bet some of 'em pretty near went orbital! We let the blade spin in the wind again and noticed the tail and pole bouncing merrily in a decidedly out of balance fashion.
Later on once the wind had dropped we put the top back on the tower and implemented 'balancing scheme B'. This involved making a copper receptacle bolted to the lightest blade and melting solder into it to even things out. Looks a bit 'home made' but seems to work pretty well now......
I am hoping THAT doesnt fly off! 





As a final touch we did this....... had these flags for ages. Knew they'd come in handy for summat. Mayday anyone? ( My, doesnt that pole look smart..?)





Next time - releasing the magic smoke and Big Switch Over........

[PEMTEK]

Looks like you were lucky with that one 

I think if you had seen one spinning before you taped weights to the outer edge you wouldnt of done it. They do seem to really scream around at an alarming rate when you first see them going. I didnt even want to stand close to mine when first let loose especially after my balancing experiences!

Phil

[Paulh_Boats]

frotter,

Its a good idea to play around with different positions for the balance weights. At uni in electrical engineering we studied balancing of rotating machines. There is a different ideal place and size of weights between static and dynamic balancing, so if you find something that works well stick to it.

200 watts in April - that would keep our fridge and freezer tickover nicely. Keep posting, its better than East Enders.

-Paul

[frotter]

Thanks for comments etc.... 
Flippin real life impinges on virtual activity once again. Can i retire soon please? (not sure from what though...)

Sooo... we ran the genny for a bit to top up the thirsty cells. It currently runs connected direct to the inverter/charger, pushes 75 amps in - yippee. Cue atmospheric shot of generator... Its quieter than it looks - 'supersilenced'. Lots of padding inside the case and big silencer on t'exhaust...





The Big (blurry) Switch Over. Cue fanfare, dancing tigers etc... and onto Frotpower!!






In this thrilling pic you can see the remote panel showing batteries at about half charge and the current power usage. (about 30% of inverter total)





After a few hours we attempted to run the generator again to boost the cells. On detecting 220v ac the inverter instantly switches supply over to the generator and uses surplus power for charging. Unfortunately the incomer 30ma rcd on the main house consumer unit trips every time this happens. We tinkered with various settings/thresholds but cannot get over this issue. Seems that the double pole switching action inside the inverter may be fast but obviously introduces some spike/inconsistancy thet sets off the rcd.
My solution to this is going to be buying a S/H forklift charger (£70) hard wired to the genny so it doesnt supply the house load at all. The low battery signal from the inverter can still trigger auto starting/stopping of generator. The load (house) will be constantly supplied by the inverter-much better methinks..... Havent got any further with this yet. Currently just started converting genny to twin tank lard-burning setup...

Gubbins ahoy...




Next time.... 'modifiying' the controller by releasing the Magic Smoke... 

 

[PEMTEK]

you might find that the inverter is not switching at zero crossing points which will cause a surge especially to any reactive loads being driven.

Imagine a capacitor being charged to more than +300v and then suddenly switched to more than -300v that is more than a 600v difference worst case across a cap which is going to pull some current!

[Paulh_Boats]

frotter,

Re: the RCD tripping.

Can you post a circuit diagram of your system? Without a circuit its difficult to imagine what the problem or solution(s) might be.
Try to draw it to a rough scale, as the resistance of the conductors may have an influence. Also indicate the cable thickness and likely current and power in each circuit.

With the power safely off, have a look inside the invertor electronics to see if there are AC mains smoothing capacitors or inductors present - the tell tale sign will be a high voltage rating printed on the component. They can leak currents that trip an RCD.

cheers and well done for a great bit of home engineering!

-Paul

[frotter]

Well - i think the decider on this is that when AC is present from the genny (to charge batts) the inverter output always turns off, sending the spare gen ac to the house. The gen is only 6kw max and there is no power assist feature to combine outputs. This means, fairly obviously, that there could easily be an excessive demand on the gen, voltage will drop - trip goes, darkness ensues. Studer's answer to this was that the generator used should be able to output 1.5 times the inverter max. I would need 12kw......
With a seperate beefy charger the inverter can carry on without needing to switch AC sources. Gotta be better....
I just get the feeling trying to stop the nuisance tripping could be a right goose chase and even if we sorted it i would still have the potential overload scenario. ( we are a household of 5 people...) 
Thanks for input, though... more pics laterssss.....

[Paulh_Boats]

Ahh! You have the gen output and invertor output connected together, yes? 

The gen will most likely be off frequency and out of phase with the invertor, so yes there will be all sorts of strange transient currents flowing in all directions. Somehow thats unbalancing the live and neutral currents to trip the RCD, maybe the DP changover contacts don't switch at the same time, momentarily unbalancing the busy electrons.

Plan B is much better  (how many times have I said that to myself!) and safer because you are not switching big AC currents. It won't be quite as efficient as connecting the gen directly, but sensitive electronic stuff will get a cleaner sine wave. And you won't get any wierd X-Files behaviour like the clocks running slow 'cause the invertor 50Hz frequency will be rock solid.

cheers
Paul

[frotter]

Theyre not connected together as such... the inverter has an AC input connection and DC/battery input and 'manages' the two. But it could well be a phase mismatch at switchover that upsets the rcd. Or any other number of things. Hoping my big charger will be ready tomorrow..... 


Here's just a nice pic of the whirlything pointing nicely west (clearest view of wind at this site...) flags a flutterin'.




Soooo, i was wondering wether the dump load in the supplied controller is enabled or not. I thought a way to test this would be to run the beast not connected to the battery. The wind was fairly gentle so i gave it a go. As the blades sped up the voltmeter showed the voltage increase to the point where the relay clicked in (around 40 volts or so i think..). I supposed that if the dump load is operational it would click in at some higher voltage (60 maybe..). We had a couple of runs up to about 60 volts with no activity of a dumping kind. After trying this and concluding that the dump didnt seem to be working - a beefy gust came upon the land sending the meter zooming right off the scale 70 volts+. I quickly switched the battery breaker on and there was a loud pop as the capacitor on the board vented its guts. I scrounged a suitable replacement from SpeccyBloke (gotta luv 'im..) and stuck it in but one of the main rectifiers had gone short circuit. All that happened when the wind blew was we got a nice warm heatsink. Doh!
As this rendered the whole charging scenario inoperative.. i hastily 'improvised' a solution to harvest any stray amps.




Yeah, i know! 6 weedy diodes?? Luckily the wind was very low and only briefly pushed 4 amps through them. Slight warming was noted.. ahem.


Anyhow... next day once my RS bridge rectifiers showed up i hastily fashioned a more robust temporary setup using the original heatsink..... this works great.





Meanwhile.. heres a pile of silly chinese things awaiting the ministrations of SpeccyBloke. He reckons he can make it work properly and everything. A likely story....... ( He also reckons i put that capacitor in the wrong way round.. smartarse)



XX   

[billi]

thanks for all the infos....great
i have had similar problems with my 6kw chargecontroller/inverter system and 4.5 kw diesel generator
it took a few days to figure and adjust the settings to allow a weak ac input into the charger and scaling down the amps to charge the batteries
now it seems to work, because the genny is not powering to its limit or i keep the ac in the house very low when charging
which i perhaps isnot the right solution

i think you can ajust at your studer that it doesnot draw instantly from generator , so takes from batteries first when you start using
ac loads in the house

but i like the idea you had with just charging with the genny and use inverte for clean ac

[frotter]

The main thing with the Studer is that as soon as 220v volts ac is available to it (fron gen in my case) it switches this straight thru to the ac output - turning off the inverter output. Yes you can alter the power sharing ratios but the actual switchover takes out the rcd every time. Even with a delay setting enabled.
My charger is supposed to be coming my way tomorrow (Saturday).........

XX

[frotter]

So... about time to start on teh fiddly bits. Switches, relays, timers.....
this is hopefully going to be the gubbins that starts the generator on a signal from the inverter, automatically running on diesel for warm-up then switching to lard. AND switching back to diesel automatically on shutdown.... it'll never fly!





B*gger me - what does all that do...?





Got the big charger. I wanted as small a one as possible - this is the size of a perfectly good fridge! Some were like washing machines......
Still - a bargain at £70.





Its mostly fresh air inside. That IS a big tranny though!





The 'team'.





There we are.... after some struggling and cursing its nailed on the wall. Dominates the scene somewhat!





Electrons A-flowing ahoy! And NO tripping of the RCD. Good bloomin job an all.




Laters....
 

[frotter]

Hmm.... have encountered slight issue. When the charger is running, the battery is ON load. The effect of this is that say batt volts are 50, the charger is putting out whatever current it sees fit to continue raising cell voltage - meanwhile the inverter is stealing most of the current to run the house. Generator runs for ages on part load, batt voltage only increases painfully slowly. I think i need a way to fool the charger into just giving FULL output (60a) untill told to stop.

Hmmmm.... Sounds like a job fer SpeccyBloke!!

XX

[frotter]

Pah! - w*rk and 'realife' getting in the way of fun.......

XX

[frotter]

Aha!
Well, i have p/exed the 60A charger for a 100a (some folding paper was involved.... ) It is the same make and cabinet so fits in the same place. Hoorah! Will report on whether it does the biz another time.
Anyhow - tranquil family scene here in the shadow of the splendid device.





That was on a nice warm still day. Today, however, is quite draughty and lo - AMPS!




Ok, that was a gust.    But most of the time it was shoving 4-6 amps in! Result.
Latest mucking about involves multiway plugs to connect automated switching of fuel valves etc to the genny....




Not thrilling i know, but hey - i'm not the chuffin' BBC you know!!

XX