Ah ha! I didn't consider using a small 12V battery with a charger. I was
thinking of just using a 120V -> 12V converter to handle the DC loads. Is
the 12V battery really necessary, or can I just power the DC loads directly
with a converter? If I just have lights and fans on the DC system, the load
Fortunately, the owner is pretty handy and is willing to live with any
negative consequences. That said, I want to offer him something as simple
and bulletproof as possible. I am walking into this with eyes wide open,
for sure.
Jason Szumlanski
Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design
Jason,
I have a customer with the same situation except he already has a 12 V
VFX inverter, He has a sunfrost fridge and other small loads with a very
fancy custom control board
originally set up to handle AC and DC systems. We are adding a lot more
solar and I was considering a dual battery
Thanks, Jay. Any thoughts on whether a 100A 12V converter is adequate to handle
the startup surge of a modern 120V full-size refrigerator when an existing 400W
load is present? That would be my design parameters.
I guess the other question is, what happens if the converter is overloaded? I
know
Jason,
My vote would be for using a 120 to 12vDC power supply large enough to
handle the remaining 12 vDC loads and skip the second battery bank. In my
mind, this is simpler, cleaner, and if the power supply fails at some
point, it is an easy replacement, if they still want to keep the DC loads
Here is a link to download the SolarPro May/June 2016 issue reference
below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eiBt5n-ABfNn2ng8IwVl2yMvVHpQlZ_U/view?usp=sharing
-August
On Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 4:34 PM August Goers wrote:
> Hi William and All -
>
> The SolarPro Magazine article on page 35
Yeah definitely no second battery. On Apr 24, 2024, at 6:41 AM, Howie Michaelson via RE-wrenches wrote:Jason,My vote would be for using a 120 to 12vDC power supply large enough to handle the remaining 12 vDC loads and skip the second battery bank. In my mind, this is simpler, cleaner, and if the
I agree with John. Most 12v fridges have small compressors. But I don’t know what they have. Personally a major reason to go 120/ac is to get a normal refrigerator. But you can measure the surge/load and then size the charger accordingly. One feature of going charger is the lights are a lot
Hi Dave,
I appreciate the concern. It's not one of those situations. We have a
couple of barrier islands around here where people have set up what amounts
to little fish camps that are used infrequently. The islands are also home
to a few full-time/most-time residents and state parks. Everyone
Jason,
Just using the converter works fine. They are considered a battery
charger or a regulated power supply. I am currently running that way now
with the battery cables going nowhere. I was thinking of putting the
battery back in the system just for triple redundancy when my inverter hits
low
How about just buy an RV?
Seriously the reason Jason I am Leary is because of the experiences I
have had with what I call Offgrid Squalor.
Just have to be careful especially these days of druggies, people in
vans with no windows, ex paramilitary that went bad,
and you get the picture.
If
Maverick and Steve,
Thank you much for pointing me in the right direction here. I was looking
at the Radian setting and not the Mate3S settings. I've decided to use the
flextime schedule to have it go to grid zero mode at night when we will not
be exporting any solar power anyway. It really does
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