Benn,
Seconding Mick's jolliness...
In last year's Home Power generators article, there's a photo of an
Outback Quad Stack of four inverters, installed circa 2006. The two
center inverters are set up to invert, and are controlled by the Hub-10
and Mate, but they're really there only as chargers, to effectively
charge from a 20K Onan gennie into a 2200 A/hr battery. The center
VFX3648 units have the added turbo fans on their covers for additional
cooling when charging, a suggestion made by Chris Freitas, then of
Outback.
We needed 20KW at our 6,600' elevation. You're closer to sea level, so
12KW is just a bit undersized for four inverters. But they can be set
to limit AC input below max. Just remember to leave some headroom for
additional house loads that might come on while charging - the FXes
aren't very good at hard-limiting pass-through AC current. You might
also save a few hundred bucks by adding FX3048s, with a lower charge
rate - I think they're compatible with the higher-output VFXes.
On 6/17/2010 8:33 PM, Mick Abraham wrote:
Hello, Benn~
As regards Iota: these deliver a constant voltage...in fact they
strongly resemble a DC power supply. A "45 amp" Iota type charger would
deliver that rated amperage only so long as the battery voltage is low
relative to the charger's output. In my experience these type chargers
taper down on the amps shortly after the recharge begins. That's OK if
one has "always on" utility power but not so OK if one wants big amps
so the generator can be shut off sooner.
***********************
In contrast, the Outback type charger is "constant current" until the
battery reaches approximately 80% state of charge...the point where the
bulk/absorption voltage is seen on the battery. By pulsing with voltage
well above the bulk voltage, the Outback unit strives to pump that 45
amps. When the battery comes up to the bulk voltage level the Outback
type charger switches to "constant voltage" mode for the absorption
phase.
Summary: There's a reason why the Iota type charger is less expensive
per rated amp compared to some other types.
****************************
IBE chargers are oriented to the forklift world and they go way back in
off grid energy. Others could speak better than I about their charge
quality & reliability, but I estimate both to be high. Cost is also
high, however.
*******************************
If IBE level funding is seriously on the radar screen, one should
compare the cost of that against one or more additional Outback
inverter/chargers. One could ignore the inverting function and maybe
still come out ahead. All the chargers would work together as a single
unit in that event because of the network capability...and you get the
time delay feature where the chargers wait 30 seconds before they throw
the load onto the generator. Inverting redundancy, too...
The above suggestion (to use an inverter/charger just to replace a high
end charger) pencils out very well for the lower cost modified square
wave inverter/chargers from Magnum Energy, but those are 12v/24v only.
48v Magnum units are pure sine so the cost goes back up.
Jolliness,
Mick Abraham, Proprietor
www.abrahamsolar.com
Voice: 970-731-4675
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 5:21 PM, benn
kilburn <[email protected]>
wrote:
G'day Wrenches,
I'm looking for an additional charger(s) to increase the
charging capacity from the back-up 12 kW Onan generator into the 1200
Ah battery. Right now the generator's full potential output is limited
by the charging capacity of the two VFX3648's which have a max charge
output of 45A each.
The idea here is to use the generator to its full charging
capacity when it is running, taking in to consideration that the
generator will feed any AC loads before charging the battery.
Iota and IBE chargers have been suggested. Any comments on
these or other makes?
Do all generator types (diesel, propane, LNG, gasoline) run
more efficiently when fully loaded? or is this only the case with
diesel (so i've heard)?
thanks,
benn
DayStar Renewable Energy Inc.
780-906-7807
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