Your conduit the whole layout is absolutely beautiful. You may consider viewing some battery room pictures regarding bus runs. The methods in your video are extremely dangerous. You may consider an overhead run using more standoffs to maintain separation and shrink tube to help prevent dead shorts
I hope I haven't explained things below badly and scrambled your brain. Its just what I would do, have a nice small wooden box that will show you the condition of everything and at the same time fully automate any inverter fault and start the genny if needed. Its a beautiful and very professionally done installation. I can see you care about doing a propper, safe and clean install. In my 25+ years as an electrical engineer I have not seen many installs this good and that includes my years in the Royal Navy. You should be proud of it and proud of yourself. P.S. 1 suggestion and 1 request - Fuse your inverters separately not of 1 fuse. With the HRT high current fuses you are going to need you could spend a fortune if your not sure of the troublemaker ! As for the request ...... There is a very interesting panel with indicators and buttons on the back wall. (your supply switching I assume) Any chance of a peek in that cabinet ? I would not be surprised if you lace wired it. Are you an electrical engineer by trade or have you just learnt from the school of life ? All the best :) Stuart.
@@HighTechLab I will look forward to that. I was wondering if PLC and RS485 would be making an appearance at some stage..... To save on any mushroom clouds please make sure the watchdog works :-D
You most likely have already but have you considered using the old inverter as primary on invert / gen mode and feed the mains out of the old unit at 230v into the new unit in utility / bat mode. That way you don't need an interlocking selector. Set the first (old unit) as your charger when power is present so its mains input would be from the genny and at all other times it would be inverting and the second unit would use the supply, augment it if needed then pass the mains to your load. I am trying not to make it sound to complex... so basically the new unit would be in ups 240v 2 phase out to the house. Its an LF inverter so I am sure it could be set to voltage stable mode like a normal ups would. That way if the voltage from unit 1 (old) was a little low it would stabilize your supply rail to the house. So you would be covered like this. 1. Battery voltage gets lower than the limit set on unit 1. This can close the relay on the unit, switch over the source supply when the genny is up to voltage. So your covered automatically in the event of low battery. 2. In my experience these units will always pass through the source power and close the relay as the relays are always energised. That is why they present a small load even on standby. when there is any power supply be it mains or battery. This would cover you from unit 1 developing a fault. 3. If unit 2 fails that would then pass through the 230v from unit 1 and close its contact. You would still have power as unit 2 would go into full invert mode. I expect they are DPDT relays on both so you could use one side as an alarm output and the other for a contactor or motorised selector switch. For monitoring in the home wire the alarm relays second poles in parallel and wire via the batteries on one pair of a multicore cable to a small piezo sounder in the home. I would then use a three phase voltmeter and a dc voltmeter and mount them in a nice looking wooden box (wife proof). You could then wire it as follows and you don't have to worry about voltage drop as the loads are in the milliamp range. You would need 2 mains rated 6 core flex cables with a very low AC and DC fuse for each pair in case of damage. A 1 amp ceramic would do for everything. Pair 1. Cable 1. Wire an alarm sounder supply as explained above. Connected to sounder indoors. Wire a latching relay with a button to latch when the 48v (fault) output is on. Pair 2. Cable 1. DC feed to DC voltmeter to see battery voltage. Pair 3. Cable 1. You could use a DC hall effect sensor round your DC fuse to show the current draw from your batteries. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pair 1. Cable 2. Mains voltage from your generator feed and a sounder if you want so you would know its started. This would be phase 1 on your three phase voltmeter. * Pair 2. Cable 2. Mains voltage output from inverter 1. This would show you it was that unit that failed if the display went out. That would be wired to phase 2 on your three phase voltmeter. * Pair 3. Cable 2. Mains voltage output from inverter 2. Like unit 1 if it went out you would know it was inverter 2 that had failed.This is wired to phase 3 on your three phase voltmeter. * * You could only use a three phase voltmeter if all of your neutrals are common with each other. If not you will need 3 separate mains voltmeters. If they are common you would only need a small 4 core mains cable. One core for the neutral and the other three for the three mains feed.
I recommend turning your main panel into a split bus and add three more contactors to to the transfer switch so you can use both inverters simultaneously and you have your full 200 amp capacity.
@@HighTechLab so you could itergrate a relay across the switch on the inverters to turn them on and off from the control cabinet then you would have no idle draw and you can turn each one on individually.
You are on the right track. So what I ended up doing in later progress, which I have not yet posted a video of, was tied in the black inverter with the PLC that way when I want to use it as a battery charger I can turn it on, and then the diversion power that heats our hot tub comes from the black innverter because the solid state relay and the way it pulses causes odd voltage spikes and drops, so I don't use the power elsewhere. I consider the blue inverter my clean power because it actually outputs a true 240 volts instead of 220 to 225 volts, so the blue inverter Powers the main loads and at this point I am pretty comfortable with the amount of power conversion capacity that I have.
@@HighTechLab ok that's a good solution. What you need now is some more solar so you can charge your batteries fast and use less gas. I Really like the new look of the power room it is way more organized. In the future you should invest in a 24kw inverter so you don't have 2 inverters. Can't wait to see it expand over the years. I would also invest in lion or Lipo batteries so you could have a better energy density and more charge cycles as well as so you don't have to fill them up with water.
This video is the only one I have on this unit, I am looking at doing a update video talking about how the system has been performing over the last year and likely will have that out within the month
Really cool. Both inverters look strikingly the same when the front covers were taken off. For the battery cut off voltage, is it preset values or user defined values on the new inverter ? Also noticed that both inverters are sharing the same battery bank but one serves as a charger when using the generator. Smart setup.. plus I love the inverter mounting racks, they are really solid. Can't wait to see more reviews on that inverter. In terms of performance, how would you rate them side by side ?
Interesting Ibitapo. You appear to have experience with both inverters. Interestingly I just watched your video on the Foxpower and his on video on it came up recommended. Which of the two is better e.g. Efficiency, noise, idle power draw, weight and so on.
William Huston, Realtor my bus bars are rated at 800 amps. 500 MCM copper is good for 400 amps and cost $3.50 per foot. All of the bus bars are coated at terminations with antioxidant. Modern day Aluminum can be just as good as copper. It is all about how you terminate it.
I have the siginner inverter my electronic clocks all of them are delayed, this make me think my inverter is not pure sine wave, did you have this kind of problems or why are your testing another one, how much money did you pay for this new one.
@@osseo9947 If your clocks use synchronous motors then I would put more money on it being a mains frequency issue. When the utility company's have a low frequency output they then increase it for the same time period afterwards. It is something that is very hard to get right. The skill in running the grid is to keep this is balance. Most power stations have well over £1m of equipment just to deal with this issue but as they can control the fields in the windings and electromagnets they have far more control. If your clocks use a switch mode power supply they should have a 32768 Hz crystal onboard and anyway the switch mode power supply should be able to adjust to voltage variations. As I said its hard to get right.
Did you have a Fascination with wal mart car battery displays and Powerplants as a kid.. What the H is with these Buss bars for 500 amps …. One of the best ways to maximize solar is to scale the system ..not to use a fire hose for garden hose pressure.
They were originally going to send me a 4000 watt unit for video review, but I didn't have a use for a 4000 watt inverter, so I asked them if I could pay the price difference and get the 12,000 watt unit that was more practical for my application.
They are both bonded and the generator is also a separately derived system. They all three have separate neutral bus bars. The transfer switch for the generator transfers the neutral between the blue inverter and the generator. The black inverter neutral and output currently are unused. If they were used they would be treated as a separately derived system also and would have a dedicated panel
Been looking for an inverter with neutrals bonded. Went to Sigineer and was told "We have split phase model up to 15KW. But the Neutral shouldn't be bonded with ground as indicated in the wiring diagram in the below link www.sigineer.com/product-category/inverter-chargers/split-phase-inverter-chargers/" . You might want to look into that. I also went to Fox Power and it looks like the neutral can be bonded to ground. Fox Power is the only inverter I have found that shows the neutral bonded to ground. Thank you for the video as it is the first time I have heard of Fox Power.
Yeah. The black inverter turns in and charges batteries whenever generator is running and also is PLC controlled... It turns on to power diversion loads such as our hot tub and turns off when not needed to reduce idle draw. The blue inverter powers the typical loads. The setup has been working extremely well.
@@HighTechLab When the black inverter is charging and the blue inverter needs to supply a heavy load, does the circuit breaker inside the black one trip? Im wondering if this would happen in a similar setup with a 8kw'ish generator.
@@sethreichardt148 the black inverter can only output a set amperage so if there is a heavier load then the black inverter can handle the batteries make up the difference.
Max load I've pulled is around 18kw briefly, but I've had it at 100% quite a few times running things like welders or plasma cutter + air compressor. Price wise that is fair, but likely prior to shipping
Funny I run my place with a 3500 power drive inverter and 6 deep cell 80 amp hr batteries and 1200 watts of solar no bus bars two charge controllers and no breakers but im only powering my 40 fr trailer.
You really need a quick disconnect for your batteries and busbar. That would make working on it so much easier.
That setup also protects the buss bars much better I would say the only thing you would want to do is add a cover to the low spot on one Pole - or +
Your conduit the whole layout is absolutely beautiful. You may consider viewing some battery room pictures regarding bus runs. The methods in your video are extremely dangerous. You may consider an overhead run using more standoffs to maintain separation and shrink tube to help prevent dead shorts
Those are both re-branded Chinese Aimes inverters. I would know, I own 2. Good units though. I've had zero issues. Nice setup. Looks professional.
What are you insulating the pos/neg buss bars from the banks? The video makes it look SCARY close together...
I hope I haven't explained things below badly and scrambled your brain. Its just what I would do, have a nice small wooden box that will show you the condition of everything and at the same time fully automate any inverter fault and start the genny if needed.
Its a beautiful and very professionally done installation. I can see you care about doing a propper, safe and clean install. In my 25+ years as an electrical engineer I have not seen many installs this good and that includes my years in the Royal Navy. You should be proud of it and proud of yourself.
P.S. 1 suggestion and 1 request - Fuse your inverters separately not of 1 fuse. With the HRT high current fuses you are going to need you could spend a fortune if your not sure of the troublemaker !
As for the request ...... There is a very interesting panel with indicators and buttons on the back wall. (your supply switching I assume) Any chance of a peek in that cabinet ? I would not be surprised if you lace wired it.
Are you an electrical engineer by trade or have you just learnt from the school of life ?
All the best :)
Stuart.
A lot to take in.... You can see in the control cabinet in one of my newer videos called click PLC meets off grid
@@HighTechLab I will look forward to that. I was wondering if PLC and RS485 would be making an appearance at some stage..... To save on any mushroom clouds please make sure the watchdog works :-D
You most likely have already but have you considered using the old inverter as primary on invert / gen mode and feed the mains out of the old unit at 230v into the new unit in utility / bat mode. That way you don't need an interlocking selector.
Set the first (old unit) as your charger when power is present so its mains input would be from the genny and at all other times it would be inverting and the second unit would use the supply, augment it if needed then pass the mains to your load.
I am trying not to make it sound to complex... so basically the new unit would be in ups 240v 2 phase out to the house. Its an LF inverter so I am sure it could be set to voltage stable mode like a normal ups would. That way if the voltage from unit 1 (old) was a little low it would stabilize your supply rail to the house.
So you would be covered like this.
1. Battery voltage gets lower than the limit set on unit 1. This can close the relay on the unit, switch over the source supply when the genny is up to voltage. So your covered automatically in the event of low battery.
2. In my experience these units will always pass through the source power and close the relay as the relays are always energised. That is why they present a small load even on standby. when there is any power supply be it mains or battery. This would cover you from unit 1 developing a fault.
3. If unit 2 fails that would then pass through the 230v from unit 1 and close its contact. You would still have power as unit 2 would go into full invert mode. I expect they are DPDT relays on both so you could use one side as an alarm output and the other for a contactor or motorised selector switch.
For monitoring in the home wire the alarm relays second poles in parallel and wire via the batteries on one pair of a multicore cable to a small piezo sounder in the home. I would then use a three phase voltmeter and a dc voltmeter and mount them in a nice looking wooden box (wife proof). You could then wire it as follows and you don't have to worry about voltage drop as the loads are in the milliamp range.
You would need 2 mains rated 6 core flex cables with a very low AC and DC fuse for each pair in case of damage. A 1 amp ceramic would do for everything.
Pair 1. Cable 1. Wire an alarm sounder supply as explained above. Connected to sounder indoors. Wire a latching relay with a button to latch when the 48v (fault) output is on.
Pair 2. Cable 1. DC feed to DC voltmeter to see battery voltage.
Pair 3. Cable 1. You could use a DC hall effect sensor round your DC fuse to show the current draw from your batteries.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pair 1. Cable 2. Mains voltage from your generator feed and a sounder if you want so you would know its started. This would be phase 1 on your three phase voltmeter. *
Pair 2. Cable 2. Mains voltage output from inverter 1. This would show you it was that unit that failed if the display went out. That would be wired to phase 2 on your three phase voltmeter. *
Pair 3. Cable 2. Mains voltage output from inverter 2. Like unit 1 if it went out you would know it was inverter 2 that had failed.This is wired to phase 3 on your three phase voltmeter. *
* You could only use a three phase voltmeter if all of your neutrals are common with each other. If not you will need 3 separate mains voltmeters. If they are common you would only need a small 4 core mains cable. One core for the neutral and the other three for the three mains feed.
I recommend turning your main panel into a split bus and add three more contactors to to the transfer switch so you can use both inverters simultaneously and you have your full 200 amp capacity.
While possible the inverters have a 150 watt idle draw, so the less the seconds one is on, the more effective the system is
@@HighTechLab so you could itergrate a relay across the switch on the inverters to turn them on and off from the control cabinet then you would have no idle draw and you can turn each one on individually.
You are on the right track. So what I ended up doing in later progress, which I have not yet posted a video of, was tied in the black inverter with the PLC that way when I want to use it as a battery charger I can turn it on, and then the diversion power that heats our hot tub comes from the black innverter because the solid state relay and the way it pulses causes odd voltage spikes and drops, so I don't use the power elsewhere. I consider the blue inverter my clean power because it actually outputs a true 240 volts instead of 220 to 225 volts, so the blue inverter Powers the main loads and at this point I am pretty comfortable with the amount of power conversion capacity that I have.
@@HighTechLab ok that's a good solution. What you need now is some more solar so you can charge your batteries fast and use less gas. I Really like the new look of the power room it is way more organized. In the future you should invest in a 24kw inverter so you don't have 2 inverters. Can't wait to see it expand over the years. I would also invest in lion or Lipo batteries so you could have a better energy density and more charge cycles as well as so you don't have to fill them up with water.
How how much money do you have invested in the whole set-up?
Very cool setup, but your busbars give me anxiety 😁
Do you have a full review of the Foxpower 12kw inverter/charger now ? Waiting to see the update. Got a 10Kw and awaiting its arrival
This video is the only one I have on this unit, I am looking at doing a update video talking about how the system has been performing over the last year and likely will have that out within the month
That would be great! Looking forward to seeing it
Which can uses full load on this inverter......... Can we use lifo4 battery.. For long periods of.
i see you have a lot of battery,. are those battery are in parallel 48 v? what is your typical battery life ? thank in advance.
Really cool. Both inverters look strikingly the same when the front covers were taken off. For the battery cut off voltage, is it preset values or user defined values on the new inverter ? Also noticed that both inverters are sharing the same battery bank but one serves as a charger when using the generator. Smart setup.. plus I love the inverter mounting racks, they are really solid. Can't wait to see more reviews on that inverter. In terms of performance, how would you rate them side by side ?
Interesting Ibitapo. You appear to have experience with both inverters. Interestingly I just watched your video on the Foxpower and his on video on it came up recommended. Which of the two is better e.g. Efficiency, noise, idle power draw, weight and so on.
Are you still using the fox inverter? Has it been reliable?
Yes and yes. If you are interested in purchasing one I can get you a discount if you would like. Shoot me an e-mail at info@currentconnected.com
You have a lot invested in you power setup, curious why you went with aluminum for the busbars over something like copper....?
William Huston, Realtor my bus bars are rated at 800 amps. 500 MCM copper is good for 400 amps and cost $3.50 per foot. All of the bus bars are coated at terminations with antioxidant. Modern day Aluminum can be just as good as copper. It is all about how you terminate it.
ah ok, i heard you correctly your powering 2 RV's with this setup?
HighTechLab why did u buy a new inverter
Cio Dokop the company sent it to me for free because they saw my TH-cam channel as wanted to support me
After running both inverters for a little while now what are your thoughts on them? I'm really interested in a singineer 15kw
this impressive inverter was better than your other one
I'm have a hard time with your exposed positive buss bar being out in the open with no protection.
I have the siginner inverter my electronic clocks all of them are delayed, this make me think my inverter is not pure sine wave, did you have this kind of problems or why are your testing another one, how much money did you pay for this new one.
I have the same issue with a Magnum energy inverter. Digital clock loses 2 minutes a day.
@@osseo9947 If your clocks use synchronous motors then I would put more money on it being a mains frequency issue. When the utility company's have a low frequency output they then increase it for the same time period afterwards. It is something that is very hard to get right.
The skill in running the grid is to keep this is balance. Most power stations have well over £1m of equipment just to deal with this issue but as they can control the fields in the windings and electromagnets they have far more control.
If your clocks use a switch mode power supply they should have a 32768 Hz crystal onboard and anyway the switch mode power supply should be able to adjust to voltage variations. As I said its hard to get right.
So how much is that fox power. I looked em up and emailed them but there site doesnt have prices
Did you have a Fascination with wal mart car battery displays and Powerplants as a kid.. What the H is with these Buss bars for 500 amps …. One of the best ways to maximize solar is to scale the system ..not to use a fire hose for garden hose pressure.
But if you have a fire hose ready to go and then one day you need fire hose pressure, you have it without having to reinvent the wheel
Free to you. No price, not sponsored?
They were originally going to send me a 4000 watt unit for video review, but I didn't have a use for a 4000 watt inverter, so I asked them if I could pay the price difference and get the 12,000 watt unit that was more practical for my application.
Do you sell FoxPower inverter like the one is this video, or is there a supplier in the US that you can put me in touch with please.
Thanks
Can this be used with solar sir?
how much did you pay for the inverter
Are your inverters running a floating neutral or are they bonded? Thanks
They are both bonded and the generator is also a separately derived system. They all three have separate neutral bus bars. The transfer switch for the generator transfers the neutral between the blue inverter and the generator. The black inverter neutral and output currently are unused. If they were used they would be treated as a separately derived system also and would have a dedicated panel
With separate neutral bus bar do you have a grounding wire attached to each? How did you bond the neutrals to ground?
Thanks
@@BonitaCreekWaterGuy the neutrals are bonded in the inverters.
Been looking for an inverter with neutrals bonded. Went to Sigineer and was told "We have split phase model up to 15KW.
But the Neutral shouldn't be bonded with ground as indicated in the wiring diagram in the below link
www.sigineer.com/product-category/inverter-chargers/split-phase-inverter-chargers/" . You might want to look into that. I also went to Fox Power and it looks like the neutral can be bonded to ground. Fox Power is the only inverter I have found that shows the neutral bonded to ground. Thank you for the video as it is the first time I have heard of Fox Power.
How you got so many batteries on two inverters
Did you ever get one of the connected as a charger while the other one fed power to the panel? How did you end up utilizing the second inverter?
Yeah. The black inverter turns in and charges batteries whenever generator is running and also is PLC controlled... It turns on to power diversion loads such as our hot tub and turns off when not needed to reduce idle draw. The blue inverter powers the typical loads. The setup has been working extremely well.
@@HighTechLab When the black inverter is charging and the blue inverter needs to supply a heavy load, does the circuit breaker inside the black one trip? Im wondering if this would happen in a similar setup with a 8kw'ish generator.
@@sethreichardt148 the black inverter can only output a set amperage so if there is a heavier load then the black inverter can handle the batteries make up the difference.
@@HighTechLab
@@HighTechLab Thanks for the clarification! Keep up the videos!
how is the fox power inverter working out? what's the max load you have pulled so far? i priced one at $1300 is that right
Max load I've pulled is around 18kw briefly, but I've had it at 100% quite a few times running things like welders or plasma cutter + air compressor. Price wise that is fair, but likely prior to shipping
I like you videos thanks
Your bussbar are totaly exposed, very close to each other(pos./neg.) Hope you will not drop a wrench on it.
go with Midnite solar charge controllers and conext or magnum inverters, then you have something
The outback charge controllers that I have are very competitive - More or less in the same ballpark.
this is what I like to see the meat and potatoes
Good stuff keep it coming!
Whats the point of this powerhouse?!
To run his ranch off grid no power bill.
Funny I run my place with a 3500 power drive inverter and 6 deep cell 80 amp hr batteries and 1200 watts of solar no bus bars two charge controllers and no breakers but im only powering my 40 fr trailer.
Sir kindly put that in single line drawing with all the component name. thanks
Ok next time
They both are the same product becuz they look very similar just that the fox power is rebranded
Not the same. Fox Power has a bonded neutral.
They are indeed made in the same factory.
@@kevinroberts781 Also look like the brand AIMS ,48Vdc in ,10kwatts inverter.
All of that batteries are 12kW ... that is equal to one Tesla car battery module, why not just buy 1 of it on eBay????
Oh! its the inverter that is 12kW! gotcha
Batteries are equal to 100kw
😳😳😳 Wow!!! Bravo
why o why do they make videos too fast to even read the text content...self defeating
Wut? :-\