Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

silvertop

;)Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! I wanted to know if anyone knows if Samlex and Go Power are copies of the same inverters or one and the the same company? I'm running a 48 volt array to 12 volt battery and I need to step up the batteries to 24 volt and am looking at the Samlex SA-200K 124 and the Go Power GP-SW 2000 .
I am considering these two because they both have .3 Amp stand by , adjustable sleep mode/ 1.5 Amp no load consumption, and both are in the $800.00 range. Both have a one seccond surge to 4000 Watts( I can live with this) This is the size inverter we need to run morning wife friendly appliances, and our fridge. Anyone have any good/ bad /ugly about either of these? I am looking for one inverter to do everything and not have multiple inverters for different load aspects..... also not break the budget.....

Thanks.:D

bmet

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

There are many proponents of the task-oriented inverter, probably because there aren't many out there which are able to handle home appliances, yet sip electrons when not in use. Our Moderators might say that an inverter needs a certain amount of energy just to run itself, thus larger inverters use larger amounts of power. It may not be practical to have 36 Amps(nominal) a day being subtracted from a small battery bank.

You didn't mention whether you were replacing you current bank, or just re-assigning ones you already have for 24 volts. Re-wiring 12 to 24V configuration with existing batteries will halve your total Amp Hours, so idle consumption could become a concern.

I don't know Go Power, but the Samlex web site has a disclaimer than their inverters are not meant for motors (high starting surge).

silvertop

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

That's the beauity of the adjustable power save mode ( at least I hope so), the kick in from power save is dip switch adjustable from 40 watts up to 280 watts and in this mode the nominal amp draw is .3 amps/ 7.2 amps per 24 hr. very doable. Still not sure which would be better Samlex or Go Power.

hillbilly

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

The Samlex is a pure sine wave, the Go power is a Modified sine wave; thats the biggest difference if it matters for your application. I've used a Samlex inverter in the past and it worked reasonably well for our purposes, fwiw. Usually the inverter sort of dictates the battery voltage of the system, what's your need for a 12V battery? Lots of 12V loads? Or why the 24V inverter?

I'm kind of with you on sticking to one inverter rather than multiples. I can see the use for multiple inverters in some cases to minimize the power draw of one single big inverter. To me though, that has always seemed like a big expense and a more complex system vs spending that extra cash on some additional PV instead. For example we use our "BIG" inverter (fx3524) in search mode, so that when there's no load it turns off and uses very little power.

silvertop

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

I rechecked and both brands are pure sine wave, Go Power is a little higher priced. Were just trying to grow our array and with two Xw controlers and my C- 60 Its time to up the battery volts. I spent this morning trying to find anything bad or good on line.... I think Ill just sit tite for now.

niel

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

you may find that the solar can adjust to being wired for a higher voltage even if one would place the pvs in series to accommodate, but wind turbines don't have that adjustability. a 12v turbine just doesn't fit into a 24v battery bank.

silvertop

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

I pre planned the turbine and put up a 24 volt mill. We had a strong wind storm last night and it pushed good amps in the batteries, but you know its hard to beat solar. I try to tell everyone to back away from wind and use solar, the sun Is out now Im making amps and the mill is not......any thoughts on the inverters?

niel

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

i wish i could comment on them, but i have no experience with either of them.

silvertop

Re: Moving up to 24Volt Inverter

I think the power save mode might be a good design .3amps/24volts is about what I use with my Xantrex SW 2000 . Ive been seeing about .6 amps/12volts.