Dump load water heating element with built in thermostat!

solarvic

First I want to say I looked on our forum sponsers website first before to see if he sells this item. I saw a dc waterheating element that has a built in thermostat that I think should be good for a dumpload. I want to try ac coupling and thought this might work for me if i needed a dumpload . Missouri wind and solar has it on ebay and they have a movie about it. Anyone have one yet that could give a report on it? I am thinking of installing one in the bottom of my Geospring waterheater and setting it to about 110 f and let the geospring heat the water to the setting of 120 f. They also show how to use the ac thermostat to control a regular dc waterheating element which I kind of think isn,t too good of an idea. :Dsolarvic:D

Cariboocoot

Re: Dump load water heating element with built in thermostat!

The only problem is: dump loads, by definition, have to be available all the time. If the heating element is disconnected by the thermostat and the power needs to go somewhere, where does it go?

solarvic

Re: Dump load water heating element with built in thermostat!

I am planing to ac couple and my gti inverter. output is 2000 watt max output which I don,t think will overpower my loads or overcharge my forktruck battery. I am at home most all the time and probably will plan on using any excess power most of the time doing laundry ect. Preety hard to overcharge the forktriuck battery unless I went on vac or something similar and would probably just turn off the gti inverter. Mostly I was wandering if anyone saw one of those heating elements with the thermostat? I also have a 50 gal waterheater I could preheat the water before the geospring. I supose this will be all a learning experience to me as no one seems to say much about ac coupling. I put a post asking about ac coupling about a week ago and no one gave me any replys about the questions I was asking. Thanks mark for your reply. :Dsolarvic:D

Cariboocoot

Re: Dump load water heating element with built in thermostat!

Actually AC coupling issues come up a lot around here. The short version is that unless the equipment was all designed to work together that way it's a gamble as to whether or not (or how well) it will work.

Xantrex XW inverters are meant to work this way, I think. And of course the Sunny Island (especially well with the Sunny Boy GTI). Most other inverters will find you up against the regulation troubles like back-feeding the batteries too much.

Haven't seen the T-controlled DC element, but I bet a lot of people on this forum will be interested in how well it works. You get to be the guinea pig: let us know.