Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

Photowhit

Ok I heard this mentioned in an earlier post with some huge price tag, but I just got a sales Email(from sunelec) it's priced at $1000.

It's from Heart, who I believe has done mostly camper and emergency vehicle inverters in the past(from my aging memory, heck my memory had them bought up by Trace/Xantrex)

It appears to accept, 12-48volt DC input, has high efficiency 93%, and if I'm reading it right, can be off grid or back feed the grid.

Info From Them Here.

Short article Here.

I see lots of applications, if only growing a helper in growing a system, appears modular, I need to read up more on these thingy.

westbranch

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

More info

http://blog.homerenergy.com/using-homer-model-advanced-inverter-technology-solar-plus-storage-boulder-colorado/

BB.

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

What, exactly, is a "Transverter"?

I have read the marketing literature a few times in the past--And my eyes just glaze over.

-Bill "getting old" B.

Photowhit

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

BB. wrote: »

What, exactly, is a "Transverter"?

Kinda' what I'd like to know the Wiki says "A transverter is a universal electrical power converter that can combine, convert, analyze and control any combinations of DC or AC power"

Akerson Heart had a successful inverter company and sold out and went sailing, recall something about him wanting a mobile work platform years ago(unless I'm confusing him with someone else, back in the Alt Solar Usenet days before WWW) He's setup a company researching and now building these things in Belize. Someone posted on their facebook page that it had passed UL, Their plant passed ETL... so I'm guessing we'll hear more at some point. Someone posted here about a complete system priced pretty high. I received a Email stating 2000 watt module at around $1,000.

If it can do what it appears they are saying and the controller unit isn't incredibly expensive, I could sell this as a stand alone unit for people just as an off grid inverter/transverter, that they could start with a 12 volt battery bank and 2kw output and grow into their system, 4-6kw output and 24-36v battery bank(from what I can tell it doesn't support the higher voltages of 48v bank under charging conditions.)

Nice link Westbrach!

stephendv

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

BB. wrote: »

What, exactly, is a "Transverter"?

I have read the marketing literature a few times in the past--And my eyes just glaze over.

They would answer so many questions if they just had a single diagram showing how the thing is meant to be connected- and to what. If you speak patentese, here's their patent: http://patents.com/us-6344985.html

From what I can make out: it has a central DC bus, and then multiple DC-DC converters that connect to that bus, so you can connect wind and solar to the same device, and have it work as an ac inverter/charger too.

Sounds to me like the same concept as these: http://powerrouter.com/products/powerrouter-solar-battery-self-use

BB.

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

Google has the drawings too:

http://www.google.com/patents/US6344985

The basic building block (I think?):

Attachment not found.

V122 and V124 are individual voltage sources/sinks (batteries, loads, solar panels, wind, etc.). VM / C126 appears to be a common intermediate voltage bus.

The inductors can behave as either buck (voltage dropping) or, I think, Boos (voltage increasing) switching power supplies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_converter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_converter

Whether operating in Buck or Boost is just the timing/operation of the correct "switches" in the correct pattern with respect to current flow (diodes may be parasitic--If active FETs or similar, would be synchronous rectification--More efficient than "diode" rectification--Has been many years for me....).

Another using H bridge + Transformer:

Attachment not found.

And you can have lots of "modules" sharing the same VM intermediate voltage bus...

-Bill

bill von novak

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

BB. wrote: »

What, exactly, is a "Transverter"?.

Sounds like a bidirectional inverter (a la Outback GTFX series) with an unusually wide input range. From the published range (10-48 volts) it sounds like it could run on 12 or 24 volt systems. Even 36 volt systems, although they are rare.

ZoNiE

Re: Transverter, intersting 2000watt, 12-48v inverter for off and grid tied?

Sounds like something from Star Trek. Why don't they ever make these things in a square box?
Cool idea.