1000w metal halide took down my system

Fe-Wood
Fe-Wood Solar Expert Posts: 96 ✭✭
in General Solar Power Topics #1
Just as a test and because I wanted the light, I plugged my overhead shop light into the Battery powered part of my shops power system.

Here's what I have-
4024PAE Magnum Energy inverter
2/0 wires connecting the battery stings to the inverter.
1000w metal halide light wired for 120 VAC. (sorry, I don't have any more info. Its hanging to high to look at in the dark:cry:)

When I plugged the light in it dimmed the other 2 @ 23w compact florescence to total darkness and stalled the radio (using about 4 amps on the monitor b/4 plug-in). Made bad noises. Unplugged before anything popped. I run this light on a 6.5K gen. set no problem.

Any ideas?

So- this leads me to my next question- what is a good light to use that will run from a battery bank and/or a gen. set? 120VAC- or it could be 240VAC. The afor mentioned light provides plenty of illumination. So I would like to find something similar with out the power hungry side.:D

Thanks-
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Comments

  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,613 admin
    #2
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    It may depend on your ballast... Some ballasts will have a Power Factor almost to 0.50... Which makes the lamp look like a 2,000 VA load to your inverter (not 2,000 watts--VA).

    You probably need to look very closely at the ballast for its part number and determine what its ratings are. Electronic ballasts are supposed to be closer to 0.98 PF.

    Also, check the AC line voltage at the inverter and see if it is going out of spec...

    Also, metal halide lamps are actually "arc lamps" and can create a whole bunch of radio noise on the line--Is this confusing the inverter? Don't know.

    If you don't want to spend a bunch of money experimenting--you may want to call both a ballast company and Midnite to see if they have any suggestions.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • waynefromnscanada
    waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
    #3
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    You don't mention what you have for batteries, but even if you do get that 1000 watt light to work, it's going to suck the power out of your batteries very quickly and it won't be long before you end up with no power. :cry:
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  • Fe-Wood
    Fe-Wood Solar Expert Posts: 96 ✭✭
    #4
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    I will take a look at the ballast today. Its an old light I bought at an auction a while back.

    My battery bank is 8- 6VDC with 395Amp hrs @ 20 hr rate, wired in series and parallel to get 24VDC and 790amp hrs.

    BB-
    It could be the line noise because the geny starts the light just fine w/o major engine change. When I plugged it in to the inverter- lights went out and a humming noise began to rise. I don't think its worth experimenting with... the outcome could be costly.

    I can run about 15 Amps total at 120VAC through the inverter easily with only a small dimming of the lights on startup of a 7-8 amp motor.

    Any suggestions for lights?

    Efficiency is always a good thing but I don't plan on running the light much without the generator running. Sometimes, like last night, when I'm finishing up the day, it would be nice to be able to have the whole shop lit up.

    Thanks guys-
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  • bmet
    bmet Solar Expert Posts: 630 ✭✭
    #5
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    http://www.solar-electric.com/sol12voldcli.html

    How about these DC lights sold by NAWS?

    Edit: I thought your battery bank was 12V before you posted below. Still, since these are standard screw-in base one could wire two of them in series with lamp cord
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,613 admin
    #6
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    Are you looking for an Area Light, or a lamp to light a work station...

    Area lights are going to be difficult--You just need lots of power to light up an entire shop space.

    The new LED spot and floods (still fairly narrow beam--at least the one I tried) are pretty nifty. the "warm" one I got looks similar to a warm CFL--but has a very bright beam a foot or two across 4 feet away from the bulb (I wanted more of a flood for a kitchen table--still not quite there yet).

    If you can meet your work needs with a directed lamp as opposed to an area light--You will be need much less in the way of lumens wen trying to run off grid.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • solarvic
    solarvic Solar Expert Posts: 1,071 ✭✭✭✭
    #7
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    First thing I see wrong is your inverter cables are too small. You should have 4/0 size cables for a 4000 watt 24 volt inverter!! :Dsolarvic:D
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #8
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system
    solarvic wrote: »
    First thing I see wrong is your inverter cables are too small. You should have 4/0 size cables for a 4000 watt 24 volt inverter!! :Dsolarvic:D

    4kW on 24 Volts is about 166 Amps. Easily handled by 2/0.
    In this case a 1kW light @ possibly PF 0.50 = 2kW, though we have to wonder what else is drawing, which is around 84 Amps.

    As Bill said these lights are "arc lights"; possibly the inverter sees this as an intermittent short and is trying to fault/recover rapidly resulting in an apparent V-drop.

    Personally I like 4' fluorescent tube lights for area lighting. Although I fully understand why some people don't like them.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,613 admin
    #9
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    In theory, 2,000VA • 0.5PF = 1,000 Watts

    However, one place I read talk about drawing twice as much current during start up... But that was not clear if it was lamp current or branch circuit current.

    I think this is really ballast dependent too.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • solarvic
    solarvic Solar Expert Posts: 1,071 ✭✭✭✭
    #10
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    My manual for my magnum 4024E, table 2-4 , minumum recomended dc wire size
    (one way) 5 ft or less #2/0 x 2, 5 to 10 ft #4/0 x 2, 10 to 15 ft not recomended. Doubt if very many people with 8 fla batterys have inverter cables shorter than 5 ft. He has plenty of battery but maybe not enough power can get thru those puny cables to overcome the power surge to get them lights to work. :Dsolarvic:D
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #11
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system
    solarvic wrote: »
    My manual for my magnum 4024E, table 2-4 , minumum recomended dc wire size
    (one way) 5 ft or less #2/0 x 2, 5 to 10 ft #4/0 x 2, 10 to 15 ft not recomended. Doubt if very many people with 8 fla batterys have inverter cables shorter than 5 ft. He has plenty of battery but maybe not enough power can get thru those puny cables to overcome the power surge to get them lights to work. :Dsolarvic:D

    Along those same lines, the 790 Amp hour bank having to provide possibly 84 Amps (or more at start up?) can cause trouble too.

    There's no such thing as wire that's too big unless it won't actually fit the connections, eh? :D
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  • solarvic
    solarvic Solar Expert Posts: 1,071 ✭✭✭✭
    #12
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    They used those kind of lights in the foundry I retired from. Going in and turning on them lights on sunday night seemed to takeabout 10 minutes before they were fully lighted. Sure did a lot of humming so must have been sucking power. After they lighted up good they quieted down some. I would like to have the money they spend on electric for the 3 60 ton electric furnaces, 2 500 hp motors to run the air compressors, :Dsolarvic:D
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  • Fe-Wood
    Fe-Wood Solar Expert Posts: 96 ✭✭
    #13
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    So my cables are just under 5'. I mean like 4-6" under. Unless you count the wire to tie the battery strings together. that adds another 2' I don't think it was a supply problem.

    I do use area or work place specific lights, they run on the generator system. I was hoping to use the big over head light with the inverter system and the generator system but given what I'm hearing here and what my system sounded like- I'll run the geny when I need to see like that.

    The overhead light is on the ridge of the building- some 22' in the air. It would be nice to have a light source that could run from the inverter but its sounding like technology hasn't made it there yet.

    A thought just occurred to me, If I used a 220VAC light the draw on the batteries would be the same as the 120 VAC light? Amps out of the inverter would be different but the draw on the batteries would still be the same?
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  • Fe-Wood
    Fe-Wood Solar Expert Posts: 96 ✭✭
    #14
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    Cariboocoot-
    Your figure of 84 amps was startling. I did the math and yes, I suppose it could be drawing that much on start up. So much to learn with electrical conversions...
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,613 admin
    #15
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    Yes, the lamp on 220 VAC will draw about 1/2 the current of a 110 VAC configured/version of the lamp... On the DC battery side, most likely, no difference at all regarding current usage.

    An electronic ballast may be a help (or it may not--don't know).

    Another suggestion, look at a 500 watt lamp instead... As a work light, a factor of 2 or 1/2 change in lighting level is barely perceptible--but would save 1/2 of your battery/inverter energy usage.

    There is an old lighting salesman joke (may have read it here--don't remember)... How many light fixtures/lumens does a a customer need for their application? As much many as you can sell them.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • Fe-Wood
    Fe-Wood Solar Expert Posts: 96 ✭✭
    #16
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    Thats what I thought...

    That light does have a balast but like I mentioned ealier, its old.

    When I have more time, I think I will be looking into alternatives for the overhead light. For now, I'm OK with using it while running the geny. I have used the 500w halogens before and they are nowhere near as bright. I would imagine there is a light that has a slow start up draw like the CFL except on a larger scale.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,613 admin
    #17
    Re: 1000w metal halide took down my system

    In many of our local stores--they install fixtures with a 1/2 dozen CFL's or more... Not sure I really like them (an entire Asian supermarket with that warm "sickly white" color--and not quite "bright and cheery feeling"... Perhaps if they mixed Warm+Daylight bulbs it would help.

    The LED "floods and spots" seem to look nicer--but they are poor at lighting an entire room.

    I have not tried the newer "pineapple" LED's yet (LED's soldered all over rod shaped core)--But I worry that those still do not have sufficient cooling for long life.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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