converter

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System
System Posts: 2,511 admin
in Solar Beginners Corner #1
My question is that I have a 2000/4000 converter and was wondering why when my electric from the house has been disconnected that I cannot use my existing wire to plug in my converter into the garage wiring without rewiring.If I try this the converter goes out.I have unhooked the ground wires from the main power and still nothing.Is it possible to use my existing wire or do I need all new wiring for solar?I have 4 batteries,4 123 watt sharp solar panels that I would like to use the electric from.Hope this is not to long,Thanks:grr
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,439 admin
    #2
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    Re: converter

    WTE,

    I am not able to follow you very well--so I am not sure of your question...

    Does "Converter"=Inverter? You have a 2,000 watt or 4,000 watt DC to AC inverter that is intended to run power tools and other things from a 12 or 24 battery? And you want to connect the 2kW or 4kW inverter to your house/garage wiring if the power goes down in a storm (or other reason)?

    If so--there are a few issues. The typical MSW (modified square/sine wave) inverter that costs a few hundred dollars for a kW output capacity usually does not like a "grounded neutral" system (your 120 VAC neutral and Ground wire are tied together at the breaker panel).

    Also, you should not just connect an inverter to your house wiring--you need a manual or automatic transfer switch to do this--so you don't accidentally send power back out the utility line and kill somebody--or yourself when the utility power comes back on.

    Talk with a licensed electrician if you need this type of emergency backup power.

    Yes, you can use your 4x123 watt solar panels solar panels... But, be aware that you will not get much power from them relative to how much power your home uses in a day...

    Assuming Texas and full sun--you will get ~2-3 kWhrs per day... Enough to run 1 Energy Star fridge and a few lights, TV... Not bad in an emergency--but no where near the 2-4kW that your inverter can output (you will run your daily production out in 1/2 an hour or so at full load).

    If I guessed all wrong--please feel free to correct me. Hope we can help.

    And don't connect anything to your AC garage circuits until you understand how everything works together (and without a licensed electrician on site too).

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #3
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    Re: converter

    You are right it was misquoted and is in fact a inverter.Let me try to explain,my work shop and garage are 2 separate buildings from the house and I can shut the power off to these 2 buildings.I know that the inverter does not like anykind of ground other than its own.I have disconected the earth and nuetral wire from my power shutoff box.But the inverter still wants to shutoff.Only reason of the large inverter is if I go larger on the panels I will not have to upgade.Thanks for your reply.:grr
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  • icarus
    icarus Solar Expert Posts: 5,436 ✭✭✭✭
    #4
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    Re: converter

    I think that you have to do a bit more homework.

    First, plugging an inverter into any building wired circuit is very dangerous to everyone EVEN if you have pulled a breaker to "shut off" the grid power. All it takes is a mistaken breaker position to kill a power line worker a great distance away from your service.

    Second, I think that you should do some research as to how to wire inverters, transfer switches etc. This is not something that you should just "plug in the inverter"

    The dangers of disconnecting neutrals and grounds so that a cheap modified sinewave inverter is not a good idea. There are good inverters (grid tie) that will allow you to do this safely, or other inverters with proper transfer switches that you can use.

    Avoid the "ready, fire , aim" syndrome!

    Good luck and be safe,

    Icarus

    Ps. spend as much time as you can reading this and other information sources to educate yourself as to how this all works.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,439 admin
    #5
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    Re: converter

    The only two things I can think of are 1. there is another earth/ground connection in your outbuildings... or 2. that your loads are so high that battery bus input voltage to your inverter is collapsing because of high current draw and/or small batteries + small gauge wiring + under charged battery bank...

    You might have to go out and disconnect your wiring at every distribution panel, connect your inverter, test, then wire up the next box, until you find where it fails. Would not be the first time that some sort of miss-wiring has occurred in a home.

    And, you are not disconnecting the earth/safety ground from the boxes--just lifting the Neutral connection--right?

    Also, another question--how are you handling the 120/240 volt connections--assuming that is how your power is being distributed and that you have a 120 VAC inverter and no 120/240 volt center tapped transformer. You are not mixing 1/2 the 120 VAC using the inverter with the other 1/2 of the 120 VAC with utility feed? And, assuming that you have no 240 VAC appliances in the garages--if you tie the two 240 hot leads together for 120 VAC to neutral--you will have a problem with over current on the neutral leads as they will be carrying twice the current they have been designed to support.

    Warning--Diagnosing and hacking your home's AC wiring based on information from a computer forum is very dangerous. I could be misunderstanding your issues and get you/your family into some very serious / life threatening situations if you don't 100% know what you are doing.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #6
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    Re: converter

    Look guys Bills responce was farily close,No #1 I have my manual breaker for the 2 buildings on 2-30 amp breakers so when I pull this everything is off and no chance of sendinging anything back to the guys,also the house has 2 Generac circuit panels so with the backup gen it is impossible to send back any power.I respect the work that they do My ? WAS SIMPLE AS TO WHY THE SYSTEM WOULD SHUT DOWN.Got to be a ground problem and I do not want to run more wire when I have this already hooked up.I realize that I am a newby to this site but I still dont understand the problem.Dont learn if you dont ask.Thanks
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #7
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    Re: converter

    Warning--Diagnosing and hacking your home's AC wiring based on information from a computer forum is very dangerous. I could be misunderstanding your issues and get you/your family into some very serious / life threatening situations if you don't 100% know what you are doing. ANSWER (And just what the heck is that supossed to mean.)If this isnt some kind of ploy I will never understand all the dogooders.If I wanted to hack free electric,I would go up the pole and do it.I have over 4000 invested and only wanted to see if anyone could help,but thanks to a bunch of no it all,no help here,just talk.
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #8
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    Re: converter
    wildcatervin wrote: »
    If this isnt some kind of ploy I will never understand all the dogooders.If I wanted to hack free electric,I would go up the pole and do it.I have over 4000 invested and only wanted to see if anyone could help,but thanks to a bunch of no it all,no help here,just talk.
    Sounds like perhaps you should consider moving on to other less informed forms that deal in BS and tell you what you want to hear. That would also remove the good members of this awesome form from any involvement if and when your project blows up in your face.
    You would have no way of knowing it, but the guys here that you have been communicating with are some of the very best, highly educated and experienced people you'll find anywhere in the USA and beyond, when it comes to the solar / wind / hydro fields.
    Cheers and the best of luck in your future projects.
    Wayne
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,439 admin
    #9
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    Re: converter

    wildcatervin,

    Gee... I listed thoughts what the problem could be and asked some questions--and just a warning at the end to be careful...

    I cannot tell through the Internet how much knowledge you (or others reading this thread) may have. Is there anything wrong with this warning? I was not talking about hacking a utility meter to get free power--I was talking (and asking) about lifting neutral and safety grounds--you wrote:
    I have disconected the earth and nuetral wire from my power shutoff box.

    That--from my understand of the NEC/UBC is pretty much hacking the safety aspects of your home's wiring.

    I don't always agree with the NEC on how they spec. safety--especially around solar equipment (and 20 years ago, around DC equipment like large Telephone Network power systems). But--as a designer of computer systems--I had to have a very good reason for violating NEC/UL specifications before I could ship a computer.

    And that is why I asked you:
    And, you are not disconnecting the earth/safety ground from the boxes--just lifting the Neutral connection--right?

    To confirm that you where not doing something that could be very dangerous (lifting safety grounds) or when I asked you about:
    if you tie the two 240 hot leads together for 120 VAC to neutral--you will have a problem with over current on the neutral leads as they will be carrying twice the current they have been designed to support.

    I am just trying to make sure (to the best of my ability) that your keeping everything safe at your home...

    I truly have run out of ideas. I asked you some questions which you did not answer--so what can I do on a forum?

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • icarus
    icarus Solar Expert Posts: 5,436 ✭✭✭✭
    #10
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    Re: converter
    wildcatervin wrote: »
    Look guys Bills responce was farily close,No #1 I have my manual breaker for the 2 buildings on 2-30 amp breakers so when I pull this everything is off and no chance of sendinging anything back to the guys,also the house has 2 Generac circuit panels so with the backup gen it is impossible to send back any power.I respect the work that they do My ? WAS SIMPLE AS TO WHY THE SYSTEM WOULD SHUT DOWN.Got to be a ground problem and I do not want to run more wire when I have this already hooked up.I realize that I am a newby to this site but I still dont understand the problem.Dont learn if you dont ask.Thanks


    Even with this description, as I understand it, there is a danger of back feeding the line to the power pole. IF someone were to inadvertantly turn either of the above 30 amp breakers, it would back feed to the main breaker and thus to the grid, regardless of any generac transfer switch. If the transfer switch is wired the way I think it is (or should be!) it won't care if it gets it's voltage from the grid or from backfeeding. All it knows is if it is energized it should be in the "grid position".

    As to the ranting about the members of this forum. If you don't like the answers given, then you are free to go elsewhere! No one here gets paid for anything, and no one is selling anything. Many are world class experts in the fields of electrical engineering, inverter design, PV design etc. Their only goal is to educate those amongst us that are less well informed. (My self included) So instead of ranting about not getting an answer, perhaps you should think a bit more about your expectations. It also seems that if you have spent $4000 on this hardware (I'm not even quite sure what it is and for!) you should be able to contact the seller for information.

    Good luck with your project, and please, respect the help that you can get here.

    Tony
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  • icarus
    icarus Solar Expert Posts: 5,436 ✭✭✭✭
    #11
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    Re: converter

    My, my, I think the OP had moved on? Perhaps the moderators could delete the entire thread since it doesn't make much sense anyway,

    Icarus
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #12
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    Re: converter
    icarus wrote: »
    My, my, I think the OP has moved on? Perhaps the moderators could delete the entire thread since it doesn't make much sense anyway,

    Icarus

    I agree. Help was offered but the whole thing turned into a mess unbecoming of this great form. Really it didn't make any sense right from the very beginning.

    Wayne
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #13
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    Re: converter

    Bill,
    Thanks for your help and I do apolagize for being a little short on you .And you had good points which I did not cover.This is my first solar project and I am trying to comprehend how it works.Back in the 50/60 I was a survey engineer for the US army.But I guess many things have changed over my years.Got to believe the rest of the crowd,that I need to get out of this forum and try to regroup.Thanks again for your help and I will go back to finding these things out by studying.
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  • icarus
    icarus Solar Expert Posts: 5,436 ✭✭✭✭
    #14
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    Re: converter

    You don't have to leave,, just be clear with your expectations, and be polite to those that try to help,

    Lets start over with a clean slate.

    Icarus
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  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    #15
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    Re: converter
    icarus wrote: »
    You don't have to leave,, just be clear with your expectations, and be polite to those that try to help,

    Lets start over with a clean slate.

    Icarus

    I second that! None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes now and then.
    Lets take it from the top.
    Wayne
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