Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

nigtomdaw · December 2007

Hi, Ive been looking at Tripplite 36 volt 3600 watt UPS unit Eurospec 230 v 50 hz. here is the link http://www.govconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=6815235

I went to see my friends today who Im installing a SW3048E in the near future and he invited me over to his neighbours who;s having a rather expensive install $32k and for his money he is getting 800 watts of solar a 1kw windturbine... 36 v 800 ah AGM battery bank. What started worrying me after the unusual base voltage, was that after speaking with the installer... an electrical engineer..... a mechanical and electronics designer ( yep he was all of them) he has fitted no charge controllers as hes worked out they will not be needed because the loads will always be greater than supply. No AC or DC fuses of disconnects in sight.....shoddy workmanship (sorry it was awfull). Hes installed the windturbine at the side of a valley within 50 ft of a 200 ft tree covered hill, it didnt spin one revolution whilst I was there , on for 2 hours during a very blustry day, it turned more on its pivot axis than anything else ! . But he also claimed that the Tripplite unit was a Pure Sinewave. Looking at manufacturers blurb it states PWM Sinewave, which me thinks first Pulse Width Modulated Sinewave this means Modified Sinewave. Am I right. The retail cost of $999 also indicates MS. Please enlighten

The reason the subject was intially brought up was because they had fitted a new water pump yesterday with an electronic pressure switch and the control circuit had fried. The second replacement pump fitted this morning also fried just before I arrived. Im aware MSW perfers its food fried than any other way:p

Solar Guppy · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

Yuk ... friend is getting a poor deal

You must have breakers/fuses and without a charge controller, the array will discharge the battery bank at night.

I hope the friend hasn't paid in full and has a written contract, friend might want to get the local inspecters involved to motivate the "installer" to fix things and to make sure its upto code, otherwise the home-owner insurance would dis-allow any claims

On the inverter, if it isn't real sinewave, it can be anything , never heard of pwm-sine ... that could infer its a duty-cycle modified square-wave and has longer duty-cycles ( peak of wave ) as current load increases but still is a square wave .. but this is a guess

nigtomdaw · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

SG Ive briefed my friend as its his neighbour, I live over 60 kms way. he thinks he paid him up front. I'm looking for confirmation on the Tripp Lite MSW or Pure sine Wave. Its not my call but I can load my friend with a list of questions his neighbour may wish to ask his installer, I-m in Spain and this thing happens all two frequently on many things with the ex-pat community that they actually have a name for people or companies like this Bodgit & Scarper

niel · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

i might suggest you contact tripp-lite to ask them how many steps they use in their design as the number of steps is what determines the quality of the waveform as they all are technically modsine. When the (thd) total harmonic distortion content is below i believe 5% we consider it a sine wave and so this may be the better thing to ask them for. some research has yielded this definition of pwm sine wave from their site.

PWM Sine Wave

Describes an alternate AC waveform to sine wave and PWM sine wave. Considered a mid-level waveform by most, desirable for all but the most sensitive of critical of computing applications. Rather than the smooth arc typically associated with a sine waveform, a PWM sine wave offers several rectangular steps to help mimic the energy supply of a sine wave. During the 1990's most manufacturers of standby and line interactive UPS systems began providing products with PWM sine wave output. See PWM sine wave and sine wave.

they also have a term of pseudo sine wave and it said see pwm sine wave and this all comes from their glossary found here: http://www.tripplite.com/support/glossary/detail.cfm?mode=1&range=8
it would be interesting to know how many steps they are using or the thd spec so if you find out let us know. if they refuse to answer your inquiry it would signal to me that they are modsine wave and not sine wave.

nigtomdaw · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

HMMMMM, ! Thanks Niel its interesting in what they dont say rather that what they do. Sinewave to them is the perfect wave thus true or pure, therefor anything else like square or modified or PWM is an elevated form of the not perfect square wave so I think its a posh word for modified , or slightly better that modified, I accept what your saying about the steps as I think the SW Xantrex range when examined closely is very fine steping and can be considered true or pure from a electrical useage point and the Outback is a better form still.

Is it somewhere between a DR unit and a SW unit, I suppose Ill only find out when I email them.

But me thinks as its fried two cicuit boards on those pumps its just a posh acronym for a modified unit, the retail price seems to confirm this.

System2 · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

Here is a wiki on PWM sine waves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-width_modulation . Technically, accourding to the details, even a square wave could be called PWM sine wave.

If the rotor on the wind generator didn't spin at all, it might have the output windings shorted together. From what I have read, that's used to lock the rotor if you don't want it to turn. It might come from the factory like that to prevent movement during shipment.

It sounds like the advise to get references from previous customers was not followed here, too bad it cost him so much for so little and such poor quality. You should really get your friend to recommend a charge controller. Ruining that 36 x 800ah AGM battery would be adding insult to injury.

Cheers,

Bad Apple

nigtomdaw · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

Emailed Tripplite 3 days ago, no reply website states emails answered in one working day. I wait patiently 8)

niel · December 2007

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

i'm not going to hold my breath, but if by chance you do hear from them let us know. ps i mentioned i got 3 used tripp-lite ups and guess what they call the ac output? yep:roll:

System2 · January 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

Neil.....what do they call the AC output?

niel · January 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

from my previous post "PWM Sine Wave".

nigtomdaw · June 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

As an update the so called Electrical and Mechanical Engineer. He eventually withdrew the 36v MSW Tripplite Unit and replaced it with a Tripplite Pure sinewave 48v 6 kw Unit. At Tripplites expense according to the Installer. However the unit can only be configured by dip switches and the two charging options were approximately 27 amps or 95 amps. at 48v DC .Not much of an option .

To cut a long story short the new unit wouldnt sync with any generator for more than 15 minutes at a time the customers battery bank was down at 43/45 volts at best and they were already to sell up and go back to the Uk.

He was running his 4.5kva generator 9 to 12 hours a day. I went to see them at the request of his neighbour (My Friend) and found that although he replaced the 36v Triplite MSW with a 48v Pure Sine wave, he hadnt altered the 36v Nominal PV array to 48v. thus his 800w array was doing nothing. I loaned him an Xantrex C40 rewired his array to 60 volt to allow for a 75m wire run with substandard wire and put him on a strict recharge programme to get his batteries up.

He made enquiries with Tripplite and they confirmed my suspicions that they do not currently make an offgrid (generator based) inverter all there Inverters are for grid connection only. (UPS)

Again keeping it short. A summary of the next 4 weeks of nearly 12 hours /7 days a week genny run time he had with solar assistance got his batteries back to 52/53v when I installed a VFX3048E inverter and a MX60 CC. In 4 hours genny runtime his batteries hit 57.6 volts . He was gobsmacked. Over the last 2 weeks he has with genny assistance completed a full 90 min absorb cycle daily and has averaged about 2 hours runtime daily. He is now monitoring his saved batteries and reducing his genny runtime to get three full absorb cycles per week. He intends to increase his PV capacity by a further 40%.

This has been my first professional install and to not get any phone calls for problem shooting or hey my lights havejust gone off in two weeks since comission and see smiling faces has been a joy . I turned up to day to pick my install fees. PS this was a complete new install with new outback gear and not related to my s/h VFX3048E teething problems from the other day. Im not posting this to blow my own trumpert because the original idiot installer (who has done a runner) and is the Villian of the post.

My purpose of this post is to thank all the great members of NAWS who have helped me over the last couple of years in developing a sound base of off grid installations I really enjoy my work. Thanks to every one. Nigel

Post Pics soon.

BB. · June 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

That is really cool Nigel!

There is so much that needs to thought through and work to be done on technical jobs that it really feels good to "toot your own horn" when it all comes together successfully on difficult project...

Been down those roads myself where you are the only one that knows what the problems are and how you ended up fixing them--and nobody else really has a clue or can appreciate the elegance of the solution. Or the professional risks and monetary costs if your solution turns out to not work because of some other unforeseen problem(s).

Sometimes the praise "it works like it is supposed to..." just needs a bit more! :-)

-Bill

niel · June 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

actually it's not so much of a tooting of one's horn, but more of a relief of knowing you did it and you don't have to worry about it now because it worked out and you shout it to the world in release of all pent up emotions from it!:cool::D
did i get it right nigel?

boB · June 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

TooT ! TooT ! All you like ! I love hearing these kind of stories.
Good job Nigel !

boB

System2 · June 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

nigtomdaw wrote: »

As an update the so called Electrical and Mechanical Engineer. He eventually withdrew the 36v MSW Tripplite Unit and replaced it with a Tripplite Pure sinewave 48v 6 kw Unit. At Tripplites expense according to the Installer. However the unit can only be configured by dip switches and the two charging options were approximately 27 amps or 95 amps. at 48v DC .Not much of an option .

To cut a long story short the new unit wouldnt sync with any generator for more than 15 minutes at a time the customers battery bank was down at 43/45 volts at best and they were already to sell up and go back to the Uk.

He was running his 4.5kva generator 9 to 12 hours a day. I went to see them at the request of his neighbour (My Friend) and found that although he replaced the 36v Triplite MSW with a 48v Pure Sine wave, he hadnt altered the 36v Nominal PV array to 48v. thus his 800w array was doing nothing. I loaned him an Xantrex C40 rewired his array to 60 volt to allow for a 75m wire run with substandard wire and put him on a strict recharge programme to get his batteries up.

He made enquiries with Tripplite and they confirmed my suspicions that they do not currently make an offgrid (generator based) inverter all there Inverters are for grid connection only. (UPS)

Again keeping it short. A summary of the next 4 weeks of nearly 12 hours /7 days a week genny run time he had with solar assistance got his batteries back to 52/53v when I installed a VFX3048E inverter and a MX60 CC. In 4 hours genny runtime his batteries hit 57.6 volts . He was gobsmacked. Over the last 2 weeks he has with genny assistance completed a full 90 min absorb cycle daily and has averaged about 2 hours runtime daily. He is now monitoring his saved batteries and reducing his genny runtime to get three full absorb cycles per week. He intends to increase his PV capacity by a further 40%.

This has been my first professional install and to not get any phone calls for problem shooting or hey my lights havejust gone off in two weeks since comission and see smiling faces has been a joy . I turned up to day to pick my install fees. PS this was a complete new install with new outback gear and not related to my s/h VFX3048E teething problems from the other day. Im not posting this to blow my own trumpert because the original idiot installer (who has done a runner) and is the Villian of the post.

My purpose of this post is to thank all the great members of NAWS who have helped me over the last couple of years in developing a sound base of off grid installations I really enjoy my work. Thanks to every one. Nigel

Post Pics soon.

Congratulations on a job well done! Imagine what a great reference he'll be for your business. It's hard to beat "best product at the best price".

Cheers,

Bad Apple

nigtomdaw · July 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

A few pictures of the install. There still needs conduit to cover the wires running from the disconects to the shelf below to tidy up the instalation. A nice finish is the custom made labels using MS Publisher and sticky back glossy paper and an inkjet printer.The silver spec sheet pic 2 allows the customer a quick reference guide to his system. My first pro install and yes I should have placed the disconnects below the DC breaker box as in the future this would all have to be relocated if the customer decided to fit a second VFX.

westbranch · July 2008

Re: Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

Nigel, TIC (toungue in cheek) I notice that the closest tool to the install is a HAMMER! Just a gentle tap?;)

cheers

Eric

Tripplite UPS Modified or Pure Sinewave

Comments

Categories