Inverter vs. generator

[Tom]

China must be mfg'ing them for thir submarine program.  What is the spec on the charging efficiency for the newer ones?

[billdrilling]

Tom , The utility co. that I do a lot of work orders a 3 ton load of these batteries every 5 years and the guy said he could get me a smokin deal or he could give the 5 year old ones for free. Would they be worth a try? They were well maintained. Bill

[LowGear]

Hi billdrilling,

This discussion is more than one click over my head but free to experiment with and test and batteries do clean up so well and how can you say no?  Isn't something like ten years useful life the expectation for industrial batteries?

Casey

[Tom]

A lot can be done for FREE!!! Get 2x what you think you'll need and charge and load test them. Put the best 4 together and you'll probably be good for the next 10 years. Another bonus is that there are a lot of ways to ruin a battery bank. If the bank was free the loss is not so bad. I'd guess that a smoke'n hot deal on a set of those batts is about $15k.

Another thing to consider is what you will be charging these batts with. C/10 is the usually the minimum charge rate for a FLA batt. Do you have a source of 250 amps @ 60vdc? That's ball park'ish around a 15-20 kw generator and/or a pv array in the same range.

[billdrilling]

Now it's getting crazy. I do have my 20kw farm backup isuzu but I kind of wanted to charge with the 12 hp listeroid and solar. 

[mike90045]

China must be mfg'ing them for thir submarine program.  What is the spec on the charging efficiency for the newer ones?

75-80%  just a bit worse than flooded.    They now have a large "freeboard" of about 6", so you don't have to water them weekly.

NiFe has a higher internal resistance, so I went 1/3 larger to accommodate for that too.  Till I get some hydro in, in 2012, I'll have generator runtime in the winter. 

[LowGear]

Greatness costs more!

One of the lessons I've learned from this website.

Casey

[Tom]

Now it's getting crazy. I do have my 20kw farm backup isuzu but I kind of wanted to charge with the 12 hp listeroid and solar. 

Well I said there is a bit of a hole in the product line. A 2500 ah battery is very large for a home system. I've got a 1055 ah battery and that is on the large size for a home system too. The reason for the big generator is to be able to equalize them and be able to charge them regularly to a slow boil to keep the electrolyte mixed. This is particularly important in the great white north where the batts will run cold. I barely squeak by on a 6hp listeroid and 3.4 kw solar.

[billdrilling]

You guys have been a big help. Will get started soon. Bill

[wlb]

I've seen Tom's setup, very nice.  The large 48VDC systems are the way to go.  The inverters have built in 240VAC chargers, so when you run the genset, the batteries charge


solar:http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen:http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,
 http://tinyurl.com/LMR-tre
Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV
Powerfab poletop PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 400A battery bank | 15, Evergreen ESA 205 fa3 "12V" PV | Midnight ePanel |

This site just gets interestinger and interestinger.  I came here expecting to find Listers but didn't expect off-grid solar too - although with hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised.

They're interesting systems you and Tom have, Mike.

How often do you use the Lister on the batteries, and which charger do you use?

My system has a 2.1kW fixed PV array charging a 630Ah 24v battery bank (2v flooded cells) via a pair of Xantrex XWMPPT60-150s.  These replaced an OutBack MX60 when the array was expanded, and before that a pair of Plasmatronic PL40s.

There is another 450W of older PVs sitting in the shed waiting for somewhere to mount them.

The main inverter/charger is a Xantrex SW3024e and the back-up inverter/charger is a Trace DR2424e.

The main generator at present is a Lister SL2 with a direct-coupled Lister 4kVA alternator.  There is also a Lister 8/1 with belt-driven 4kVA alternator waiting in the wings to replace the SL2 when I get a chance.  (Also a 13HP Honda generator/welder with cooked capacitors waiting for rewiring).

I intend to buy or build a tracker or 2 for the PVs and add a small wind generator to help during winter.

[Tom]

The Listeroid is run about 200 hours per year and the bats are now charged using the built in Outback charger. I'm in the process of building a dc direct charger due to some of the limitations of the Outback system.

[wlb]

Thanks Tom,

I run mine about the same although it probably doesn't need it.  It's cheap battery insurance.  I try to avoid not fully charging the batteries every day, even if what they need is only a little bit of topping up.

You say the OutBack charger is built-in ... built into what?  Are you talking about an inverter/charger?
Which model OutBack is it?

I had planned to use direct charging to increase eficiency.  I have a large old 40A 32v belt-driven Dunlite generator that I was going to run with the 8/1.  The batteries are in a small shed with the PVs near the house, but the motor shed is 200m away behind some other sheds.  This meant I needed to set up a new location so the generator was near the batteries, but since adding 700W in extra PVs and the second networked MPPT, Lister running time has reduced dramatically so it isn't worth the effort anymore.

Warwick

[Tom]

I'm using a pair of Outback vfx3648 inverter/chargers.

[wlb]

Nice.

[mike90045]

I've got no run time on the listeroid, other than stating it for 30 sec, to evaluate the vibration.   I am very close to getting the anchors finished.  Earlier this month, I was setting up the new battery bank (link below).
The 6/1 listeroid is coupled to a ST-5 head, and the 240VAC will be fed to AC2 input of the inverter - XW6048, which will bulk charge the batteries.  ( At a programmed rate of 2.5Kw ).


solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,
battery lugs  http://tinyurl.com/LMR-BigLug
Setting up batteries  http://tinyurl.com/LMR-NiFe