CS6P-200 Canadian Solar PV / Xantrex C40 project

[st2288]

Enphase is great for gearing for future expansion and with shading problem.
The problem with the enphase is when it fails, it will be a royal big pain to replace it when it is mounted on the roof. For the ground mounted.. there is nothing better especially when you have a small system..

[Xringer]

I built a little box to hook up the new panels to the coax cable.



Sadly, the switch was defective.. It must have had a little resistance, since it slowly got hot and smoked..

Found an old switch that I used on my old drill-press (35 years ago)..
It's amazing the junk I've saved. Tossed the press, but kept the old washing machine motor..

This will allow me to run power into the house using surplus coax cable.
It's a little lossy.. I figure this run will cost me 6 to 8 watts..

~~

Did not go with the C-40.. Decided to spend a few extra bucks and get a
Tri-Star TS-45 charge controller. It's similar to the C-40, just has more
capabilities.

It looks a little like this.. (on the right).

[st2288]

looks good...

[Xringer]

Sunday Dec 5, 2010

Made it over to AutoZone this afternoon. Oh, my aching back!

The batts are all imprinted(above large label) with the same factory code (gibberish text ending in 10).

All 4 looked very new (no dings) and all had little round stickers
with the numbers 10/10 on them. The AZ man told me that's the date code.

All 4 measured between 12.72 & 12.77 volts.






Now where's my new charger?

[st2288]

I got it up and running late yesterday.. the 1kw string generated about 2kw today... very good..indeed

[Daox]

Looks like that pack will give you just over 2kWh of usable capacity. Have you figured out what you want to take off grid yet?

[Xringer]

Originally Posted by Daox

Looks like that pack will give you just over 2kWh of usable capacity. Have you figured out what you want to take off grid yet?

I want to be able to power three pumps.
http://ecorenovator.org/forum/applia...ave-power.html

That means the ability to draw about 1kw of power max, with surges of about 2kw maybe?

This requirement has me thinking about getting a 1kw true Sinewave inverter.
And it would be great to have one that could run at 24, 36 or 48 DC volts.


Plan 'A' is, to charge up the pack with the PV (using either the 400w or 500w array).

Once the system hits 'Float', a DIY Float voltage sensor would turn on the inverter dump load.

The inverter AC output would drive an automatic AC transfer switch like this one.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/solar-...html#post10005

Which would be connected to household loads that totaled about 400w average.
Since it would be using the left-over PV power, that's not longer needed
for charging.

Once the PV+pack voltage dropped back to the bulk charge range,
the Float voltage sensor would disconnect the inverter load.

I would like to be able to adjust the Float voltage sensor so the load
would bring the pack down to about 80% SOC before turning off the load.

So, as night fell, the pack would have 80% left over to use during the evening.
Some small loads of LED lighting etc.

I'm going to need to figure out what items (besides the pumps) I'll want to power during
a grid failure, and built the hardware to handle it, automatically.
Or, I could drive my wife crazy and set up a manual system.

[Xringer]

Got the TS-45 today. Had a little problem with the RS232 cable, but my soldering skills prevailed.



Got it hooked up to a 12v battery so I could check the settings and change anything that needed tweaking.
Don't know why it thinks I've got 6.85 volts from the array.. It's never been hooked up.. Besides, it's dark!

When I unplug the battery from it's little charger, I can see the 14v values start to drift down.
Gotta love that real-time data.. For a free download, it's pretty nice software..

[Xringer]

Didn't get it hooked up fast enough. I think my panels are losing the sun by 2:30ish..

We should get a little sun in the AM, and I'll see how it does.. Maybe!

Wiring up the charger.



Portable power supply.



Testing.. (I wish it the sun was up)!


I'm connected to the 500w array (the 400w is heating water), so it should
be able to hit the higher voltages needed during 'equalizing' mode.
48v is the max limit for the TS-45.. I was surprised to see that it can
be configured (via PC) for 36v..

Cheers,
Rich

[st2288]

very nice set up... how's the 400w ? heating the water?