Victron is Over-priced Eurotrash. Why would anybody buy Victron over an AiO?

[NC_hydro]

I was pretty much settled on dual Quattro 8kw or 4 x multiplus2 4kw but lately I’ve been entertaining a Schneider setup. 100% off grid no permits. Trophy 304ah x2 with hydro and solar booth feeding the system. Gravity spring so no well pump but do have some large woodworking equipment.

 

[Brucey]

I was pretty much settled on dual Quattro 8kw or 4 x multiplus2 4kw but lately I’ve been entertaining a Schneider setup. 100% off grid no permits. Trophy 304ah x2 with hydro and solar booth feeding the system. Gravity spring so no well pump but do have some large woodworking equipment.

Be careful, I don't think the 8kVA Quattro's can be paralleled like the 5, 10 and 15kVA can be

 

[Brucey]

Oh are you talking about the 10k?

 

[Hedges]

My 110v loads never exceed 20A, so it was actually perfect for the application. It did not however provide 120v/120v. I looked it up on the pictures after my last post. It 116v/124v, an 8 volt spread. The only way I can see that happening is if the winding is bad.

I think transformers are often specified as 3%, meaning secondary starts out 3% high in voltage under no-load, drops to 3% low with load.

An auto-transformer has two coupled windings that are identical. If used with 120V input to make 240V and other 120V phase, sized as for 3% isolation transformer, could get 6% droop. So maybe good for half the current.

With 240V in and carrying 2/3 of rated current on center tape, 4V droop from 120V seems reasonable. Any harm you see in that?


Where I've tried to create 3-phase using 3x SI fed by 120V from grid, grid has been 125V for L1, and L2 & L3 are rock solid 120V from the inverters. I think imbalance is not a good thing for 3-phase transformers and motors. It was OK for 3x single-phase transformers, but I had issues with high neutral current using 3-phase on one E-core.

I'm quite familiar with a dry transformer with which I could do something similar but would actually handle 120v@200a or any combination of 240/120 that did not exceed 24KW (for any length of time). I just was avoiding putting one of those 400lb monstrosities somewhere. I think the dry transformers are like 95% efficient.

I do have several of those monstrosities. Have you seen my threads on idle current waveform?
For your application, I would feed 240V into 240V + 240V = 480V primary winding, ground center tap, and call it a relatively ideal auto-transformer.

 

[ksmithaz1]

I do have several of those monstrosities. Have you seen my threads on idle current waveform?
For your application, I would feed 240V into 240V + 240V = 480V primary winding, ground center tap, and call it a relatively ideal auto-transformer.

A bit off topic, but wow, not seen the thread but very interesting will go poke around. . . I agree, and a simple 480/240 can be had for < $2K, but you really do need a place to put it. My question would be how much it would help with surge currents and such more so than the neutral angle; since I went with the EG4 the split phase is now built in. If you are pushing 3-phase output surge is probably not as bad to start with, dunno, my experience with 3P is having the idiot electrician wire the 110v outlets to a 277v lighting circuit, along with exploding power strips. The dry transformers I've dealt with were for isolation from some heavy equipment that kept dimming the lights, and screwing up the power in the server room. It did help quite a bit, but we were peeling off a leg here and there of the 3P, ... at the time I was listnin' and learnin' why that wire goes there. The screw machines were all running 3P direct wire but some of the other stuff was L15-30 and some L6 here and there. The swamp coolers were all 240 I think the HVAC was all 3P. We also had plenty of room to mount the box and stick a panel behind it to feed the room. We had the requisite power bill to go with it, well into 5 digits. Big building over 100 machines on the main floor. Amazing what you pick up building out server rooms.

 

[Hedges]

120/240 high-leg delta 3-phase would have one leg that could cook some stuff.
I hope nobody ever wires a leg of 277/480 to a 120V outlet.

transformers don't help with surge current, unless they are taking in 2 legs of a 240V circuit and therefore putting twice the power on a 120V circuit.

3-phase motors have just as much surge as single-phase, but better starting torque. And can start & run on reduced voltage (step-down transformer) for reduced surge current.

Used 25kVA transformers can be had for $300 to $600, but shipping may double that. I got one 3-phase shipped reasonably, picked up two other transformers by driving down to Southern California.

Transformer waveforms.
TL;DR: Don't try to backfeed secondary. Don't feed primary at rated voltage using inverter, feed at reduced, like 50% voltage (120V into 240V winding.)

transformer excitation current - isolation transformer used as auto-transformer

So you think you can backfeed a transformer secondary, either as step-up or as auto-transformer? Turns out these things aren't so ideal and reversible as one might expect. It isn't just the greater inrush (primary is often wound outside secondary to reduce inrush current), but also idle current...

diysolarforum.com

Auto-transformer helping balance load on two 120V inverters stacked for 240V
TL;DR: It helps, but only a bit. Isolation transformer would be much better, but refer to "Transformer waveforms", above.

Measurement of auto-transformer balancing low-frequency inverter

I tested the effect of a 9kVA toroid auto-transformer connected to 120/240V split-phase low-frequency inverters. Inverters are SMA Sunny Island 6048-US, four wired series parallel. I also turned off output breakers to test with two wires in series. Imbalanced load was applied with four...

diysolarforum.com

 

[Edphonse]

smart solar 250/100 + 2x 5000va multiplus II + 30kwh eg4 + 12*450 watt solar panels would be 1k+3k+9k+2k = 15k ish, if you spend 600 a month in gas (goddamn), that would be around two years plus change in payback time if you dont count the car.
Now try a 24k three phase system that can take 20kwp of solar and 60kwh of batteries with victron, plus 37x530w solar panels, you might as well buy the damn sun.

Close, it was like 875 for the scc, I got the multiplus 2s for 2400ish as I recall, they are the us version 120v version, the batteries were 1300 and yea it was around 2k for the panels and then a few hundred on cables, cerbo gx, etc. The grand total was under 15k. I bought all of it last year and it was a self build off grid, so I already got about 3k back in taxes. So my actual out the door cost was about 11k.

Yea, gas has been sitting around $5/gal for the past 2 years and I was driving around 100 miles a day at about 18 mpg. So I was spending 75-85 every 3 days x7 worked out to around $600/month. My tesla payment and initial electric bill difference prior to the solar was around $400/mo.

 

[Vigo]

For the first thing i really don't want to spend the money to upgrade to Victron even though i want it. But the possibly more important reason is that I dont want to spend the silly amount of time i will spend playing with all the possibilities that the Victron interfaces give you. Like, i love it, i want it, it's a rabbit hole that fits my personality perfectly i would end up with a beautifully interconnected and automated and 'tuned-in' thing that nobody but myself and some people on this forum would be able to appreciate.. but that's also why i should leave it alone for the time being when i'm still coming down from having mentally overbooked myself for a few years running.

But yeah, blue stuff is in my future. When i have headspace to take advantage of all the coolness.

 

[JoeHam]

Clickbait!!!

But the thread will grow to 600 replies

What, nearly 24 hours in and we’re only at 69 posts ??

Pick up the pace people ?.

 

[ksmithaz1]

120/240 high-leg delta 3-phase would have one leg that could cook some stuff.
I hope nobody ever wires a leg of 277/480 to a 120V outlet.

Oh they did. Blessfully we discovered by blowing up surge protectors setting up the cubes. A handful of people were there on laptops, before the space officially opened. The Lenovo power bricks did not seem to mind. Once I put the fluke on an outlet, I told them it would be wise none-the-less to unplug until we got it corrected. I did tell my tech he was full of it when he said the power strips were exploding when they plugged them in and turned them on. (Crawling under desk, clik, KA-POW, bang head on underside of desktop, owww, ummm, okay then . . .).

Your graphs and charts are interesting. Wading in a little deep but that's what makes it fun! 3-phase is wierd. Not as wierd as the 400HZ stuff we used to use in the military. Being able to bring 3 times the current with twice the wires is a nice trick.

 

[NC_hydro]

Oh are you talking about the 10k?

They don't make a 10KW, it's 8KW. (10,000VA)

 

[Brett V]

For the first thing i really don't want to spend the money to upgrade to Victron even though i want it. But the possibly more important reason is that I dont want to spend the silly amount of time i will spend playing with all the possibilities that the Victron interfaces give you. Like, i love it, i want it, it's a rabbit hole that fits my personality perfectly i would end up with a beautifully interconnected and automated and 'tuned-in' thing that nobody but myself and some people on this forum would be able to appreciate.. but that's also why i should leave it alone for the time being when i'm still coming down from having mentally overbooked myself for a few years running.

But yeah, blue stuff is in my future. When i have headspace to take advantage of all the coolness.

I feel you! LOL

 

[HRTKD]

I probably couldn't get any more Blue in the face if I held my breath. Between Victron and Blue Sea Systems the setup in my RV is very blue. But I did draw the line on batteries and built my own instead of buying Victron LiFePO4.

While Victron has a lot of bells and whistles and can be configured in very detailed ways, it has been pretty much set it and forget it for me.

 

[fafrd]

Reliability is important to a point. One of the questions you have to ask is: Is it reliable enough and inexpensive enough, that I can just buy a spare and leave it sitting there if it croaks? How painful is it to swap it in if it does? Is something better and less expensive going to be available by the time it dies? YMMV

This is a good point, and especially true when in the midst of a rapidly-evolving technological innovation phase.

I came very close to pulling the trigger on a Multiplus II but then opted instead to spend less than 1/3 the amount on a pair of GTIL inverters which are certain to poop out before a Multiplus II would have (and also offer far less capability), but by that time, there will likely be a much richer set of offerings that surpass the capability of a Multiplus II or at least come closer to matching it while costing a fraction.

For RVs and boats (as well as possibly remote cabins in jurisdictions allowing you to do whatever you want for off-grid power), there is no better option for ‘price is no object’ solar power.

But for US-based split-phase solar power installations in jurisdictions requiring all the latest ESS and solar standards, this has never been a priority for Victron (and I doubt it ever will be).

 

[HRTKD]

In a mobile environment, you can carry only so many spare parts. I have spare fuses and a spare BMS, but that's it.

 

[HighTechLab]

As a Victron Distributor, I wish you guys could see the stuff Victron does for us in the background that no one else does. Without getting into too much detail, they truly empower us with what it takes so customers can get the service and support that they need.

 

[Deveak]

Agree - but their stuff is SOLID ... and if you have a problem they answer the phone ... too me thats worth the grandfather clock feel ... (but yes even their software GUI seems very antiquated)

It is antiquated. That’s early 2000s tech. The Outback MX is also really dated. F-ing gel buttons. Every decade has its quarks with tech. I hate gel buttons. Mine are wore out on the outback cc. All great units though, all made with the best of components.

They do have a DIY line. Limited in size, I don’t think they support parallels. It’s a Chinese import, likely the same as renogy but I trust midnite to vet them properly. One of the engineers has a YouTube channel and has been abusing them and testing them on his own house.

Haven’t heard much about the new Rosie etc other than I could buy a car for what it would cost as a system.

 

[wattmatters]

As a Victron Distributor, I wish you guys could see the stuff Victron does for us in the background that no one else does. A lot of it is secret sauce, sadly...

Unless it results in a compelling advantage for us, the customers, then the flavour of sauce used, secret or otherwise, means nothing.

If anything, keeping sauce secret can be a turn off.

 

[SilverbackMP]

This is a good point, and especially true when in the midst of a rapidly-evolving technological innovation phase.

I came very close to pulling the trigger on a Multiplus II but then opted instead to spend less than 1/3 the amount on a pair of GTIL inverters which are certain to poop out before a Multiplus II would have (and also offer far less capability), but by that time, there will likely be a much richer set of offerings that surpass the capability of a Multiplus II or at least come closer to matching it while costing a fraction.

For RVs and boats (as well as possibly remote cabins in jurisdictions allowing you to do whatever you want for off-grid power), there is no better option for ‘price is no object’ solar power.

But for US-based split-phase solar power installations in jurisdictions requiring all the latest ESS and solar standards, this has never been a priority for Victron (and I doubt it ever will be).

I keep hearing about all of this tech development. The tier one bubbas seem to be able to develop products and keep them around for twenty or more years. Not that I am against spares.

 

[JRH]

Clickbait!!!

But the thread will grow to 600 repli

For those familiar with my post-whoring ways, this subject line is likely quite shocking.

Just trying to make a point...

Seemed a good lead into the question.

The answer?

Because Victron is worth it. It's a small company run by people who give a shit and care about their product, its performance, features and the user experience.

Problems?

• 5 year warranty - can be serviced by any Victron distributor. Can upgrade to a 10 year warranty for 10% the purchase price. If you have a problematic distributor, you can submit a warranty claim directly through Victron. Someone claiming Victron doesn't honor warranties is doing it wrong.
• Community forum - not 100% successful, but most legit questions/issues get addressed either by Victron, Victron installers or power users.
• Wealth of information available online.
• Documentation is continually improving.
• Wiring Unlimited.

Features?

• Son of the founder personally oversees the development of the Venus OS.
• New features based on user requests or new equipment are regularly added to all types of hardware.
• Firmware updates to older hardware is still actively released due to the newest hardware sharing common firmware even if not all features are available on older hardware.

Why do I have blue smudges on my lips from all this Victron butt-kissing?

Because Victron does shit like this:

Introducing Solar Production Forecast - Victron Energy

VRM Solar Forecasts combines Victron's model of your sites solar production potential, and integrates irradiance forecasting data from Solcasts global fleet of weather satellites.

www.victronenergy.com

Then, after a month of feedback from users and obvious improvements, they pull this shit:

VRM Solar forecast range extended to 7 days - Victron Community

community.victronenergy.com

I've personally watched my own system get increasingly more accurate.

Why in the world offer this feature? How can it possibly benefit the company? Because it's run by people who love this stuff. They see the value, they use their own hardware, and they probably just think, "dang... this is really cool."

I'm confident in saying that there's no other company on the planet in this space that is this actively engaged with their user base.

DAMN RIGHT ……No other company on your planet….?