Recent content by C&K

Another consideration that we have to keep in mind is that we have a 1,000 gallon fuel tank that we get filled in the fall and that will last us (with hopefully some left over) until the next fall. Because in winter there is no way to get fuel to our place with a delivery truck. If we would run...

The largest CHP installation on earth is at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. They power and heat the whole outfit down there with four Cat 3512's in what is probably the most severe totally off-grid conditions on earth. In the dead of winter there is no way in or out of that...

I don't think it's 100% because #2 diesel is 137,500 BTU/gallon, so input to the engine in fuel is about 285,000 BTU. So the electric output would amount to about 85,000 BTU, according to your conversion. The captured heat output would amount to about 125,000 BTU. That's a total of 210,000 BTU...

I actually think they are about the same. I never let it get below freezing in the shop, the oil furnace is set for 35 deg. If I intend to work in the shop it takes a full day for the oil furnace running constant to get it up to 60-65 when the outside temp is below zero. The electrical load on...

It's a modified marine exhaust cooler for marine engines that dump exhaust overboard. They typically use sea water from the engine's raw water pump to cool the exhaust so there's not big clouds of steam behind the boat from hot exhaust hitting cold water. Naturally aspirated engines will use...

We have a Cat D30 generator for our off-grid system that charges the batteries thru the inverters. I don't know about DC into the batteries but we have an old utility meter on the output of the generator to keep track of how much we use from the generator in a year's time. We typically get...

I thought Schneider discontinued the ComBox? We had one for awhile but it quit working and it says it's discontinued. https://solar.se.com/us/en/product/conext-combox/

We have a 25kVA Caterpillar 3304 prime-rated genset that inputs power to twin Schneider/Xantrex XW6048's without any problems, charging a 1700ah forklift battery for our off-grid system @ 180 amps. 60A is just the input limit of what the inverter can accept. You can hook that inverter to a...

You mean this is a feature that can be turned on? Or it's a feature that needs to be implemented yet? This is our most commonly used feature, is generator support. If the load exceeds 48 amps on either leg for more than 15 seconds it will start the peaking generator, allow it to warm up for...

I'm always interested in newer things and technology. I would be interested in hearing from someone using a Sol-Ark inverter on an off-grid system with a prime-rated turbocharged diesel generator that requires both pre-heat and pre-lube for starting.

That is what I am asking. Does the Sol-Ark have proper generator support for auto-starting twin generators, used for different purposes in off-grid applications? For instance, our peaking generator is auto-started when the inverters overload and is only used to offset the overload to keep the...

I do not understand a lot of what is being discussed in this thread. But the original question is what do you have and would you buy it again? So I can offer that we have two older XW6048 inverters that are 10 years old, along with four MPPT 60 150 charge controllers. This is a totally off-grid...

What we were told, by the doctor's son that sold us the place, the wind turbine was put up originally with the 23 foot rotor on it. I think they are derated to 6500 watts for a battery charging application. But it never made any power at all because the cut-in wind speed was too high. So they...

Not with a Rohn SSV. It is a tapered tower. I'd have to go out and measure across the anchor bolts in the concrete footing but I think it was about 7 feet across at the base. That tower weighs about 8,000 lbs. Sold it on an online auction for $11,300 broken down in 20ft sections. I don't...

No, you are thinking of the XL1 which is a 24V machine. This one was a XL10 and was originally a 10KW grid-tie turbine. They put a smaller 11.5 ft diameter rotor on it to make it run faster to lower the cut-in windspeed to 5mph, and rewired the stator in it from wye to delta so it would output...