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I'm not sure. I don't care really as I'm offgrid

Yeah I get that. I would have to make big changes to fit a 2nd MPII in my current set up. I am planning to relocate the whole show some point in the future to allow for that. The nice thing about AC coupling though is that your grid tie inverter/s can essentially be anywhere, so they don't have...

We had that deal too, at the end of last year, and I almost jumped on it, but couldn't justify spending $4500 AUD on three inverters I didn't really need. It was really tempting though, I could have been making my own three phase power cheaper than it would cost me to have a three phase...

I am aware but it really doesn't matter to me, the LF design and the ability to AC couple to grid tie inverters is much more valuable to me. I have two victron 150/35 mppts in my system, but the bulk of my charge comes from two AC coupled grid tie inverters, one of which cost me $10 at the scrap...

You can do a bit better than that at times too. I picked up a spare 5kva MP2 last month for just under $1500AUD with a discount code on eBay. That puts it only $3-400AUD pricier than the cheap chinese HF AIOs like growatt, that I was considering to buy as a spare. I think I paid about $2200 for...

Are you guys talking about Mitsubishi Heavy Industries or Mitsubishi Electric splits? Maybe you only get one or the other in the US? We get both and it can cause confusion. Despite the name they are separate companies with their own products.

The arcing you have to worry about is if/when there is a fault in the unit itself or in the wiring. You need to make sure you have fuses or circuit breakers capable of dealing with that. Certainly very possible, just not as cheap and easy to clear a DC fault as with AC.

That's a good point. OP mentioned a 24000btu heat pump(which seems huge for a tiny house). Even at 48v that's going to pull some significant current and need some expensive heavy cable if it's not right next to the batteries. Plus high current dc fuses and circuit breakers are more expensive...

It would make sense to me to have a small, cheap 12v system to run cheap low power 12v stuff (lights, chargers, even small 12v pumps and fridges). But for all the higher powered stuff I'd rather spend my money on having a back up inverter(for redundancy) and be able to buy and use whatever...

I want to build a DIY solar generator that is light and compact as possible, but still quite powerful. A while back I built a 24v pack out of 8 105ah EVE cells. I haven't really got a lot of use out of it though, as I have it crudely and temporarily set up in a shed with an old 3kva victron...

Of course I mean input. It would be pretty disappointing if I could only get 50 amps from the ouput of a 250 amp welder. It was not a continuous 50 amps, just a peak, when I cranked the welder up to its maximum for the purpose of the test. Any outlet will deliver far more than its rating for a...

I think the obvious answer to the OP is to run the welder from the inverter for any kind of light duty intermittent work (which is most welding for home gamer diy projects in my experience anyway). When you actually need to get serious and crank the machine up, and do longer heavier...

That's not quite true in Australia. We use the MEN(multiple earth neutral) system. You can do it the way you suggest, if you run an earth (ground) conductor from the main panel to the sub panel. And you must if the sub panel and main panel are in the same building. If the sub panel is in a...

I'm well aware of the homemade inverters and transformers and I have plans to build my own. Still not convinced that building a transformer from scratch is going to be easier than rewinding the stator from an inverter generator. Certainly not going to be cheaper. If we were talking about a...

If you could trip over an appropriate transformer, sure.

Because there is an abundance of inverter generators with dead inverters that can be had cheap or free, and its either not possible or prohibitively expensive to obtain a replacement inverter board. Small high current low voltage DC generators suitable for direct charging of battery banks are...

Well that is possible, just not practical. But I don't see how that analogy is remotely applicable to either rewiring or rewinding (which are you referring too?) the alternator in an inverter generator. Rewinding it would totally possible, with less turns of heavier wire. Maybe too time...

This is something I've been wanting to do, but you would have to rewind the alternator windings so they produce the appropriate voltage for your battery bank. I have a feeling it maybe possible, at least with some inverter generators, to split up and rewire the windings such that they produce...

That there is nothing available on the market would have been of no concern whatsoever to those writing the standard, unless they wrote it knowing that the lack of availability would make compliance impossible. Maybe the market will eventually provide something, but since (as usual) this...

I hate to think what those cost in 65. That's some real antique solar there.

For what its worth I've got two old 250w smashed panels that I mounted vertically. I clear coated them after they got smashed in a storm and mounted them on the north facing (southern hemisphere) walls of two farm sheds. They've only been used with a couple of cheap mppts to trickle charge the...

That one in the picture is definitely not a toroidal transformer. That's an EI core transformer.

Yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious, but I did read what you explained. I simply shared my own experience.

Yes I'm sure you can. Engine driven compressors can be 40000-50000 Btus. Thats just a guess. We don't know how many BTU this guy is getting for his 780w. That's all well and good if you have somewhere to mount a window unit, and if you can even get one. In the US you guys miss out a...

I think this guy in particular bought only the compressor out of china. I don't know of course what efficiency he is achieving but I think there would be gains to be had by over sizing the condenser. I don't know enough details but his appears to a larger one from a car and not one of the tiny...

I ordered two lots of cells from Amy last year. The first order was 16 280ah EVE cells, the value was well over $1000 so they held were up in Sydney and I had to pay brokerage and GST. I think it came to around $400. The second order was 8 105ah cells which came in under $1000. I don't recall...

I was on an Australian offgrid facebook group and saw another option that looked like the best I've seen for small vans, although probably only suitable for more technically inclined folks. This guy bought an 12v automotive A/C compressor from aliexpress, the kind that is meant for electric and...

I do feel its worth pointing out that it is dependent on just how cold it is outside as well. I use a mini split for heating and cooling a tiny house (of sorts), and winters here are very mild, so usually it works well. The coldest nights coincide with warmish clear sunny days, so running the...

I know people have fed DC from permanent magnet alternators driven by lister and other similar low speed engines. The MPPT sweeps and the load varies but it doesn't seem to bother a big heavy low speed diesel with lots of rotating mass. I don't know how a light high speed petrol engine would...

I've looked at these but the shipping from china is way too expensive. However, you can also buy just the permanent magnet alternator that they use and have it shipped for much less. Then you could source an engine locally. The alternators are generally designed to mount directly on the shaft...

My guess is that you've essentially turned your alternator into an induction heater. By spinning the rotor at 10000rpm with full field current, you've got a powerful high frequency alternating magnetic field. The stator is like the pan on an induction cooker. Stator cores are laminated to reduce...

I would say use DC appliances when its convenient and cheap to do so. DC led lighting makes sense, powering small electronics and charging devices with cheap DC-DC converters is good. Not having your whole system reliant on the inverter is good too. But for anything where a DC version is much...

That's what I suspected. I have a older 3000va Phoenix and a 5000va Multiplus II which are most definitely LF. I wasn't sure about the smaller models though.

Pretty sure most if not all the Victron quattro models are LF. If not then they're very heavy for HF. A good LF inverter should be as good if not better than a HF unit on standby current.

A car alternator's regulator is definitely more than a rectifier. It varies the current in the field windings of the alternator to vary the output voltage. I have an old microwave oven transformer that I removed the HV secondary winding from and wound a new LV secondary. It outputs about 28v...