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    5.8 kWh per Gallon Honda Generator to DC @ 93% efficiency

    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...
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    5.8 kWh per Gallon Honda Generator to DC @ 93% efficiency

    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...
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    5.8 kWh per Gallon Honda Generator to DC @ 93% efficiency

    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...
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    5.8 kWh per Gallon Honda Generator to DC @ 93% efficiency

    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...
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    5.8 kWh per Gallon Honda Generator to DC @ 93% efficiency

    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...
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    5.8 kWh per Gallon Honda Generator to DC @ 93% efficiency

    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...
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    Energy monitor with NO Wi-Fi

    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/
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    Adding a generator. Is bigger better?

    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...
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    Schneider XW vs Sol-Ark

    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...
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    Schneider XW vs Sol-Ark

    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.
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    Schneider XW vs Sol-Ark

    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...
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    Schneider XW vs Sol-Ark

    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...
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    looking for advice on a solar and wind setup

    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...
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    looking for advice on a solar and wind setup

    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...
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    looking for advice on a solar and wind setup

    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...
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    looking for advice on a solar and wind setup

    We had a Bergey XL that had been modified to use the Classic controller on 48V. It was on a 90ft Rohn free-standing tower. When we took it down we sold the tower for $11,300. We couldn't give the wind turbine away, nobody wanted it. So it eventually got scrapped. I kept the Classic controller...
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    looking for advice on a solar and wind setup

    As others have said, the wind turbine won't be that useful. We had an 11ft diameter turbine here on a 90 ft tower with a Midnite Classic controller on it. It could produce up to 2,800 watts. But total energy production is the important thing. Most days it only produced less than 1kWh. So based...
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    Looking for a way to merge 2 Schneider 60-150

    I see, you have a primary battery and solar array, plus a backup battery with 3 solar panels on it just to maintain it. So you need to be able to switch the charging sources when the backup battery is in use. I still think that switching the solar arrays from one controller to the other would...
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    Looking for a way to merge 2 Schneider 60-150

    Ah, that presents a little problem. I'm afraid if the panels can't be evened out between the two. the only idea I can come up with is to put in a switching network between the solar combiners and controllers, disconnect the PV arrays and switch the arrays from one controller to the other. That...
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    Looking for a way to merge 2 Schneider 60-150

    We have four Schneider MPPT60-150's all charging the same battery, so I am quite familiar with them. They cannot be switched from one battery bank to another without a quite complicated procedure involving first disconnecting the PV arrays from both. They are powered from the battery DC side, so...
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    New Members

    51.2 would be at-rest fully charged voltage. Nominal is 48V. 48 x 1742 = 83.6kWh. Of which 80% is usable, or 66.8kWh actual stored power. According to the chart that came with the battery, nominal voltage is 48.0V at rest, at which point the battery is 50% SOC and should not be recharged yet...
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    New Members

    Yes, it is a 24 cell 48v battery in a steel tray. And very heavy, around 4,300 lbs. It is 1105ah at 6hr rate and 1742ah at 20hr rate. It is available from GB Industrial for $10,240 new or $7,860 remanufactured with good core exchange. New or remanufactured is the same as far as warranty on it...
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    New Members

    What is LFP batteries? I am not familiar with those. For us, the big generator serves a second purpose. The cooling system on it is hooked into my 40 x 80ft shop building and heats it with a Modine heat exchanger in the winter. After an 8 hour run it's 68 degrees in the shop and it stays pretty...
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    New Members

    Hi, thanks for that. Our battery has been doing ok so far. It is not 100% capacity anymore but all 24 cells are still even when I check them with a hydrometer. The solar can keep up with it in the summer and the Cat generator never runs from about middle of April to around middle of October. In...
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    New Members

    Hi, we are a semi-retired couple, age 63, that bought a 2,700 sq ft lake home on 1,000 acres when we retired from 38 years of farming. Our home does not have utility power and came equipped with a turn-key off-grid power system. We have twin Schneider Electric 6048 inverters that were installed...
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