soylentgreen
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2021
- Messages
- 89
Brainstorming please: I'm looking for advice on how to improve my current setup.
Home: 5KW Solar with Grid Tie inverter.
Computers: I have a rack of servers, which has a home-brew UPS with about 4KWH of battery power.
RV: I have a small van with a 1KWH LFP battery and 800W 120VAC inverter
I live in California, and even when "The Grid" is OK, we seem to have frequent power outages on top of that.
When a power outage happens:
* My server rack is fine, since it's on UPS and has about 36 hours of runtime.
* My grid-tie solar system goes offline
* And everything else in the house goes dark
If the power outage is longer than a few hours:
* I start running extension cords to the inverter in the RV - I have to pull the fridge out from the wall, plug it into the inverter, run a long extension cord upstairs to power my desktop computer, etc.
This could be better, no?
Ideas:
* get a whole-house battery backup such as Tesla Powerwall. However, I believe powerwalls are not UPSs - they don't switch on immediately, so I'd still need UPSs as well. Is this true?
* replace my grid-tie solar inverter with one which works during an outage, such as the Sunny Boy 5 SPS. However, I belive these are also not UPSs - requires a manual switchover. And if the outage is at night, of course it won't work.
* replace my home-brew UPS with something more substantial: perhaps an EG4 48V battery and a Victron Inverter/charger? I could then plug in all my critrical loads (Server rack, refrigerator, etc.) to the Victron, so they would auto-switch.
Ideas?
Home: 5KW Solar with Grid Tie inverter.
Computers: I have a rack of servers, which has a home-brew UPS with about 4KWH of battery power.
RV: I have a small van with a 1KWH LFP battery and 800W 120VAC inverter
I live in California, and even when "The Grid" is OK, we seem to have frequent power outages on top of that.
When a power outage happens:
* My server rack is fine, since it's on UPS and has about 36 hours of runtime.
* My grid-tie solar system goes offline
* And everything else in the house goes dark
If the power outage is longer than a few hours:
* I start running extension cords to the inverter in the RV - I have to pull the fridge out from the wall, plug it into the inverter, run a long extension cord upstairs to power my desktop computer, etc.
This could be better, no?
Ideas:
* get a whole-house battery backup such as Tesla Powerwall. However, I believe powerwalls are not UPSs - they don't switch on immediately, so I'd still need UPSs as well. Is this true?
* replace my grid-tie solar inverter with one which works during an outage, such as the Sunny Boy 5 SPS. However, I belive these are also not UPSs - requires a manual switchover. And if the outage is at night, of course it won't work.
* replace my home-brew UPS with something more substantial: perhaps an EG4 48V battery and a Victron Inverter/charger? I could then plug in all my critrical loads (Server rack, refrigerator, etc.) to the Victron, so they would auto-switch.
Ideas?