BarkingSpider
Carbon Lifeform
I live off-grid. I wanted to have a gas/propane generator backup for my battery/solar bank for when there is bad weather or I have some other problems with my electrical supply. It needed to be a powerful generator that I could use to quickly recharge my LifePO4 bank in under a few hours and then shutdown. Also I wanted this to work automatically without manually starting the generator.
Here is my solution if your interested in something similar.
Westinghouse WGen7500DF Dual Fuel Portable Generator 7500 Rated & 9500 Peak Watts, Gas or Propane Powered, Electric Start, Transfer Switch Ready, 240v split phase.
Basically, the inching relay can start and stop the generator wirelessly with little work. You just need to wire it up to the smart switch port and set a delay of 1 second to start and 4 seconds to stop. Unfortunately the firmware in the Sonoff means you can only do it using an App eWeLink, IFTTT or Alexa/Google.
If you want to start the generator using a python program or script based on your battery voltage or SOC, you need to reflash it with opensource Tasmota firmware. Then you can start stop the generator with a simple curl command in Linux on a Raspberry Pi. You can also use this Raspberry Pi to read your BMS and Solar Charger info, so you can have full control of when the generator starts and how long it runs for. See my other posts on how to do that.
All the modifications are easy to undo, and the original generator functions are unchanged. You can still start it manually or use the factory remote control.
I just got this working today, if your interested post a reply and I will put up the full instructions when I have time.
Joe.
Here is my solution if your interested in something similar.
Westinghouse WGen7500DF Dual Fuel Portable Generator 7500 Rated & 9500 Peak Watts, Gas or Propane Powered, Electric Start, Transfer Switch Ready, 240v split phase.
Basically, the inching relay can start and stop the generator wirelessly with little work. You just need to wire it up to the smart switch port and set a delay of 1 second to start and 4 seconds to stop. Unfortunately the firmware in the Sonoff means you can only do it using an App eWeLink, IFTTT or Alexa/Google.
If you want to start the generator using a python program or script based on your battery voltage or SOC, you need to reflash it with opensource Tasmota firmware. Then you can start stop the generator with a simple curl command in Linux on a Raspberry Pi. You can also use this Raspberry Pi to read your BMS and Solar Charger info, so you can have full control of when the generator starts and how long it runs for. See my other posts on how to do that.
All the modifications are easy to undo, and the original generator functions are unchanged. You can still start it manually or use the factory remote control.
I just got this working today, if your interested post a reply and I will put up the full instructions when I have time.
Joe.
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