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diy solar

Midnite Solar Announced their new 10kw AIO at Intersolar Today

Robin Gudgel said:
Idle consumption is about 65 watts. We are still working on pricing. Mainly on what the wholesale price will be. I am guessing street price will be between $4500 and $5500. We will be offering Lithium batteries also to insure compatible closed loop operation. The pricing on the 5.1KWH rack mounts will be truly jaw dropping. The wall mount 15KWH UL9540 version this summer hasn't been determined yet.
Inverters are due to start shipping in early May.
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Jaw dropping price...the basic SOK rack mounts without display or comms is currently $1100. Comms, display and UL listing bumps that up to $1545.

If you can come in at a $1000 or less with comms and UL listing that would be impressive.
 
Robin Gudgel said:
Looks like you got most of the questions answered here. I too do not know if you can use the two Victron negatives as common? Some units can and some can't. You woun't break anything regardless. Looks like those y cables are too short to allow stain reliefs?
MidNite has used CBI and Carling breakers now since 2000 (at OutBack Power). We ship almost 1 million breakers each year. They just do not fail! Chinese combiners have nice features and all, but do they have a UL listing? Some of the components as pointed out in this thread are questionable too. Listed components are actually important if you have a fire on your house. Insurance companies look for things like lack of listed equipment, inspections and such. They do not like to pay off on fires caused or that are involved with solar. They are terrible! Make sure to cover all bases. It took me years to figure out the combiner requirements and NEC acceptable products /installations. I recently took apart my original solar array from my Trace Engineering days. The combiner consisted of nothing but wire nuts!
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😮wire nuts !
 
You may not understand but when engineers hook things up like a solar system, there is typically nothing resembling code compliance. Electrical Engineers are tinkerers and do not think that things will be permanent, so why waste time on conduit or bushings, wire sizes etc. They will always have a few breakers in the system though. The breakers may be hanging in mid air suspended by the wires or cables. I admit, I am not quite one of those engineers, but I sure have seen my share of it over the years. Don't act like an engineer though! Do it right. There are actually good reasons for all the parts of the code that we must follow.
 
The rack mount batteries will have UL, but not UL9540. The wall mount rainproof will have that and heaters and fire suppression. Both batteries will have closed loop with the MidNite inverters. The price should be less than $1000 retail.
 
Robin Gudgel said:
You may not understand but when engineers hook things up like a solar system, there is typically nothing resembling code compliance. Electrical Engineers are tinkerers and do not think that things will be permanent, so why waste time on conduit or bushings, wire sizes etc. They will always have a few breakers in the system though. The breakers may be hanging in mid air suspended by the wires or cables. I admit, I am not quite one of those engineers, but I sure have seen my share of it over the years. Don't act like an engineer though! Do it right. There are actually good reasons for all the parts of the code that we must follow.
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I do understand was just goofing around,
Besides that was very long ago.
Trace maybe older than me I think
 
Robin Gudgel said:
Idle consumption is about 65 watts. We are still working on pricing. Mainly on what the wholesale price will be. I am guessing street price will be between $4500 and $5500. We will be offering Lithium batteries also to insure compatible closed loop operation.
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Will the inverter support any other battery protocols? (Pylontech, EG4 etc)
 
Robin Gudgel said:
The rack mount batteries will have UL, but not UL9540. The wall mount rainproof will have that and heaters and fire suppression. Both batteries will have closed loop with the MidNite inverters. The price should be less than $1000 retail.
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Will you be doing UL9540 testing with the Rosie as well as the 10kW aio?
 
Robin Gudgel said:
Listed components are actually important if you have a fire on your house. Insurance companies look for things like lack of listed equipment, inspections and such. They do not like to pay off on fires caused or that are involved with solar.
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I would be interested in specific example cases of this, where an insurance company came to investigate a fire, found some non listed device, and on that basis alone, denied coverage.

I'm not against advocating for quality and certified parts, but I despise the sales tactic of spreading FUD to motivate buyers.

Mike C.
 
mciholas said:
I would be interested in specific example cases of this, where an insurance company came to investigate a fire, found some non listed device, and on that basis alone, denied coverage.

I'm not against advocating for quality and certified parts, but I despise the sales tactic of spreading FUD to motivate buyers.

Mike C.
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Doesn't matter what examples people show, it's all going to depend on your insurance company and the mood the agent is in when he comes to inspect what happened.
 
Lt.Dan said:
Doesn't matter what examples people show, it's all going to depend on your insurance company and the mood the agent is in when he comes to inspect what happened.
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I think you mean "adjuster". The agent is just a sales person.

I am not as jaded as you are about the lack of basis in settlements. I sure hope it is not the mood of the insurance person that determines your results. Insurance knows if they get a reputation for petty denial, their sales will go down. Any agent will tell you settling a claim favorably with someone is one of the best sales tools they have because when something bad happens to someone, it is news and everybody knows about it. If the victim gets jerked by the insurance, everybody will know that, too.

Mike C.
 
The AIO does include Pylontech. Not sure about others. We will have a chart of who all can be used based on selections. Many batteries can be used based on Pylontech as I understand it.
The <$1000 comment was relating to the rack mount batteries. The wall mount price isn't as close to being quoted, but our goal is to be around $4000 street price. I could be way off on that though?
The Rosie will be able to use the MidNite batteries closed loop also. UL9540 is on the horizon.
I have received bills from insurance companies for $175,000 for a burned up motorhome. That was to get my attention. We had a combiner on the motorhome. Give me a break! It still cost Bob and I to go to Phoenix to look at the bus. There have been 6 or so incidents like this over the years. The insurance companies are looking for some component manufacturer or installer to pay the claim instead of them. We have made numerous trips to review burned out hulks. We have never been found at fault. And, our stull is all listed! My comments are not meant to be a scare tactic. The insurance agent is out of the picture when a claim is filed. It is then up to the investigators. This is just something for homeowners to be aware of.
 
Robin Gudgel said:
I have received bills from insurance companies for $175,000 for a burned up motorhome. That was to get my attention. We had a combiner on the motorhome. Give me a break! It still cost Bob and I to go to Phoenix to look at the bus. There have been 6 or so incidents like this over the years. The insurance companies are looking for some component manufacturer or installer to pay the claim instead of them. We have made numerous trips to review burned out hulks. We have never been found at fault. And, our stull is all listed! My comments are not meant to be a scare tactic. ... It is then up to the investigators. This is just something for homeowners to be aware of.
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Ahh, there is a BIG difference between insurance company refusing to pay a claim, and them trying to pass the buck to some big faceless corporation, I mean small family owned ethical company engaged with the community. At least from the consumer's perspective.

We are so accustomed to insurance companies denying medical treatment and offloading expenses on the consumer (together with providers having out of network doctors read the chart while patient is unconscious then billing for it), that we forget casualty part of the industry which operates under a different model.


I've sat in on a failure investigation, as representative of one company which once had inventory of capacitors later installed on a board that burned up resulting in destruction of a computer room full of equipment by dry-chemical fire extinguisher residue. I guess the unlucky one responsible for a power supply which delivered 5V 200A to chassis, or designer of a PCB which had EMI shield bridging 5V return to chassis, got the several $million bill. The EMI shield had holes burned in it from glowing red hot, burning up PCB.
 
Hedges said:
I guess the unlucky one responsible for a power supply which delivered 5V 200A to chassis, or designer of a PCB which had EMI shield bridging 5V return to chassis, got the several $million bill.
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The power supply warranty almost certainly excludes consequential damage and only covers materials and workmanship of the power supply itself to the value of the power supply. It isn't the power supply's fault the user had a fire suppression system that damages all his equipment. They could have chosen something else or designed a layout which minimize the destruction. I would be extremely surprised the power supply maker paid out $millions on this, if anything.

All these insurance horror stories are FUD spreading. Let's get back to the topic...

Mike C.
 
mciholas said:
I would be interested in specific example cases of this, where an insurance company came to investigate a fire, found some non listed device, and on that basis alone, denied coverage.

I'm not against advocating for quality and certified parts, but I despise the sales tactic of spreading FUD to motivate buyers.

Mike C.
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I can tell you that there are actually more cases of this happening than most people are aware of. My nephew works in an electrical engineering group that does forensic investigation for fires. Not using UL listed equipment voids the insurance payout every time in a fire if the equipment is found to be the cause of the fire. Basically because states that adopt the NEC, require UL listed and Approved equipment for all installs.
I won't even troubleshoot non UL listed equipment, won't work on any install of non UL either.
 
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When should we expect to get someones feedback on the 10k AIO inverter from the beta testers?

This Midnite inverter sounds real promising to me. Just waiting for more information and availability. Pricing sound competitive and having the ability for closed loop Li charging makes it a front runner for me for future installs.
 
sumpower said:
Not using UL listed equipment voids the insurance payout every time in a fire if the equipment is found to be the cause of the fire.
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And still no verifiable case is presented. And speaking in absolutes like "every time" means it is almost certainly not 100% true.

I will only be swayed by actual evidence of such cases. I've run across so any people who assert various things about insurance that later turn out to be wrong that I only trust what can be verified. Usually such people are selling something and spread FUD to motivate the sale.

UL listing is not some absolute guarantee of safety, either. I am sure plenty of UL listed devices have caused fires. The fact they keep changing the standards tells you that.

Mike C.
 
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