efficientPV
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2019
- Messages
- 1,763
Many say you can't have a dishwasher on small solar. Back a few years my wife told me she wanted a dishwasher
at the camp. I told her I though I married one. That did not give a positive response. A few days later I was
dumping some metal at town recycling and this pickup drove up with a nice looking GE dishwasher. I asked if I
could have it. He said it was less than two years old and came from an apartment complex. There was a lightning
storm and it didn't work after that. It was exactly the same one I had at home.
Sure enough the circuit board got a massive hit and had blown up the protective components, but the control was
still good. Wiggled out the defective components as they weren't really needed and soldered over a jumper wire.
In testing found that the dishwasher without heating used less than a 100W to run and about 100WH for a full
cycle. I added lots of insulation to the case as dishwashers are poorly insulated and lose lots of heat.
The wires to heating element were moved to a relay so I would have a set of dry contacts to know when heat was
demanded. That went off to my hot water diversion system. When dishwasher demanded heat, power went from the
water heater to the dishwasher. Now the heating element pulled power from the 60V panel array alleviating the
need to go thru an inverter. The washer is already supplied with 127F water so additional heating of water is
minimal. The dishwasher will throw a fault if the water never gets above 120F. That has never happened.
It should be noted that in heated dry the dishwasher turns the element on for for less than 50% of the time.
this prevents the element from over heating and burning out. I'm operating at a lower voltage and lower wattage.
I added a three minute off delay timer that keeps the element turned on so effective watts are higher.
I don't know where running DC to the dishwasher element fits into code, but it makes her happy. Like I said,
this is a small system running off a car battery. I was recently told that another person using my design diverts
from his water heater to a clothes dryer element. He can dump up to 3,000W to the dryer from the array without
going thru an inverter. This is for entertainment only. Don't try this at home. It takes a lot of understanding
of the technology.
Next project is running a large LG washer off panels and no battery.
at the camp. I told her I though I married one. That did not give a positive response. A few days later I was
dumping some metal at town recycling and this pickup drove up with a nice looking GE dishwasher. I asked if I
could have it. He said it was less than two years old and came from an apartment complex. There was a lightning
storm and it didn't work after that. It was exactly the same one I had at home.
Sure enough the circuit board got a massive hit and had blown up the protective components, but the control was
still good. Wiggled out the defective components as they weren't really needed and soldered over a jumper wire.
In testing found that the dishwasher without heating used less than a 100W to run and about 100WH for a full
cycle. I added lots of insulation to the case as dishwashers are poorly insulated and lose lots of heat.
The wires to heating element were moved to a relay so I would have a set of dry contacts to know when heat was
demanded. That went off to my hot water diversion system. When dishwasher demanded heat, power went from the
water heater to the dishwasher. Now the heating element pulled power from the 60V panel array alleviating the
need to go thru an inverter. The washer is already supplied with 127F water so additional heating of water is
minimal. The dishwasher will throw a fault if the water never gets above 120F. That has never happened.
It should be noted that in heated dry the dishwasher turns the element on for for less than 50% of the time.
this prevents the element from over heating and burning out. I'm operating at a lower voltage and lower wattage.
I added a three minute off delay timer that keeps the element turned on so effective watts are higher.
I don't know where running DC to the dishwasher element fits into code, but it makes her happy. Like I said,
this is a small system running off a car battery. I was recently told that another person using my design diverts
from his water heater to a clothes dryer element. He can dump up to 3,000W to the dryer from the array without
going thru an inverter. This is for entertainment only. Don't try this at home. It takes a lot of understanding
of the technology.
Next project is running a large LG washer off panels and no battery.
