Water heater load/surge causes projector to turn off

[Gurusi]

Could be the Panamaz has stopped too many spikes, and has become too sensitive (kind of like a breaker). It senses the line fault too easily, disconnects load to protect it.

It briefly clicks on and off within a second. But I don’t believe it has been actively protecting often as we haven’t been using the projector often. Unless it’s been protecting in standby

 

[Hedges]

Emporia shows watts? But not volts.

Yes, those are the Midnight. Nice package, LED to show protecting/failed.
I would buy the MOV from Digikey for a fraction of the price.

If it is a brief over-voltage, like 120 goes to 180 for a few cycles, probably electronics can ride through.
If it is spikes to 500V or 2kV, that might deteriorate components.

Clicking a relay off or on would be a slow response, not meant to protect against spikes. Just over or under voltage.

An oscilloscope would be nice. But expensive unless you otherwise want to play with it.

Connect a light bulb, see if it glows brighter. If so probably this is a few cycles of elevated voltage. Look for dim when load turns on, brighten when turns off.

 

[Brucey]

Yep, I think you have methods of resolve listed. I find the line conditioner the simplest and most protective for the projector. But it will be the most work in terms of drywalling and decorating to get it in there (which I hate!). I was looking at the Eaton 5P 5P750 750VA/600W 120V Tower Line Interactive UPS.



that is something simple I can try today, something I hadn’t considered.

Thanks all, I will do some more testing today.

Definitely put that projector on a UPS if it's using a lamp and not a laser light source, uncontrolled shutdowns and frequent cycling tend to really do some damage to bulb lifetimes

 

[Gurusi]

Emporia shows watts? But not volts.

Yes, those are the Midnight. Nice package, LED to show protecting/failed.
I would buy the MOV from Digikey for a fraction of the price.

If it is a brief over-voltage, like 120 goes to 180 for a few cycles, probably electronics can ride through.
If it is spikes to 500V or 2kV, that might deteriorate components.

Clicking a relay off or on would be a slow response, not meant to protect against spikes. Just over or under voltage.

An oscilloscope would be nice. But expensive unless you otherwise want to play with it.

Connect a light bulb, see if it glows brighter. If so probably this is a few cycles of elevated voltage. Look for dim when load turns on, brighten when turns off.

I have watts set for daily checking, see attached but only shows a volt difference.

I have the midnight solar ones for the PV inputs Do you have a link by chance for the digikey ones? And I will purchase to see if it works

I will try the bulb. If there is no change dimming or brighter does this mean the change is negligible and the promax could be removed?

 

[Hedges]

Some links here, MOV only

Testing Metal-Oxide Varistors (MOV)

Surge arrestors are used on AC and DC side of PV inverters for protection, to clamp high voltage transients. One inverter I have (actually several) are in the SMA family SUNNY BOY 5000-US / 6000-US / 7000-US / 8000-US. These come with a kit of MOV to protect the DC side: The MOVs are about...

diysolarforum.com

MOV with thermal over-current protetion

Testing Metal-Oxide Varistors (MOV)

Surge arrestors are used on AC and DC side of PV inverters for protection, to clamp high voltage transients. One inverter I have (actually several) are in the SMA family SUNNY BOY 5000-US / 6000-US / 7000-US / 8000-US. These come with a kit of MOV to protect the DC side: The MOVs are about...

diysolarforum.com

That one now shows large quantity only, but check their site for others.


I figured observed brightness change meant moderate over-voltage, likely not an issue.
If it doesn't show up as brighter, might be a brief high spike more likely to damage electronics.

Would rather see scope trace to know what's happening.

 

[Gurusi]

Some links here, MOV only

Testing Metal-Oxide Varistors (MOV)

Surge arrestors are used on AC and DC side of PV inverters for protection, to clamp high voltage transients. One inverter I have (actually several) are in the SMA family SUNNY BOY 5000-US / 6000-US / 7000-US / 8000-US. These come with a kit of MOV to protect the DC side: The MOVs are about...

diysolarforum.com

MOV with thermal over-current protetion

Testing Metal-Oxide Varistors (MOV)

Surge arrestors are used on AC and DC side of PV inverters for protection, to clamp high voltage transients. One inverter I have (actually several) are in the SMA family SUNNY BOY 5000-US / 6000-US / 7000-US / 8000-US. These come with a kit of MOV to protect the DC side: The MOVs are about...

diysolarforum.com

That one now shows large quantity only, but check their site for others.


I figured observed brightness change meant moderate over-voltage, likely not an issue.
If it doesn't show up as brighter, might be a brief high spike more likely to damage electronics.

Would rather see scope trace to know what's happening.

Thanks for the links, I will buy some. Yep agreed an oscilloscope will be best (but I’m not considering buying) as not changing brightness could be a high spike or minimal change (meaning the promax is over sensitive)

 

[Hedges]

There have been threads about bad waveforms, and some about suspected equipment damage.
So it is possible the Panamax is just the canary in the coal mine, to be ignored at the projector's peril.

 

[Gurusi]

After further troubleshooting it turns out the contactor on the water heater smart switch was faulty (making a whining noise when switched on). Traded out the Amazon/Chinese contactor for an Eaton 661099 and all is good.

 

[traffman2370]

Is it really true that a 4500 watt heating element does not have an inrush current when energized? I dont have the equipment to test this but I would like to know before switching my hot water from utility to 6500w split phase inverters already running at 20 percent.

 

[Hedges]

I don't think heating elements have high TCR like an incandescent bulb (10x current when cold).
Current draw the moment heating element is powered should be about the same as when operating.

Do you want 4500W load? Connect to 120V for 1125W (half the load on one phase, zero on the other.)

 

[NC_hydro]

APC UPS that will power your projector then it cares not what’s going on behind the scenes with the cheap chineseium inverters.