Zendure / Vanpowers Powerstation Input

[John.DS99]

I recently bought a Vanpowers Super Power Pro 2000 2096Wh/2000W powerstation and I need some help.

I have a moderate amount of electronics understanding and solder / crimp ability and understand the physics involved.

The Zendure and Vanpowers powerstations appear to be absolutely identical.

There is a cable you can see in the Youtube Hobotech review of the Zendure unit that allows a solar input to be attached to the 110 AC input that allows up to 1800 watts of either AC or DC input. Both the Zendure and the Vanpowers website don't show this as a cable that can be purchased. It is referred to as MC4 to AC input in the user manual.

Yes I understand that MC4 is DC and AC input is AC. There is a controller that detects this and switches somehow to accept this odd arrangement.
There is no such cable on the Zendure or the Vanpower websites for sale. So, since my unit didn't come with such a cable, and I need the 1800 watt input from solar panels, I have to make one.

I'm just wondering what the polarity of this cable should be? DC in from the solar panels is + and -. The AC plug has three lines which are neutral (unused or perhaps the ground from the panels) and L1 and L2 or Hot and Neutral. I'm able to make such a cable, but I'm not sure which connects to which.
Is the + channel from the solar input to be the Hot or the Neutral? If I screw up could it cause damage?

Maybe someone has such a unit and cable and could test it with a multimeter.

Many thanks,

John

 

[cs1234]

Somebody in the comments on that review said this, Chris W:

Since a switching power converter is the only way to allow the wide-range of voltage that solar gives you, making one that can handle the true peak of rectified 120 VAC is just component choice. From there, all you need is a bridge rectifier that will handle whatever constant max DC current you're going for... and BANG BANG (

) You have a combined AC/DC input. And it won't care which polarity the DC is!

 

[John.DS99]

Thanks Photon Sorcerer! Much appreciated.

 

[John.DS99]

Wait! One other question. Would there be any benefit to running a wire from the ground of the solar panel(s) to the ground connection on that AC input?

 

[cs1234]

Wait! One other question. Would there be any benefit to running a wire from the ground of the solar panel(s) to the ground connection on that AC input?

I have no idea what it might be doing with the ground pin on that input when it's not connected to your actual house AC power. If you want to ground your panels, you would ground their frames (and mounts) to your house ground point. That's a whole other discussion that you can search for on the forums.. it's discussed often.

 

[John.DS99]

Thank you. My house doesn't have ground plugs on any of the AC outlets. 1950's era. I'm not much of an electronics guy.

 

[cs1234]

Thank you. My house doesn't have ground plugs on any of the AC outlets. 1950's era. I'm not much of an electronics guy.

Be careful with some of this high powered equipment and that house wiring. Your wiring and breakers are pretty old and probably no where near current codes and safety standards.

 

[John.DS99]

I'm building a small system for a room consisting of 2 or 3 390W panels and the Vanpowers unit, no tie to house, just unplugging everything in a home office + 2 wine refrigerators and plugging everything into the power station.

Once I get a feel for it, I'll be able to tell if it is worth while to move on.

 

[John.DS99]

Oh, nevermind, the stupid unit wont output AC when using the solar input through the AC-in with the funky cable. So the computer crashes and the room goes dark when I charge with that cable.

 

[John.DS99]

I have advice for anyone who decides to build this AC type connector for solar panel DC input on the vanpowers power station.

1. Building a DC cable to meet the specs of an AC cable is a stupid thing to do and prone to creating errors. Who designed this mess?
2. If you build this DC cable to provide input to the AC system because of the peculiar way that vanpowers/zendure designed it, when you finally do attach it, give it 5 to 10 minutes to see if it is working. Maybe even 15.
3. If it doesn't work, wire it so that the white (nuetral) AC cable wire is connected to the negative solar panel input, and the red (hot) AC wire is connected to the positive solar panel in.

I'm not sure which got me over the hump between #2 and #3, but I finally got it to work.

 

[John.DS99]

After a little more use ...

You need 200-300 watts of solar input before this AC cable thing starts working.

I found that I could hook up 2 solar panels in parallel to get it working at full strength. Hell's Bells, there is no need to use the theoretical AC/DC connector. Originally I had 2a pair of 360 watt panels (40V each) in series that wouldn't work with the solar input because the 60V limitation. In parallel I thought they would exceed the 600 watt limit, but they rarely produce more than 600W so they work quite well.

Also noted that when the powerstation runs out of juice, it just shuts off. No warning, no beep. Just sitting there in the dark. Maybe the screen says something, but who stares at a stupid screen for 8 hours? Maybe the engineers at Vanpowers.net.

 

[John.DS99]

Why would anyone post so many times on a subject that no one is interested in. It's because I like to post the information that I wish was available when I was deciding to purchase this thing. So I like to put it on the record so the search engines can tattle on the Vanpowers.net people.

In fact you are reading this right now because of a web search, aren't you?

 

[John.DS99]

AHA! I knew I could trick you!

 

[golfreak12]

I'm one of those that read your post.
I'm really intrigue on this unit.
I did see in the specs that it can go 150v through AC port and I was perplexed but you just gave me the answer.
This unit is cheap right now and I'm tempted.(through Ebay)
$549 for the 1440ah version with Lifepo4. $599 for your 2098ah version but NON-lifepo4. Decisions.