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Infinisolar 3kw+ settings please...


Gregstah

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Hi, I'm in the final process of setting up my infinisolar 3kw+ and would really like to know what settings others are using or recommend.

 

Here is my kit:

 

250w Panels x 12

Trojan t105's x 8 (48v)

Infinisolar 3Kw+

 

This afternoon I hooked up the infini to the battery bank, solar panels are on the roof but not mounted or connected yet so I'm looking to connect in UPS/Backup mode for now

 

At this stage I'm curious to know what more experienced members would recommend for parameter settings, I've attached a screenshot of what I have and I'm a little confused on a few of them quite frankly. The unit keeps on running the fans every few minutes even though I'm at full float voltage... (there is no load connected at this stage, 1 step at a time)

 

  • Ac and battery bank connected...
  • 300w power draw even though there is no load applied and batteries are fully charged, is that normal? I can't see what it needs that much power for when theoretically in standby, I'd see this adding up quite considerably over a period of time.
     
  • The fans also keep on switching on every few minutes, I find this curious as there is no load and the batteries are fully charged
     
  • I'm really confused what mode to put it in for backup, is it right according to attachment?
     
  • Battery specs trojan T105, 6V 225ah
    • Absorption charge 7.4 x 8 = 59.2 (can't go higher than 58 it seems)
    • Float Charge 6.6 x 8 = 52.8
    • Equalize charge 7.75 - Can one equalize with the infinisolar?

 

I'd really appreciate any input...  thank you!

 

Greg.

 

post-707-0-63193800-1430764480_thumb.jpg

post-707-0-34207000-1430764483_thumb.jpg

post-707-0-50554400-1430764486_thumb.jpg

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Hi Greg,

 

I can confirm the power draw, even with no load. My Efenery meter say about 200W with no load connected on the invertor.

 

Your battery voltages looks fine according to Trojan specs.

Yes, the Infini only goes up to 58V max :(

I have not seen a setting for Equilising the battries :(

 

On the parameter settings, all is looking as per standard, except the  "Feeding grid power callibration:".

Was this standard at ZERO or was it 100w and you changed it?

I think this setting gave me issues on my pre-paid meter when I set it to ZERO. Currently it is back at 100w.

 

Regarding your yellow circle question....

I'm also debating that one.

For now I have it set at 0.5 Amps for 60Min. This means if the battery current is 0.5Amp or less, for 60min, the charger will disconnect.

The way you have the last variable, the charger will only re-connect if the battery voltage reach 52.2V.

I have mine set to 50V, but that is another story...

 

Regarding your question on Off-grid vs Gridtie+backup...

In off-grid mode you cycling the battery way more than 3 times during the day. This will result in shortned battery life.

PV power and grid power can not be combined.

 

In Gridtie+Backup mode the battries is only ever used if grid power fails. This gives your battries a longer life.

Also PV power and Grid power is combined to supply the required output if PV power is too low to supply the load.

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Hi Wetkit, thank you so much for your answer. What you say about Grid-Tie-Backup makes a lot of sense. Could you please let me know what your power management settings are?

 

I've attached what I have .... bare with me, I'm really trying to learn the quirks of the unit so my questions might sound somewhat stupid.

 

I was in off grid mode today but the inverter didn't kick in the power switched off... I had to do so manually.

 

Thanks!

 

post-707-0-72889500-1431202643_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

 

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Hi Gregstah,

 

Sorry it took so long but here is my current settings.

 

I have the same battries as you, but my voltages is set a little bit diffrent.

I have a 0.7V offset between the unit display and the actual voltage.

 

post-23-0-95536000-1431524352_thumb.jpg

 

post-23-0-85162800-1431524390_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

hi Everyone, 

 

I'm new here and been reading a lot.. I'm considering the Infini 3kW as well and want my setup to be a hybrid type of setup where

1. my PV charges the batteries and

2. when they are full, the PV is used to supplement my Load.

3. however as I have a prepaid meter, I don't want to be feeding back into the grid (Actaris ACE 9000 ITP)

 

from this post and the other one in this section, it seems like the Infini can do 1 & 2... I'm just not sure about 3?  Any comments welcome?

 

best

Stephan

 

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hi Everyone, 

 

I'm new here and been reading a lot.. I'm considering the Infini 3kW as well and want my setup to be a hybrid type of setup where

1. my PV charges the batteries and

2. when they are full, the PV is used to supplement my Load.

3. however as I have a prepaid meter, I don't want to be feeding back into the grid (Actaris ACE 9000 ITP)

 

from this post and the other one in this section, it seems like the Infini can do 1 & 2... I'm just not sure about 3?  Any comments welcome?

 

best

Stephan

 

The Infinis have an endless amount of configuration options.  By checking/un-checking one check-box you can configure the Infini to feed back to the grid or not.

 

So, yes, the Infini can do all 3.

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  • 3 months later...

Hi, since my infinisolar 3kW inverter was installed my electricity consumption went up instead of coming down. Attached is my current config, please help.

Setup:

3kW infinisolar inverter

6 x Nica (Sealed lead acid Gel Batteries)

8 x 250kW PV panels

post-848-0-00326600-1440497269_thumb.jpg

post-848-0-31223100-1440497270_thumb.jpg

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Hi, since my infinisolar 3kW inverter was installed my electricity consumption went up instead of coming down. Attached is my current config, please help.

Setup:

3kW infinisolar inverter

6 x Nica (Sealed lead acid Gel Batteries)

8 x 250kW PV panels

 

Welcome to the forum, doppies.

 

 

On the first screenshot, you have to change the setting "When battery voltage < 56 the AC starts charging" to something much lover, e.g. 48V otherwise your batteries will be charged constantly during the specified period (0:00-04:00).

 

On the second screen change the value next to X: to something like 0.7A. Monitor the charging current on your infini, mine never goes below 0.5A, so I've changed that setting on mine to < 0.7A for 60 minutes - then the charger actually switches off.

 

I noticed that your batteries will be recharged using eskom from midnight to 04:00 (if the battery voltage is below 56V, which will be the case). Maybe you should monitor the battery voltage just before midnight (before the charger kicks in) and determine their state of charge and if they should perhaps be able to last throughout the night until the sun can start charging them in the morning. Otherwise just adjust that setting from 56V to 48V for a start.

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Thanks Superdiy/Schicks, changed it to Grid-tied and did the recommended settings, can definitely be the charger that charged my account :-) The reason for changing the original charge time from 00:00~04:00 to 00:00~00:00 was the batteries seem to run down quite quickly from 100% to 75%, and then stays at 75% as soon as PV was lost, do you experience this as well and what can be the reason for this? Thanks again for your feedback, will monitor and see if my account looks better next month.

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Thanks Superdiy/Schicks, changed it to Grid-tied and did the recommended settings, can definitely be the charger that charged my account :-) The reason for changing the original charge time from 00:00~04:00 to 00:00~00:00 was the batteries seem to run down quite quickly from 100% to 75%, and then stays at 75% as soon as PV was lost, do you experience this as well and what can be the reason for this? Thanks again for your feedback, will monitor and see if my account looks better next month.

 

The battery % indication is not at all an accurate representation of the state of charge of the battery. Same problem with the Axpert inverters. If you've for example specified the float voltage to be 55V, then the inverter "sees" that as 100% charged, but under no load the batteries are actually 100% charged at about 12.7V x 4 => 50.8V. Now, if the PV disappears and the inverter starts running from battery power and the battery voltage drops to 50+ V, the inverter reports that the batteries are only 60-70% charged, although they are actually still fully (100%) charged.

 

Best is to monitor the battery voltage, but remember, the voltage will drop quite a bit under heavy loads as well, but even if it drops to 46V under heavy load it is still not an indication that the battery is fully discharged - when the heavy load is taken off and the battery voltage does not recover to above 48V, only then the battery is running low.

 

Best solution to this is to fork out some cash and to invest in a proper battery monitor e.g. one of the Victron products.

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Look on youtube, knurlgnar24 made a series of videos about why Peukert's law is wrong (not wrong, but seriously misunderstood). He explains how the capacity of the battery only relates to it's construction, but that the useful capacity/efficiency relates to how quickly you discharge it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One more question, if my DB board is split into light & heavy loads (light = inverter), will the inverter be able to absorb some of the heavy load as well if the feed into grid tick is off in Grid Tie (I) mode?

 

If " feed into grid tick is off " the inverter will not push anything back to the DB and for that matter to the "heavy loads".

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Hi, tried to export the infisolar "data", but for some or other reason it is not complete. I searched for data from the 1-9 Sept, but only got  3 hours on the 3rd and todays data started at 19:00 up to 20:30, nothing else? Anyone else experienced this? I know storage capacity might be minimal in the inverter, but can I then at lease get the last day's information?

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Hi, tried to export the infisolar "data", but for some or other reason it is not complete. I searched for data from the 1-9 Sept, but only got  3 hours on the 3rd and todays data started at 19:00 up to 20:30, nothing else? Anyone else experienced this? I know storage capacity might be minimal in the inverter, but can I then at lease get the last day's information?

 

The inverter stores a hell of a lot of data, but I cannot get anything via the bundled version of the SolarPower software. I can never "see" anything in any drop-down where you are supposed to select the inverter and therefor I cannot get any data to export or for any of the graphs etc. I have a later (latest?) version of SolarPower but have not installed it yet, so I don't know if it works better. The bundled version does however display PV generated since I've installed my infini and if you check the data on the inverter (buttons and display on inverter), you can also drill down to the day it was installed. The PC software contains a lot of bugs and I think not being able to retrieve other data from the inverter is one of them. Which version of SolarPower do you have installed?

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I agree about the software having issues :(

When installing the software, make sure to use the default settings.

Make sure that you run it as Administrator, even if you logged in as admin. Windows can also be funny that way.

 

I've read somewhere that somebody had issues with the software for the Axperts. (Axpert and infini software are very similar) The person complained about some things which did not work and the conclusion was that he installed it in another directory - not the default directory. After re-installing it using the default installation directory and all the default options, more of the functionality worked.

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hi doppies, 

 

where did you download the SolarPower software?  On the http://www.voltronicpower.com/software.php page, I see only the 

  ViewPower

  ViewPowerPro

  SNMP Web Manager

  MPPTracker

 

best

Stephan

 

Website: http://www.ostrovni-elektrarny.cz/index.php?page=podpora

SolarPower: http://www.ostrovni-elektrarny.cz/support/Voltronic/SolarPower_1.09_Windows.zip

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I see the new version now also have the NRS097-2-1 standard available.

 

Does anybody know where this program stores the device data?

I installed to a diffrent directory and now all of my old data is not available :(

Only data for this month is available.

The old data is still available on the old program.

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thanks for the link!

 

much appreciated!

 

Anyone have any good references to a GOOD electrician that can do the install (according to spec ;-) )?

 - I have 3 phase and need to move all the lights to the backup bus

 - I need some (*and herein lies the "challenge"*) power points on the backup bus too (TV, fridges, alarm, study)

 

No PV yet.. that needs to happen in the next month or so...

 

best

Stephan

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