Hi Gents

I have a 12kW 3 Phase Sunsynk Inverter; any way I can use my single phase generator to charge my lithium batteries when the sun isn't out?

How about an external charger that is set up without BMS working just from voltage specifications? This would only be for short periods during continuous rainy days, we have very unreliable utility power. Normally when it rains the utility power is also off. A quick search doesn't really indicate any battery chargers that I can use for this purpose. A cheap offgrid inverter perhaps? 

If there aren't any practical ways to achieve this I will probably just add a changeover that combines all the phases to be able to run the house of the generator, it was done this way before we had solar installed.

Best Regards

AJ

Hi AJ, 

That is just about the only illegal way you can power your home your scenario. Unfortunately the Sunsynk 3 phase machine is now your first fully 3 phase appliance if you don't have any others. It will not allow the Gene to power the loads nor charge the battery on the DC side because it's looking for 120 out of phase phases. So it's really not very convenient. 

A cheap legal way would be to get a cheapie Voltronics machine to do the 48V charging. However, depends on the power wave form of your Gene if its good or no good the Voltronics will also be very picky. 

I wish the guys at Sunsynk had a hack for this to work. Would make it very convenient for ppl in this situation. 

 

6 hours ago, Steve87 said:

Hi AJ, 

That is just about the only illegal way you can power your home your scenario. Unfortunately the Sunsynk 3 phase machine is now your first fully 3 phase appliance if you don't have any others. It will not allow the Gene to power the loads nor charge the battery on the DC side because it's looking for 120 out of phase phases. So it's really not very convenient. 

A cheap legal way would be to get a cheapie Voltronics machine to do the 48V charging. However, depends on the power wave form of your Gene if its good or no good the Voltronics will also be very picky. 

I wish the guys at Sunsynk had a hack for this to work. Would make it very convenient for ppl in this situation. 

 

Yes, it is ok to have more than one charging sources on the battery bus even if the there is no parraleling arrangement between inverters/chargers, even if both chargers are active.!

And you have the extra benefit of the gen charger delivering to both battery and inverter via the battery bus, keeping some lights on. 

The drawback is the cost of a half decent charger with manual  voltage and current control. 

As @Steve87pointed out you may even use a low cost inverter for this purpose. 

By definition, such an arrangement will be defined as a dc coupled generator, instead of ac coupling. 

 

Edited March 21, 20232 yr by BritishRacingGreen

44 minutes ago, BritishRacingGreen said:

Yes, it is ok to have more than one charging sources on the battery bus even if the there is no parraleling arrangement between inverters/chargers, even if both chargers are active.!

And you have the extra benefit of the gen charger delivering to both battery and inverter via the battery bus, keeping some lights on. 

The drawback is the cost of a half decent charger with manual  voltage and current control. 

As @Steve87pointed out you may even use a low cost inverter for this purpose. 

By definition, such an arrangement will be defined as a dc coupled generator, instead of ac coupling. 

 

Quick search for 48v chargers on the internet, found the first 3, all of them 20A, all them way in access of R10k. Thats too expensive. 

Thanks Gents

I'll look into that. Yes charging the batteries with a generator would be much more beneficial than a changeover.

It looks like the Victron Multiplus range would do the job, but the 1kW (~20A battery charge) version costs almost the same as a Kodak 5kw 48V Offgrid inverter (60A battery charge).

I have the same problem, and was wondering if a frequency inverter would work? Taking the single phase of the generator through the frequency inverter which makes it 3 phase and then put it into the Generator section of the inverter?