Guys

 

The AC of our system is supplied by a MicroCare 5kW inverter. It supplies our house as well as a building housing a restaurant and sports shop.

 

Both buildings are about 80m from the servitude building where the "power factory" is.

 

We sometimes overload the inverter, mainly because of the electrical oven in the house doing some of the baking for the restaurant. If someone then switches on an urn or something, the inverter is overloaded.

 

Because of the distance between the house or restaurant and the "kraghuisie", we do not hear the buzzer of the inverter warning of an overload.

 

Is there a way of making the buzzer louder, or better still, causing it to sound in the house and restaurant?

 

Thanks for the help.

 

(Apologies for the bad photograph. Last week I wanted to take pictures of the mist clearing as the sun started shining. Not really possible with a cellphone).

Get a bigger inverter to handle the peaks, seems to me you need it, or split the loads between two inverters.

And software that you can monitor the system in both locations.

Hi Tripple T

 

I want to make the buzzer louder, you suggest a R60 000 solution.

 

A 10kW MicroCare costs R50 000. Then to replace 160m of underground cable and some of the switchgear? Eish bru.

 

Splitting the load between 2 inverters will not really solve the problem. We sometimes overload the system from the house alone. We don't really have too little power, we just need to not switch on certain equipment while others are doing duty.

 

Then, if we switch on something that overloads the system, we can switch it off imediately, if we get the audible warning.

 

 

do you have the bi directional 5kw microcare?

Jip. 48V/5kW Bi-directional.

 

 

There's no easy way i know of. If you want to make it louder you can go get a siren with a relay. the buzzer is inside of this 

Luckily the buzzer is a simple one that only needs power, and only gets dc to make a sound. think its 5v.

luckily there's already a protection diode so, you'd just need to solder some wires from here and take them to the relay of a siren. 

 

2 hours ago, Jakes said:

Hi Tripple T

I want to make the buzzer louder, you suggest a R60 000 solution.

A 10kW MicroCare costs R50 000. Then to replace 160m of underground cable and some of the switch gear? Eish bru.

Splitting the load between 2 inverters will not really solve the problem. We sometimes overload the system from the house alone. We don't really have too little power, we just need to not switch on certain equipment while others are doing duty.

Then, if we switch on something that overloads the system, we can switch it off immediately, if we get the audible warning.

Not at all. Although I support blue, I do not support wastage ... ever.

First rule in solar is to reduce.
If you cannot, then increase.
If you cannot, manage the load.
Simple as that.

The software, can be web based or for fastest response, UTP cable. Anything can be done with development. 

You could pass the buzzer signal to an Arduino and in turn have it operate a siren on the roof of your "kraghuisie". 

Like that air raid sirens you hear in the movies. Make it start slow and then ramps up ... in case no one takes action.

Having look at the photos of your location a siren is not going to enhance the ambience!

Presumably you already have network connectivity between the various end points. So this really isn't anything you cannot solve with (for example) a crude solution (like an Efergy clamp meter plugged in via USB and some kind of remote desktop setup so you can see it), or something a bit less crude, 5V buzzer signal into an arduino/Rpi/both, small web server thingy to relay signal to a remote computer... you know, you could hack up some pretty workable solutions for about R1000. You could even use a microphone wired to a RaspberryPi to pick up the noise made by the buzzer, low pass filter of sorts to filter for the buzzer frequency, you can use a cell phone app like DaTuner (which is really for the piano) to get the frequency, that way you need not open anything and invalidate warranties. Of course the engineering challenge is to make it less hacky and to make it cost less... but since time isn't a free commodity either it's often pointless engineering a beautiful little solution with maximally reduced complexity for a one-off. Just saying... lots of ways to skin a cat.

Thanks so far.

We're heading for a good solution.

Personally I was thinking along the same lines as Weasel's suggestion. I'll clear out with the M/C-man before I start grinding and welding on his circuitry. If he doesn't like it, he can come up with a better solution.

For the noise-generating-device, something like a not-so-loud car hooter might work well. For that I can borrow 12V from the battery of the generator.

Electronically I'm worth as much as an earthworm. I'd have to ask CH or P to build the system, if we go the electronic route.

I'll update on the progress.

 

Could stick an LDR (light sensitive resistor) on the warning LED too, that's even easier than the microphone solution. Does require at least a little bit of electronic skill, reading a circuit and soldering strip board will do it. :-)

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I would use a "radio link" to open a engage with a buzzer closer to home. Something like this: 

http://www.communica.co.za/catalog/Details/P1929638763

Essentially it works the same as a gate / garage motor remote, but you can trigger it direcrly from the buzzer inputs. The receiver then connects to a relay to power a siren. 

 

This one has a built-in relay: http://netram.co.za/1869-codec-adaptive-wireless-relay-315mhz.html But you need a seperate 315Mhz transmitter, like this: http://netram.co.za/1148-315mhz-rf-link-kit.html but it has a 100m range outdoors. Similar kit with longer ranges can be acquired as well. 

Gas oven........

If you had a paradox alarm with the wifi sensors one could possibly use a zone and arm it as a 24 hour zone meaning it never a disarms, then the when the One triggers, the house alarm would sound one could even choose to have a pulsed siren instead of the usual one

Could be a bit noisy though.

Those Paradox alarms are flexible little things! I always go with Paradox when there is a choice. :-)

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