Inverters

[ians]

Going from the odd small inverter installations with lead acid batteries here and there ... to full blown solar and everthying from 1 KVA - 3 x 5 kva connected in parallel and AGM and lithium.

Time to put on the big boy pants ... reading glasses ... dust off the metrel PQA ... make an enclosure for the meter with 2 clips to hang on the wall ... and get familiar with how all this stuff works ... Literally every site I work on now has either inverters and batteries as a backup ... some installed by me ... and some now also have solar panels and the works ... installed by others.

The first and most important thing I noticed ... the customers lack of understanding of how the system and apps work ... its called a "bad customer experience" ... its the same with alarms and CCTV ... customer are not DIY enthusiasts ... they have no interest in all the numbers and pretty screens with graphs and shyte ... they want to know the simple stuff ... when the power goes off will my TV still work ... yes or no ... I spent until 8.45 pm last night trying to figue out what works on the customers inverter ... no lableing on the outlets ... no indicator light to show power was on/off ... no sketch next to the inverter indicating circuits etc ... sub DB's mounted next to exisitng DB's wiringing chopped into the wall ... bundles of skewits connections ... that you cant close the panel without using the screws to secure it ... what a mess... but it look pretty from the outside.


As an electricain I was confused ... imagine what it must be like as a customer with no electrical experience ... by the way the installer came highly recommended ... from the outside it looks pretty and there is lots of electrical tape wrapped around the skrewits

[tec0]

i did my own install hence why it is stand alone. Not a single wire is connected to the house "accept if i need to charge the batteries from a plug" It doesn't look very well done but it is fused and safe on every level. That i made sure of. i think the problem is people hear about electric fires, electrocution and numbers like 5000 Volts and 200 Amps and hell it even scare me until i did my own install. Now i know the wires i used was totally over kill for the application and i never needed a total battery capacity of over 1000 amps

[ians]

Where do we start ... at the meter box ... I have a new customer and this is the proccedure I follow ... Today I replaced the meter box (damaged) ... the supply circuit breaker terminals were rusted and the cable was showing signs of a hot spot ... reterminated all the cables ... secured the cables which were hanging loose on the pole.

Why the meter box ... because thats where it all begins.

Start with a loop impedance test.

Check the conditon of the incoming cable .

Make sure the meter box is secured properly.

Check the terminations on the circuit breaker and on the meter ... in most cases you will find the seals broken on the meter and the circuit breaker shroud ... if the seals are broken ... it is a good idea to notify the customer in writting and inform them that they need to notify the power supply company ... so that you are covered ... if they are sealed check for discolouring on the wires and tug on them to make sure they are tight.

Check the earth terminals ... in most cases the lugs are M10 and the bolt is an M6 with an M6 washer if they bothered to fit one ... it pays to remove the earth lugs ... clean then and reconnect ( just remember the installation will have no earth while you are sorting it out ... it would be wise to disconnect the power)

Make a sketch of the property and try indentify the route to the main DB or just look on the buiding for the main cable and draw a straight dotted line to the building.

While you are outside ... check the building for junction boxes and cabling or conduits secured to the building.

I use the soft cover brown A4 ecxercise books ... they cost less than R4 ... each and every one of my customers have a project file in the file cabinet ... take lots of photos ... open a project file on the PC ... no matter how small the job.

The next step is the main DB ... I have already opened it and it doesnt look good ... so I have advised the customer to replace it with a 3 compartment DB ... this way we get rid of all the sub DB's attached to it ... but before I even start ...there is no space to connect the PQA ... so I will cut the main cable and fit a junction box above the DB to connect a meter for recording load profiles etc ... which will also be fitted with a din rail and terminals ... to link the PGM ouput of the alarm to realys for the security lights and any other additions.