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Managing and using your generated power - a whacky idea?
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<blockquote data-quote="ProDave" data-source="post: 255754" data-attributes="member: 6969"><p>Experiment step 2.</p><p></p><p>Nice sunny day today and panels generating nicely (well they did once the snow melted off them which took until about 10AM) So time to test the low power immersion heater:</p><p></p><p>It took just a little over an hour to heat the tank until the thermostat clicked off. That was with the immersion heater stat close to maximum. My over-run 500VA transformer was just comfortably warm, so I'll run with this one for now, but keep an eye out for a larger one.</p><p></p><p>This shows I need to think my water heating strategy carefully. Today's problem being the boiler had already been on this morning, so the tank was already quite hot. So I think I'll set the boiler to shut off earlier so it doesn't fire us as soon as someone gets in the shower, but leaves the water cooler for the PV to heat up later, knowing if the sun doesn't come out, we can always switch the boiler on later. I'll also tweak the tank stat down a little, so the boiler does not heat it quite as hot.</p><p></p><p>It will be at least a week before I get my other parts (coming from Hong Kong), then the fun really starts trying to automate it all.</p><p></p><p>EDIT:</p><p></p><p>It gets better. Looking at my left over control gear, I've found a suitable telemechanique contactor, but better still I have an LA4 DWB which is a remote stop start unit. Basically it takes a 24V DC control signal and opto couples that to a thyristor to switch the contactor coil.</p><p></p><p>I've just tested it, and in spite of the control input being rated at 24V DC, I find it only needs 4V DC to trigger it.</p><p></p><p>So the job of interfacing the controller to the contactor has just got a whole lot easier as well.</p><p></p><p>Time to box all that up and await my controller to arrive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ProDave, post: 255754, member: 6969"] Experiment step 2. Nice sunny day today and panels generating nicely (well they did once the snow melted off them which took until about 10AM) So time to test the low power immersion heater: It took just a little over an hour to heat the tank until the thermostat clicked off. That was with the immersion heater stat close to maximum. My over-run 500VA transformer was just comfortably warm, so I'll run with this one for now, but keep an eye out for a larger one. This shows I need to think my water heating strategy carefully. Today's problem being the boiler had already been on this morning, so the tank was already quite hot. So I think I'll set the boiler to shut off earlier so it doesn't fire us as soon as someone gets in the shower, but leaves the water cooler for the PV to heat up later, knowing if the sun doesn't come out, we can always switch the boiler on later. I'll also tweak the tank stat down a little, so the boiler does not heat it quite as hot. It will be at least a week before I get my other parts (coming from Hong Kong), then the fun really starts trying to automate it all. EDIT: It gets better. Looking at my left over control gear, I've found a suitable telemechanique contactor, but better still I have an LA4 DWB which is a remote stop start unit. Basically it takes a 24V DC control signal and opto couples that to a thyristor to switch the contactor coil. I've just tested it, and in spite of the control input being rated at 24V DC, I find it only needs 4V DC to trigger it. So the job of interfacing the controller to the contactor has just got a whole lot easier as well. Time to box all that up and await my controller to arrive. [/QUOTE]
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Managing and using your generated power - a whacky idea?
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