- Thread starter Ringo
- Start date
Changed to solar and...... Wow!
Ringo, Thanks for coming back on that. You might want to think of doing an hourly study as I described. You will need two Clamp meters too.
On the Solar , the breakers were identified and shut off . The heaters are essentially "Flash" water heaters and yes, draw 4kW so you dont get a cooling shower. Since then the owner has gone to Gas. You see the owners said "These are Solar. They dont use electricity" It was a false assumption. Perhaps your feeders have multiple tape joints and are leaking and I notice you say they are in metal tubes " so nobody could touch them"
Well it has been wet lately -just done the rainfall figures to date for this month 6.6 inches - so that may be interesting if you correlate it to you consumption.
I have done this type of investigation now at a number of properties and sometimes it takes a while to find the cause. But from what you say it sounds like a problem between you transfer panel and meter. Quite what I cant say!
Olly and the Team
On the Solar , the breakers were identified and shut off . The heaters are essentially "Flash" water heaters and yes, draw 4kW so you dont get a cooling shower. Since then the owner has gone to Gas. You see the owners said "These are Solar. They dont use electricity" It was a false assumption. Perhaps your feeders have multiple tape joints and are leaking and I notice you say they are in metal tubes " so nobody could touch them"
Well it has been wet lately -just done the rainfall figures to date for this month 6.6 inches - so that may be interesting if you correlate it to you consumption.
I have done this type of investigation now at a number of properties and sometimes it takes a while to find the cause. But from what you say it sounds like a problem between you transfer panel and meter. Quite what I cant say!
Olly and the Team
Again... good thinking Olly. We have had the meter box checked and the wires to/at the transfer switched checked several times for "extra" wires, loose connections or anything that might be a drain. Nothing has ever shown up. I DO understand about our rain (that is really nice to have this year) and have considered the might be our problem. But then again, no water in our systems and our spikes are not regular or the same. A wet connection would stay consistant until it dryed out. Correct? And we have rain just about everyday for some time.
Ringo,
The taped connection inside the metal pipes are often intermitent ,shorting or grounding for a while and the heat generated "Drying them out" . It fills up again so the process starts all over. Condiut is NOT usually water tight.
I dont know where you live but here on the North Coast rainfall has been :15th Wednesday 0.5 inches, 16th Thursday 0.1 inches, 17th Friday 0.8 inches - so over the last few days 1.4 inches - enough to get into conduits and soak tape joints.
I have data by day for all this year so you might want to see if there is any correlation with you higher consumption. We have not had much rain over the last two days so you should start to see a decline if this is the problem.
One property was having high consumption and intermitent brown outs. Feeders were 130 ft long and started off as 6mm cable at the meter. The wires change colour on the way so there was at least one taped connection. It was direct buried in the ground.
When it rained consumption was high but no brown outs ? On pulling the cables out there were five taped joints , it went from 6mm cable to various sizes in the middle, the smallest being #12 but ended up as 6mm at the main break switch.
One joint had completedly burnt out and it was just the conductivity through about 1" of soil that provided the connection. In dry weather it was high resistence hence brown outs, wet weather it was good connection but leaking to ground so high consumption.
Feeders were replaced with a lengths of #4 cable with no taped connections and all the problems went!! But at a cost of 11,000 RD$ just for cable!
It was a hard one to figure out so you might want to reconsider some of your assumptions!
By the way I do this sort of thing out of interest only!
Olly and the Team
The taped connection inside the metal pipes are often intermitent ,shorting or grounding for a while and the heat generated "Drying them out" . It fills up again so the process starts all over. Condiut is NOT usually water tight.
I dont know where you live but here on the North Coast rainfall has been :15th Wednesday 0.5 inches, 16th Thursday 0.1 inches, 17th Friday 0.8 inches - so over the last few days 1.4 inches - enough to get into conduits and soak tape joints.
I have data by day for all this year so you might want to see if there is any correlation with you higher consumption. We have not had much rain over the last two days so you should start to see a decline if this is the problem.
One property was having high consumption and intermitent brown outs. Feeders were 130 ft long and started off as 6mm cable at the meter. The wires change colour on the way so there was at least one taped connection. It was direct buried in the ground.
When it rained consumption was high but no brown outs ? On pulling the cables out there were five taped joints , it went from 6mm cable to various sizes in the middle, the smallest being #12 but ended up as 6mm at the main break switch.
One joint had completedly burnt out and it was just the conductivity through about 1" of soil that provided the connection. In dry weather it was high resistence hence brown outs, wet weather it was good connection but leaking to ground so high consumption.
Feeders were replaced with a lengths of #4 cable with no taped connections and all the problems went!! But at a cost of 11,000 RD$ just for cable!
It was a hard one to figure out so you might want to reconsider some of your assumptions!
By the way I do this sort of thing out of interest only!
Olly and the Team
Thanks for a few answers. Every little bit of info helps to understand how others did solar and what problems/benefits obtained as well as costs.
Who sells those batteries in LRD? Also, what are their maintaince requirements and life expectancies.
Didn't you have to get all that stuff permitted, or are you thinking they've forgotten about you by now?
Isn?t it possible to rewire your pump motor for 120 VAC? Many motors give you the ability to select different input power options based on the how you connect the terminals in the box that the feeder cable goes into, with jumper wires. If you do this you will probably have to change the feed wires (and the breaker) to double the current carrying capacity.
Isn?t it possible to rewire your pump motor for 120 VAC? Many motors give you the ability to select different input power options based on the how you connect the terminals in the box that the feeder cable goes into, with jumper wires. If you do this you will probably have to change the feed wires (and the breaker) to double the current carrying capacity. You might also have to add another four panels since big motors can really draw current. I don't know if it's a good idea to do this, but it should be considered.
Again.... good thinking Olly.
We have had more then our share of different sized, color and taped wires. Most we found and replaced years ago. We even had such a connection in a ground register that had filled with water. You should have seen the arching and sparking going on in the water and the vapor coming off the top on the water. That's when we started pulling and replacing wire....... and a lot it was.
Our meter and main breaker is mounted on the side of our generator/elec/service area and the cable runs thru the conduit for about 6 feet to the generator auto disconnect system inside. The type, gage and color match on both ends. Being that this is a 200 amp. service I have not tried to pull these cables to check. However, if they had been taped and grounding to the metal conduit, wouldn't I have been electrified a long time ago?
And I have changed some of my assumptions, that is why I changed the Edenorte game. It is also why I am here on DR1 giving information and getting it too.
HOWEVER! I can not check the connections behind the meter and I have made an assumption that the connections would have been checked when the new meter was put in last month. WRONG ASSUMPTION. We had a power problem in the U.S. and after begging, the power company came out and pulled the meter. Guess what? Loose connection behind the meter so it was arching. The more power that we used the bigger the arch and the more the meter would spin and we had been paying double what we used. And NO... they would not refund any money.
Thanks Olly for jarring my old memory.
(Oh... you asked where we are. Playa Chiquita outside of Sosua.)
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Ringo and Wuarhat,
You might want to consider another alternative with the pool pump. We only run our pump 1 hr 45 mins per day but have adjusted the chemicals and acidity of the pool. It is crystal clear! We keep the pool slightly on the acid side at 7.3 ish and CL at about 2-3 ppm with both tablets and grannuls. Occaisionally there are signs of cloudiness and Claudette Algaecide is added. We have also started using Chloro Pulvo which is very stong and gives a quick boost to the Cl level if needed.
We have a 1Hp /kW 0.75 pump for a 17,000 gallon pool. If you are looking at the plate you need to take the Volts/Amps
for THE POWER INPUT to the pump to get 1Hp output. If I look at the plate on my pump it says 230 V x 7.5 Amps =1725 Watts. Actually measuring it, it takes 8.2 on 235 volts AC so slightly higher Watts.
If yours is a 2 Hp then it will actually be using 3.5kW input power. Five hours times 3.5 kW per hour = 17.5 kWh or 525kWh per month.
You might want to consider taking that route first of reducing the time -a bit more expensive on chemicals but cheaper by far on electricity.
Wuarhat,
On changing to 115 Volts AC you will double the current to about 30 Amps for a 2 Hp pump and probably have to go from #12 to #10 cable but the load centre should be able to handle it even with the start up surge.
Olly and the Team
You might want to consider another alternative with the pool pump. We only run our pump 1 hr 45 mins per day but have adjusted the chemicals and acidity of the pool. It is crystal clear! We keep the pool slightly on the acid side at 7.3 ish and CL at about 2-3 ppm with both tablets and grannuls. Occaisionally there are signs of cloudiness and Claudette Algaecide is added. We have also started using Chloro Pulvo which is very stong and gives a quick boost to the Cl level if needed.
We have a 1Hp /kW 0.75 pump for a 17,000 gallon pool. If you are looking at the plate you need to take the Volts/Amps
for THE POWER INPUT to the pump to get 1Hp output. If I look at the plate on my pump it says 230 V x 7.5 Amps =1725 Watts. Actually measuring it, it takes 8.2 on 235 volts AC so slightly higher Watts.
If yours is a 2 Hp then it will actually be using 3.5kW input power. Five hours times 3.5 kW per hour = 17.5 kWh or 525kWh per month.
You might want to consider taking that route first of reducing the time -a bit more expensive on chemicals but cheaper by far on electricity.
Wuarhat,
On changing to 115 Volts AC you will double the current to about 30 Amps for a 2 Hp pump and probably have to go from #12 to #10 cable but the load centre should be able to handle it even with the start up surge.
Olly and the Team
Ringo - Post 49 ,
With such a short run and in metal conduit it is difficult to see where you are loosing it! My impression was that you have many of feet of feeder from your meter to your property - must change my assumptions too!
Dont know the configuration but if the metal conduit is correctly grounded or runs in the ground itself you may not get electricuted!
Just trying to help but as I thought you have pretty well gone through everything !
I'll bug out now ! Cant think of much else anyway - Good luck with the court case!
Olly and the Team
With such a short run and in metal conduit it is difficult to see where you are loosing it! My impression was that you have many of feet of feeder from your meter to your property - must change my assumptions too!
Dont know the configuration but if the metal conduit is correctly grounded or runs in the ground itself you may not get electricuted!
Just trying to help but as I thought you have pretty well gone through everything !
I'll bug out now ! Cant think of much else anyway - Good luck with the court case!
Olly and the Team
Overall, I have found it to be not too problematic other than being up the proverbial creek when we see 3-4 days of rain.
Gasoil time !!!
gre:So I have been thinking about the 220/110 pool pump and glanced at it once to see that it uses 16.6 amps. so my thoughts of putting that on the 110 solar did not appear to be very wise knowing that 16.6 amps would drain my batteris in no time not to mention doubleing that going to 110. So that got set aside.
I just looked again and did see that it is 2 HP and does use 1.55KWh.
Reading upside down with a lighter to read the info. with old glasses that don't focus. U get the picture? LOL
Thanks guys.
So what is the math to change to my 110 solar. AMPS???? I just read UP and saw that you have already answered my question.
Dang you guys are good!
Olly.... want a job as my pool boy?
Leaving the pump 220V on Edenorte only or changing to a solar powered pool pump are the options I would consider.
I completely agree with Olly regarding the trade off of chemicals to pool pump run time. Same result I came to over trial and error. I only use Trichlor tablets and powdered Trichlor in my pool and have for more than 7 years. I don't think you can even find "normal" chlorine in any quantity so I gave up on it and found Trichlor to work just fine for me. It already has a "chlorine sunscreen" chemical in it.
I completely agree with Olly regarding the trade off of chemicals to pool pump run time. Same result I came to over trial and error. I only use Trichlor tablets and powdered Trichlor in my pool and have for more than 7 years. I don't think you can even find "normal" chlorine in any quantity so I gave up on it and found Trichlor to work just fine for me. It already has a "chlorine sunscreen" chemical in it.
Got it .......... sort of. IF it needs 3.8 then... 5 X 3.8 = 19KWh's for the 5 that I run it. ???? I see that the meter shows around, near, sort of... sometimes ... +- 7KWh used for the 5 hours the pool is running.
When I was running the generator this morning, to boil batts and due laundry too, I checked my generator KW reading with the pool only and it was about 1kWh. I didn't look at the other meter readings on the gen. or pay that much attention since it seemed reasonable and I had other animal duties that needed me.
I know Watt's law but .... I keep going in circles.
Wait until you see my NEXT post. LOL.
What about the pool boy job?
First of all I'd like to THANK all those that have posted. What a great group! I think EVERY post in this thread has had value.
Second? Thanks to those that DID NOT post so we have stayed on topic and learned.
OK. We have assumptions that need to be questioned. Here goes.
I have a 48 volt battery/inverter system.
Each bank of batteries have 8 six volt batteries.
I HAD 4 banks with 32 total batteries.
I now have only 3 banks of batteries for a total of 24 batteries.
I took the 4th bank off due to my batteries are about 4 years old and starting to go. I have 4 bad and have set aside 4 OK for replaceing as needed in the usable banks.
HERE is the question:
I know that you DON'T put a new single battery or two into a bank of older batteries.
What about replacing a WHOLE bank with new while the other 3 are seasoned?
Thanks.
Second? Thanks to those that DID NOT post so we have stayed on topic and learned.
OK. We have assumptions that need to be questioned. Here goes.
I have a 48 volt battery/inverter system.
Each bank of batteries have 8 six volt batteries.
I HAD 4 banks with 32 total batteries.
I now have only 3 banks of batteries for a total of 24 batteries.
I took the 4th bank off due to my batteries are about 4 years old and starting to go. I have 4 bad and have set aside 4 OK for replaceing as needed in the usable banks.
HERE is the question:
I know that you DON'T put a new single battery or two into a bank of older batteries.
What about replacing a WHOLE bank with new while the other 3 are seasoned?
Thanks.
I do not have personal experience with this, nor have I seen much written on replacing only one bank of batteries so I can only guess about it. The older batteries will present a different impedance to the charging circuit which will be a higher impedance than the new batteries. The older batteries will take a different time to charge as fully as they can than the time that is optimum for the new bank of batteries. The charge current will probably be higher through the new bank of batteries than it is through any of the old banks. In other words they won't share the charge current equally during a charge cycle. This can cause premature damage to the new bank of batteries.
The banks will probably also discharge at unequal rates causing a constant push/pull situation during charge and discharge.
I could be wrong, but that is my guess.
I don't know either or I would not ask the question. Your opinion as stated fits mine also.
ONE bank of new batteries will discharge AND charge at a different rate then the other older batteris. Thus: the older battery banks will steel volts from the new bank trying to equalize the WHOLE system and bleed the new bank.
Battery amp hours/usable battery power HAS been increased with the new bank but at what cost bleeding to the older banks.
I guess that since the condition of the older banks/batteries can not be fully known, then we have no real answer other then....
Gain amp hours but unknown long term effects on new/older batteries. I would guess also that the new banks life will be shorter and full power never given since they are feeding the other banks.
I think that you are... right on.
Thanks W.G. and a big.... dang. Not wanting to replace 32 batts at the same time.
HELLO.... I HAVE A SALE ON BATTERIES THAT HAVE A LITTLE TIME ON THEM. only 120 US each.
I know this..... you NEVER mix batteries of different ages.
Either one by one or bank by bank.
The weaker battery or battery bank drags the others down.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Try this on a 2 battery flashlight - or a 3 battery - or a 4 battery.
I repeat a previous post:
When I was having a 2008 meltdown - I tried to cut back on my HUGE solar costs.
I suggested keeping the panels and reducing the battery numkber.
My man, GREC, gave me the best advice:
Bill, You can add panels any time - not so w/ batteries.
Spend on the battery bank now, add panels later.
I did ..... and have had no problems.
The batteries are the heart and cannot be replaced partially.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Hope this helps.
Either one by one or bank by bank.
The weaker battery or battery bank drags the others down.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Try this on a 2 battery flashlight - or a 3 battery - or a 4 battery.
I repeat a previous post:
When I was having a 2008 meltdown - I tried to cut back on my HUGE solar costs.
I suggested keeping the panels and reducing the battery numkber.
My man, GREC, gave me the best advice:
Bill, You can add panels any time - not so w/ batteries.
Spend on the battery bank now, add panels later.
I did ..... and have had no problems.
The batteries are the heart and cannot be replaced partially.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Hope this helps.