MEP 803A as off grid solar backup

[Sodamo]

As mentioned in other threads, I'm a very recent owner of a MEP 803A 10kw generator. My purpose for this generator is strictly as a user. Installation might be classified as semi-permanent, everything will eventually be hard wired and I don't anticipate relocating the unit.

Some background. Moved here in 2005 into a 640sf cottage we built over several trips. Very basic, rustic Initial power was a very small PV system I got out of Home Power magazine. This was our base as we built the house. Decision to remain off grid was partially driven by fact power did not come to the property and rough estimate of $20k to do so.

We built the house and moved in 2007. Currently our off grid solar configuration:
64 -roof mounter solar panels in 48v : 10.14k
3 - FM80 charge controllers
12- 4 volt Rolls Surette Batteries ( beginning to show their age 9 years old)
4 - FX 3048T inverters
24kw diesel generator built in Phoenix of mostly Chinese parts (proven to be a disappointment)
Ridgid 8000 backup generator which just bit the dust and reason for getting the 803a
Honda 2000i which is a great portable power source and has had to perform as emergency backup 2 in last 3 years due to failures of both primary and backup generators.
i can monitor and have limited control of system via Internet and the Outback OpticsRE capability.

As for the load side, house about 3k sf and has all the normal appliances etc except no HVAC. With the pool and Hot Tub we average high 20s kW/day. The cottage is also connected to this system.

If anyone has questions as to off-grid system feel free to ask. We have many friends and neighbor off grid as well.

Setting up this generator will be done over a period time. My initial priority is functionality, which I have achieved and will post later.

My goal for this project is to provide reliable backup power primarily to charge my battery bank in advent my primary generator is not available. A couple of my requirements starting out:
-Generator will be auto start capable (already ordered Inova module)
-Running parameters should require minimal or no programming changes to my system.
-Emergency changeover from primary system must be easy to accommade someone not familiar with the details, be it my wife or a house sitter. I just experienced where our house/dog sitter had the Ridgid fail while I was in Ft Lauderdale about to go on 15 day cruise. Not a comforting situation.

So that's my introduction to this project. Looking forward to your expertise and questions/comments.

Here' an aerial taken by a drone a couple months ago:


It's gonna be fun.

 

[Sodamo]

Yesterday I picked up the unit about 40 miles from house at a farm business. Owner has a number of 10, 30, and 60kw gensets supporting his farm. Grows great tomatoes commercially.
i dealt with his maintenance manager, who also lives off grid and currently using an 803. He previously had an older model 10kw and a 30kw but found the 30kw used too much fuel for his use.

picking up with my M1102


Overnight in my in my tractor shed.

 

[Sodamo]

Today I unloaded with help of my dear wife and placed unit in its new home.


Once in place, I wired in my cable, which right now connects to my system via a 240 dryer/range plug.


Gave it a look over, topped off the diesel and fired it up. Batteries already at 100%, only drew 3.5kw according to my Mate3

Went to house, wife said she didn't hear it. Back to shed and shut down.

Now that it is running, new priorities.
After I drain and refill the hot tub, I will run again. Let's see what that 4kw heater does. Probably click on the pool pumps too.
Next mod is to extend the exhaust up and outside - simple length of pipe and a 90° sweep.
Stay tuned

 

[Sodamo]

Started my exhaust extension. 1 1/4" emt conduit, pipe fitting, emt 90° sweep and connecter.



Need to to fashion a bracket or two to attach to the beams for stability.
An expanded metal cage up about 4ft to prevent my accidentally grabbing the hot pipe.

I removed the flapper so it wouldn't make noise. Probably won't put a flapper on the top end as I didn't have one on my previous generator.

 

[jamawieb]

Started my exhaust extension. 1 1/4" emt conduit, pipe fitting, emt 90° sweep and connecter.

View attachment 622617

Need to to fashion a bracket or two to attach to the beams for stability.
An expanded metal cage up about 4ft to prevent my accidentally grabbing the hot pipe.

I removed the flapper so it wouldn't make noise. Probably won't put a flapper on the top end as I didn't have one on my previous generator.

Everything is looking great! Just make sure you somehow support the exhaust somewhere, I would be worried about to much weight sitting on the exhaust. The exhaust is held on with 2 small bolts to the engine block and then of course the manifold.

 

[DieselAddict]

Right and it needs to be a spring hanger to account for thermal expansion. Otherwise it will break stuff.

 

[Sodamo]

Ran the unit with various loads today. Used my wired connection to my Outback system. This provides power to my battery chargers that are part of the inverter and house loads.
Started off with with 8kw showing on the Outback Mate as generator input. Kicked on two 240v pool pumps, mate went up to 11.2 while the Percent Current meter on generator hovered just below 50%. I think the hot tube may have kicked in, not sure, but generator hit overload. Turned off the pumps, reset generator and started again this time turning on both hot tub pumps, couldn't tell if the 4kw heater kicked in but I doubt it as the water was hotter than temp setting. Mate showed 13.4kw and Percent Current meter about 60%. Overload did trip at some point when I wasn't watching, but my batteries were 100% and I was pleased with results. All this took about an hour. Not sure I understand how the Percent Current meter works as I expected higher readings. Happy with what I observed but will likely do some more tests, may even look at doing some sort of heater element tests.

Started on some brackets for my exhaust extension. Unfortunately no expanded metal on my trip to HD yesterday so that portion is on hold a bit.

 

[jamawieb]

Ran the unit with various loads today. Used my wired connection to my Outback system. This provides power to my battery chargers that are part of the inverter and house loads.
Started off with with 8kw showing on the Outback Mate as generator input. Kicked on two 240v pool pumps, mate went up to 11.2 while the Percent Current meter on generator hovered just below 50%. I think the hot tube may have kicked in, not sure, but generator hit overload. Turned off the pumps, reset generator and started again this time turning on both hot tub pumps, couldn't tell if the 4kw heater kicked in but I doubt it as the water was hotter than temp setting. Mate showed 13.4kw and Percent Current meter about 60%. Overload did trip at some point when I wasn't watching, but my batteries were 100% and I was pleased with results. All this took about an hour. Not sure I understand how the Percent Current meter works as I expected higher readings. Happy with what I observed but will likely do some more tests, may even look at doing some sort of heater element tests.

Started on some brackets for my exhaust extension. Unfortunately no expanded metal on my trip to HD yesterday so that portion is on hold a bit.

If you look at the schematics, the percent load meter connections go through the phase reconnection switch and then through the AM-VM switch on the front of the control panel. Some of us have had luck exercising the switches several dozen times to clean the connectors on the inside of them. I've done this on 2 units and it fixed the percent load gauge. The gauge should read approximately 80% at 10kw, that should give you a base line. If you mate showed 13.4kw, your percent load gauge should be reading 125%+.

 

[Guyfang]

What kind of S-6 and S-8 switch do you have? The blue plastic or something else? Take a picture.

 

[Sodamo]

Pics of S1 and S6
wonder if a shot or two of something like DeOxIt might be beneficial?

 

[Guyfang]

The S-1 is a second version switch. The S-6 is a first version. A little, (or maybe a lot) DeOxIt could not hurt. I another thread, someone took the switches apart and cleaned them. If you are retired, then you might have enough time on your hands to do that. Nerves is something else. I will look the link up and post it when I have a few seconds. Got Santana on and doing my taxes right now. My head is full!

 

[Guyfang]

[h=1]Thread: Electronic Parts Replacements Info for the MEP-802A[/h]
here is the thread

 

[Sodamo]

Received my Inova auto start board today. Won't be installing for awhile as I have other priorities.
Sorry to say that at this point I'm a bit frustrated, but will take a deep breath before venting.

 

[Guyfang]

Drink a beer. Better for your health.

 

[Sodamo]

Oh, I have
but it didn't change the facts
oh well, maybe I'll review it again tomorrow, maybe I missed something.

 

[Sodamo]

Fashion an expanded metal guard for my exhaust extension. Nothing fancy, but should be functional.

 

[Coley]

I have set up several people with similar systems, as well as myself. Mostly I use 802A gensets with auto/remote starts. The general setup I suggest is a magnum 4024 inverter with battery monitor kit, 8 L16 550 amp hour batteries, a battery monitor kit, an AGS (generator autostart module for inverter), at least 4 solar panels and a 60 amp solar charge controller.

It is set up with a two wire start from the magnum autostart module, which works fine with the Inova remote start. I have the inverter set up to start the gen when the battery bank SOC reaches 65%. I could go lower but that would shorten the life of the battery bank and 65% is a good mix between usability and longevity of the bank. The inverter charge controller is then set to 60% (60% of output goes to charging batteries and 40% goes to passthrough to power loads during charging). I have found this works very well. IN the summer here in Alaska, the gen hardly runs at all unless we get more than 2 days of overcast. Most houses are like mine with light loads most of the time, and will run a 120 or 240 well pump as well as frig, freezer and normal tv/computer/light loads. I had to tweak the "warmup" time for the inverter generator autostart to 3 minutes due to having the inova side doing a 2 minute warmup. Initially the inverter was looking for power at 2 minutes and sometimes the inova side had not taken the load yet causing a fault. Extending the inverter side to 3 minutes solved that. Some of the set ups I have done we also set for "quiet time" between 9 pm and 7am. The system senses usage, and battery bacnk SOC and will run the gen for a bit in the early evening to top the battery bank off enough to last till 7am.

Anyway, its a good setup and I do not get many calls with problems.


CF

 

[Sodamo]

Thanks, sounds like a great setup. I listed my configuration earlier.

i will be wiring the 2 wire auto start from my Outback inverter. My goal is to have this as a secondary backup, so my thought was to wire to a manual transfer switch. Hoping I could achieve. 2 functions with that switch. 1 transfer the gen feed to my inverter/chargers and 2 use a slide switch to transfer the Outback start to the appropriate generator. Unknown at this point is whether I can do so with my current relay or do I need to add a separate 24v relay just for my MEP.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit behind on the wiring of the Inova board, partly due to being focused on solving a battery issue (hopefully solved tomorrow) and frustration with the Inova product (likely due to my own shortfalls). The board did not come with instructions, Inova has so far ignored my email. I did download the 803 manual, found out I also need the 003 manual and quick look I can't tell what part of the 003 manual is appropriate. Also not clear at this point about the relay. As I said, this just maybe me and if I read another 6 times all will be clear. As you have done this before, perhaps you can be helpful?

David

 

[Coley]

Well, Inova has manuals on their site. You can go in and add them to your cart like an order, and when you check out you do not have to pay, and can download them. I am not sure how useful the autostart would be with a manual transfer switch. It would be useful with an automatic transfer switch (as in grid power connected to one side, then you renewable system connected to the other). I am not really familier with Outback stuff as I have only set a couple of them up. I do mostly Schnieder and Magnum.

CF

If you need I can email you the Inova manuals also.

 

[Sodamo]

Thanks again, Coley

An ATS is of no value to me, being totally off grid, no grid power to lose or switch. In fact my first generator, I was told was good for two wire auto start, but what I wasn't told was it needed to sense loss of grid power, took me awhile to figure that out and bypass the 240 relay with a 12vdc.

My purpose of a manual transfer switch is to replace manually plugging/unplugging the cable from a generator into Outback ACIn ( think electric range/ dryer receptacle).

GenA to Outback ACIn
or
GenB to Outback ACIn

My addition of a slide switch would be to enable the auto start call from inverter to start the appropriate generator. In other words the Outback would simply see GenA or GenB, not both. Pretty sure I can do this mod to a regular MTF as look as I can figure what the Inova needs and can work out the mechanics.

As for the Outback, all I need to know is where to hook the two Aux wires for the Inova to work. On my current and previous generators they hook to a 12v relay that activates the auto start controller on the generator. On the MEP I'm assuming that is the Inova board or a relay going to the Inova board.

As for the Inova manuals, I have downloaded using the ridiculous "purchase" method - have never seen that before)
my problem is making sense of them as far as the install. For instance what portion of the old 002/003 manual actually pertains. Find it hard to believe it wouldn't have been possible to make the 802/803 manual complete on its own.

Im a pretty decent DYI, but I'm not an electronics guy, nor a generator guy, but I am usually pretty good at following clear instructions. Even been known to overcome less than clear ones like mentioned above.

David