mcii
New member
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- Location
- Wimberley, Texas
With the talk about real load banks I will share my near term solution until a real Govt type load bank comes into my inventory.. So where I live we don't have natural gas available for at least 20 + mile radius. So we use electric resistance and heat pump systems for home heating needs most often.
Wanting to really test my sets {MEP-802/803/804} I had this great idea and went to my HVAC pal and asked him to save me a few units that he might come by as he replaced existing residential or commercial HVAC units, soon enuff one unit appeared in my driveway, then another then another. My wife was also noticing this building new "collection" of stuff and made the casual question, how many of these you thinking you're gonna need for this NEW experiment and testing effort ? Looking back ? Yea they did accumulate pretty fast I guess.
At that time, 3 units had been dropped off, I didn't know 2 more units had been dropped off since I had left home earlier that morning. Now I had 5, emm not so good. I called my HVAC pal and asked if he would pick a few back up, no! he only liked dropping off, thought I could do as well at disposal as he could but yes would tell his guys to not drop off any more. Well one guy didn't get the memo, now I had 6 of these **** things and more explaining to do to the wife, was there a mis-understanding my pal didn't understand.
So that weekend I set out to review my dilemma and figure something out. I decided to keep the best housing unit. I also removed each units "heating coil or rack" soon enuff I hauled off the other 5 units to the recycling guy and paid $10.00 to get rid of them, one unit had a fixed Freon coil and still had a Freon charge, thus the $10.00 handling fee, negating any cash I might have hoped to receive for the scrap value.
OK so it works out this way, the unit I kept was rated at 15kw at 240v. it has 3 each resistance coils each rated at 5kw and has a 3 speed selectable blower motor. in it's original form it was approx 20" x 18" and 5' tall. I cut it down to 3' tall kept it to where the original covers were still fitted and blocked off the bottom with plywood helping to keep it sealed and added rigidity to the frame. I had a 15' piece of #6/5 conductor cable from another scrap effort, so I wired that up to the units AC input terminal block, at 15kw it has 4 inputs 2 per each leg, 1 set for the regular heating effort and 1 more for the emergency heating element, 2 of the coils/elements [10kw] are set for normal heating needs, and 1 coil was for an additional 5kw [emergency] heating feature..
As I smooth this effort out I will control the individual coils with small contactors, I kept all the relays and contactors from the other 5 sets I had to choose from. [remember those] ..So all in all the set, now load bank is working well, I had it set onto a moving dolly and is easy to move or relocate. Today was the first real test of the now load bank, no longer a HVAC air handling unit. I reviewed the 6/5 cable and tinned the individual conductor ends using the trusty American Beauty soldering iron and about 10' of 3/32 solder [humor].
As I move thru the finer points of developing this now load bank aspect I will find some CT coils and meters or even go digital and develop a decent control panel.
What did I do with the extra coils from the other 5 units, well, they came in multiple configurations and ratings, as low as 3.3 kw and as high as 6kw per coil, all are rated at 208/240 and list both kw ratings for the respective voltage. So my plan it to go back to my HVAC guy and have made a 'duct' extension with a common opening and then make each coil set where it can be placed into the discharge air flow stream and made selectable from a switch bank. at this point with a 1' duct extension I can fit all the coils into place and in theory have 80kw of resistance at the flip of the selector switch. I omitted, in my wiring I can select 3 phase as easy as single phase. Now what remains to be determined, is if the blower aspect of this can accommodate that much demand [80kw potential] .
A twist at being greedy, for the MEP-831 sets I think I can adapt one coil set that is rated for 480V and 5kw, will in practice at 120v pull about 500 watts, at least ohms law sez it will, I will try it and soon enough find out for sure.
This right now weighs my best guess about 45-50 pounds so it is pretty portable and all self contained, so I'm gonna skip calling Avtron, Simplex or Essex and wait for a better deal on the surplus market if or when.
In closing, my HVAC pal ever time I see him, ask 'do you need anymore units ?? No no ! I'm all good right now. But thanx for asking..
Wanting to really test my sets {MEP-802/803/804} I had this great idea and went to my HVAC pal and asked him to save me a few units that he might come by as he replaced existing residential or commercial HVAC units, soon enuff one unit appeared in my driveway, then another then another. My wife was also noticing this building new "collection" of stuff and made the casual question, how many of these you thinking you're gonna need for this NEW experiment and testing effort ? Looking back ? Yea they did accumulate pretty fast I guess.
At that time, 3 units had been dropped off, I didn't know 2 more units had been dropped off since I had left home earlier that morning. Now I had 5, emm not so good. I called my HVAC pal and asked if he would pick a few back up, no! he only liked dropping off, thought I could do as well at disposal as he could but yes would tell his guys to not drop off any more. Well one guy didn't get the memo, now I had 6 of these **** things and more explaining to do to the wife, was there a mis-understanding my pal didn't understand.
So that weekend I set out to review my dilemma and figure something out. I decided to keep the best housing unit. I also removed each units "heating coil or rack" soon enuff I hauled off the other 5 units to the recycling guy and paid $10.00 to get rid of them, one unit had a fixed Freon coil and still had a Freon charge, thus the $10.00 handling fee, negating any cash I might have hoped to receive for the scrap value.
OK so it works out this way, the unit I kept was rated at 15kw at 240v. it has 3 each resistance coils each rated at 5kw and has a 3 speed selectable blower motor. in it's original form it was approx 20" x 18" and 5' tall. I cut it down to 3' tall kept it to where the original covers were still fitted and blocked off the bottom with plywood helping to keep it sealed and added rigidity to the frame. I had a 15' piece of #6/5 conductor cable from another scrap effort, so I wired that up to the units AC input terminal block, at 15kw it has 4 inputs 2 per each leg, 1 set for the regular heating effort and 1 more for the emergency heating element, 2 of the coils/elements [10kw] are set for normal heating needs, and 1 coil was for an additional 5kw [emergency] heating feature..
As I smooth this effort out I will control the individual coils with small contactors, I kept all the relays and contactors from the other 5 sets I had to choose from. [remember those] ..So all in all the set, now load bank is working well, I had it set onto a moving dolly and is easy to move or relocate. Today was the first real test of the now load bank, no longer a HVAC air handling unit. I reviewed the 6/5 cable and tinned the individual conductor ends using the trusty American Beauty soldering iron and about 10' of 3/32 solder [humor].
As I move thru the finer points of developing this now load bank aspect I will find some CT coils and meters or even go digital and develop a decent control panel.
What did I do with the extra coils from the other 5 units, well, they came in multiple configurations and ratings, as low as 3.3 kw and as high as 6kw per coil, all are rated at 208/240 and list both kw ratings for the respective voltage. So my plan it to go back to my HVAC guy and have made a 'duct' extension with a common opening and then make each coil set where it can be placed into the discharge air flow stream and made selectable from a switch bank. at this point with a 1' duct extension I can fit all the coils into place and in theory have 80kw of resistance at the flip of the selector switch. I omitted, in my wiring I can select 3 phase as easy as single phase. Now what remains to be determined, is if the blower aspect of this can accommodate that much demand [80kw potential] .
A twist at being greedy, for the MEP-831 sets I think I can adapt one coil set that is rated for 480V and 5kw, will in practice at 120v pull about 500 watts, at least ohms law sez it will, I will try it and soon enough find out for sure.
This right now weighs my best guess about 45-50 pounds so it is pretty portable and all self contained, so I'm gonna skip calling Avtron, Simplex or Essex and wait for a better deal on the surplus market if or when.
In closing, my HVAC pal ever time I see him, ask 'do you need anymore units ?? No no ! I'm all good right now. But thanx for asking..
