Xantrex XW6048 Set-UP

[WStayton]

Hi Guys!

  Since I am officially out of action with my hand injury - strictly ordered by the Dr. not to do anything - I have been spending my time reading the voluminous manual(s) that Xantrex sends you with a XW6048 Inverter/Battery-Charger.

  I stumbled upon this section "C" of the addendums of the Operation Guide - whole guide is about 125 pages - titled "Using Boost Charging"

  Its only one page and they basically say that Flooded Lead Acid Batteries behave better, long term, if they are charged/overcharged for the first hour of a charging cycle at a voltage above the gassing voltage.  They contend that this "stirs" up the electrolyte so you don't have stratification of the electrolyte, but at the price of increased water consumption.

  If you enable this function, and don't tweak the settings, it gives you 64 volts for the first hour of a charge cycle, and then drops to 57.6 volts for the "Bulk" charge for two more hours and then tapers to 54 volts for "Float".  This is for a 48 volt nominal voltage battery bank, i.e. eight each six volt batteries in series.

  You can also chage the time limits so that it "Boost" charges for one hour and then "Bulk" charges for however many hours you set and then drops to "Float".  It sorta seems to me like they give me to many choices!  <grin>

  All of this has current limits that are based upon the size of the battery bank that you tell it it is hooked to, so if the current goes to high, it reduces the voltage to remain within current limits.

  If you enable this feature, it does it on EVERY charge cycle that it encounters, whether that is from a generator, the line or your photo-voltaic array.

  I'm not sure that I am happy having it do a semi-equalization charge on EVERY charge cycle - but it is just for ONE hour, so it isn't really a true full-equalization charge.

  You can also tell it to do a "complete" equalization charge on a one time only basis, where it over-voltages the batteries for THREE hours and then drops to a float voltage.   This feature does take manual intervention, whereas the "Boost" charging feature is automatic, if you enable it.

  What do you think, is this a good idea, or no???  Obviously it must be an open issue, or they wouldn't have made it user selectable.

  Those with more (ANY! <grin>) experience, speak, please!

Regardz,

Wayne Stayton

[Tom Reed]

Since your generator is big enough to max the current input to the batts, I'd not use that setting. Or check with the battery mfg and see what they say that setting and your warranty. 

[mike90045]

  If you enable this feature, it does it on EVERY charge cycle that it encounters, whether that is from a generator, the line or your photo-voltaic array.

That's amazing !  Where does the PV array connect to the XW6048 ?  I had to buy a separate MPPT charger for the solar.

[WStayton]

mike90045:


  You do have to use their "Xantrex XW Solar Charge Controller" to massage the output from the solar panels before it goes to the XW6048 inverter/charger - I'm told that it IS an MPPT controller and because of its technology, it can get about 20% more out of your panels than you can get without it.  Maybe that's just proof that a marketer has a sharper pen than an engineer, but it sounds good on paper.

  The Solar Charge Controller is about $500 in round numbers, which, in the whole scheme of things, isn't a real big deal unless you are counting out your last nickel to get the Charger/Inverter and THEN discover that you need the Charge Controller!  <grin>

  I'm not sure what happens if you just hook the solar panels directly to the "Solar IN" ports on the Charger/Inverter - I guess it must work, because I haven't seen anything in the 300 pages of manuals that says not to do that, but since I ordered the Charge Controller as soon as I saw that it was sorta needed, I didn't really worry about it!

  The one piece of the puzzle that DID sorta P/O me was that you have to buy their special System Control Panel if you want to "customize" any of the programming even though the Charger/Inverter has the capability to accomplish the basic programming tasks such as turn features on or off, etc.  However, if you want to even change the description of the battery bank's available amp hours, or the amount of the maximum battery charge or change any other value other than turn it off or an, you have to have the special System Control Panel.  Of course it is only $265, but I still felt like I sorta had it stuck to me to have to buy that one little piece that I will only probably use for a week or so!

  Okay, Rant-Off!! <grin>

  I AM sorta worried that I will NEVER completely understand all of the features and/or how to use them, but I guess that goes with the territory!

Regardz,

Wayne Stayton

[Lloyd]

Wayne,

Me thinks you need to go back and re-read the manual.

Especially the installation manual.

Then I think you better find a qualified installer that is familiar with the system, and pay him to install it.

There is a big steep learning curve, not only for the inverter, and solar install, but also a bat bank capable of powering such an in inverter.

Not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars for the capital investment, all of which could let the magic smoke out of everything the first time the switch is thrown.

Lloyd

[LowGear]

Not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars for the capital investment, all of which could let the magic smoke out of everything the first time the switch is thrown.

Blessed be the warranty.

Casey

[Lloyd]

Not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars for the capital investment, all of which could let the magic smoke out of everything the first time the switch is thrown.

Blessed be the warranty.

Casey

Casey,

I don't know any manufacture that will stand behind a miswire config...that let the smoke... They have little gremlins inside that report back to the master.

Lloyd

[mike90045]

2 years, and there are still features I've not uncovered or used.




Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 400A battery bank | 15, Evergreen ESA 205 fa3 "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel |

[WStayton]

Lloyd:

  "Me thinks you need to go back and re-read the manual."

  Well, I'm working on re-read number five at the moment - I expect maybe five MORE re-reads before I even touch anything!


  "Then I think you better find a qualified installer that is familiar with the system, and pay him to install it."

   The "qualified" here is the magic word!  Out here, in the boondocks, in rural, agrarian, upstate New York, finding a qualfied installer is about as likely as finding a ten pound gold nugget!

  NYSEG has TWO, count-em, solar consultants on their payroll, who do all of the certification of grid connected installs before NYSEG will turn them on, and one of these guys is a complete idiot who got out of school last week and if you don't want to do it EXACTLY the way he says, down to the size and coating on the mounting screws, he absolutely won't sign-off!  The local fix is to just put up with him until he says no and then complain toi NYSEG that he is unreasonable and they send the other guy who is happy to work with you to reslve any issues.

  I take issue with your assumption that somebody who has no stake in the install, is going to a better job than I will - I am the first to admit that I ain't fast/quick, but I am, at least thorough, and I don't "flip the switch" until I am sure that everything is okay.

  Xantrex provides an install manual that is 160 pages of "see spot run"  detailed instructions that appear designed for somebody who doesn't know an amp from a volt.

  I sort of figure if I can take apart a JT-8D Pratt & Whitney Turbojet engine, mic and assess the moving parts, repair and replace as necessary, and put it back together and have it run successfully, something which I have done about forty times, I can conquer the challenges of installing a XW6048 that is accompanied by a manual that appears designed for an idiot.

  Of course, a professor of mine used to say that if you designed your documentation so that EVEN an idiot could understand it, ONLY an idiot would use it!!!  <grin>

  Instructions to "Go find somebody competant" are about as useful as an instruction to "go get rich"!  By the time you find out that the "installer" you have selected, from the VERY limited pool, doesn't know what he is doing, HE will have let all of the smoke out of your pieces/parts!  "I'm sorry, Mr. Stayton, but you need a NEW/ANOTHER XW6048, this one doesn't work (anymore!)"  Merry Christmas!!!

  I am inclined to surrender control of MY thoughtfully purchased and painfully financed components right after they pry my cold dead fingers off of them!

  What we are talking about here isn't rocket science, as a collegue used to say, and I don't THINK that it is something that somebody with a couple of degrees from and Ivy League Engineering School and forty years experience in a variety of fields shouldn't be able to handle - so long as you don't go in thinking that it is just a "Wham Bam, Thank You Mam" 15 minute job!

  Okay, I've got an even better idea, and cheaper too!  Why don't I just hire an electrician and have a conventional install hooked to the grid and forget all about this solar/micro-cogen stuff - it will be at LEAST a factor of five cheaper and it will require zero participation.  Why indeed???  Because I don't WANT to do that!  Obviously everybody on this forum is not looking for the cheapest/easiest/quickest fix, but rather gets something out of doing it themselves - I rest my case!!!  <smile>

  Okay, I'll get down off of my soapbox now!  <grin>

Regardz,

Wayne Stayton

[WStayton]

Hi All!

  More on the "Hire an installer" theme.

  mike90045:  Did you hire an installer to string your system together or did you do it yourself???

  Assuming that you did it yourself, did you find that it was so complicated that you had trouble understanding what to do???

  Do you think that the instalation is beyond the "average" do-it-yourselfer???


  Oh, and one of the things I like about using all pieces from Xantrex is that they communicate with each other over a cat five cable that you string in as part of the install, so everything in the system knows what everything else is doing.  Sort of their own proprietary LAN for the sytem!  I'm not sure what happens if you don't avail yourself of the Xanbus sytem, but maybe mike90045 can tell us???  Everything is SUPPOSED to also function in a stand-alone enviroment.

  Thanx mike90045, for any light that you can shed!

Regardz,

Wayne Stayton

[Tom Reed]

Wayne, Mike's an EE and I'm sure he did it himself, but like he said there are a LOT of ways that piece of hardware can be used. I cut my teeth on a Trace sw2512 which was the predecessor of your xw. The sw had all the programming built into the box. There are some upsides to the way the new stuff is packaged as it is all networked together, my Outback system is the same. See once you've popped for the programming interface it will work for all the components in the system, hence you only pay for it once. On my system there are 3 chargers to set, the solar and 1 in each inverter. All 3 need temp compensation and by plugging 1 temp probe in to the system all 3 chargers can use it.

Just for my own info is the xw inverter a 120 or 120/240 inverter? On my system there 2 120v inverters synced out of phase to create 240v between them.

[WStayton]

Tom;

  " . . . s the xw inverter a 120 or 120/240 inverter?"

  I guess the answer is "Both" since it comes from the factory as a 120/240 unit, but the operating manual contains the instructions for how to convert it to a 120 volt only unit by changing a few "jumpers".

  I don't really see why you would want to convert it to a single phase unit, since anything you can do with a single phase unit, you can do with one side of the 120/240 unit, but they do give you that capability, except that you only have 30 amps max available for any 120 circuit in the 120/240 configuration, and you can have the whole 60 amps on one circuit in the 120 configuration.

  There are also instructions for how to convert it, again with the few jumpers, to a single phase unit to be part of a three phase unit, which makes one unit the "Master" and the other two have their frequencies slaved to the master and off of it in 120 and 240 degrees.

  The three phase operation requires the enabling of the Xanbus feature - otherwise it has no way to communicate the phase angle and synch it up as required for three phase. Single phase does not require enabling of Xanbus.

  I hope that answers the question!  <grin>  (Which ASSUMES that I understood the question! <smile>)

Regardz,

Wayne Stayton

[Tom Reed]

Yes that answers the question. Stacking inverters in no longer needed.

[mike90045]

re: XW inverters   Awesome pieces of gear, and apparently the manual never got translated out of high geek.  I can read it a dozen times and come up with 4 ways it can work, and someone else figured out way 5, is what I want.

they are native 240/120 split phase, just like NA household power grid is.
However, because of the 50% restriction on a single leg, I snagged a "Balancing Transformer" to hook up like an autotransformer, in case I run into troubles.  So far, a fridge, 240V, 1KW well pump and 240V welder have not strained it at all.


On another forum - there is an engineer who helped develop the XW line and understands the manuals.  Consumer settings have been developed for selling excess power back to the grid, and there are several threads there discussing it. (since I don't sell, I haven't really followed the threads, but google this term:
Xantrex sell to grid battery setting site:wind-sun.com
and look for the replies from SolarGuppy, where he explains the settings. 
   Apparently, everything is counterintuitive.

here's a sample to whet your appetite.

By setting the Grid Support Voltage to 50.8V does that mean the the grid output in terms of KWhrs is going to be greater as a result?

Yes, instead of needlessly overcharging the batteries @ 57V, your selling all energy just over the fully charge rest voltage of the battery bank
On your BTS, make sure the two chargers and the XW-6048 are all networked together with the cat6 cables and can be seen by the SCP ( system control panel)
So set sell to 51.8V, verify network is working so BTS sharing is working and turn XW-6048 charger off ... let it run and see if you have improvements

[WStayton]

mike9004:

  I did notice a hint of having been written in Japanese and then translated to English by somebody who spoke Russian!

  Also, they introduce their own "abbreviations" for things without telling you, at that point, what they are abbreviations for - every read requires lots of time going back and finding out what the H@!L they are talking about.

  Did the fact that they just sort of randomly mix a lot of stuff about multiple inverter/charger installations in cause you the same aggrevation that it did/does me???  <grin>

  I appreciate your comments - its always better to listen to somebody who has "been-there/done-that" than to make it up as you go along! <smile>

Regardz,

Wayne Stayton