[RE-wrenches] Building integrated thermal collectors?

2008-12-27 Thread mick abraham
Greetings, I'm looking for thermal collectors which integrate into the roof of the building. These would heat glycol to modest temperatures, for domestic hot water. Any leads for this type product...on the List or off...would be appreciated. Mick Abraham, Proprietor www.abrahamsolar.com

Re: [RE-wrenches] Outback VFX input voltage cycling

2008-12-27 Thread Darryl Thayer
It sounds like the AC charge current is set to high, with the batteries being low the inverter charge rate is overloading the gen set. The gen set voltage drops and the inverter releases the genny and the voltage returns, the inverter reloads the genny and the cycle repeats. If this worked

Re: [RE-wrenches] Outback VFX input voltage cycling

2008-12-27 Thread jay peltz
Hi Ron, Almost for sure its the genny. What type and when was it last serviced and how many hours does it have? if the voltage is going all over the place really quickly then its not connecting to the inverter at all. So here is a test that might help. Turn on a resistive load such as

Re: [RE-wrenches] Building integrated thermal collectors?

2008-12-27 Thread Ian Woofenden
Hi Mick, Have you looked at the Velux system? The collectors are installed about the same way as skylights are. I don't have any experience with this system, but will forward (off-list) some photos I received. Best, Ian Greetings, I'm looking for thermal collectors which integrate

Re: [RE-wrenches] Building integrated thermal collectors?

2008-12-27 Thread Kurt Albershardt
--On Saturday, December 27, 2008 8:08 AM -0700 mick abraham m...@abrahamsolar.com wrote: I'm looking for thermal collectors which integrate into the roof of the building. These would heat glycol to modest temperatures, for domestic hot water. Dawn Solar uses a design which effectively

Re: [RE-wrenches] Outback VFX input voltage cycling

2008-12-27 Thread mick abraham
Ron wrote: The owner told me...that someone had wired a switch incorrectly and when he turned it on the system shut down. He then re-wired it and everything appeared ok but I'm wondering if this fried a board. Mick replies: I've seen several times with Outback and other brands (going as far back

Re: [RE-wrenches] Outback VFX input voltage cycling

2008-12-27 Thread R Young
Mick, referring to there's not an auto-idle switch on that genset which may have accidentally been set for auto, is there? His generator was actually running in idle mode, operating the household loads when I got there and the first thing I discovered was that the voltage was ~90 volts

Re: [RE-wrenches] Building integrated thermal collectors?

2008-12-27 Thread mick abraham
Thanks, Kurt Ian~ The Dawn Solar arrangement makes me think of a similar looking setup from American Solar: http://americansolar.com/product-solar-roof.htm The American Solar setup heats air which they claim can then heat water. Hmm. My inner geek suspects that both of these systems would

Re: [RE-wrenches] Inverter with two strings of different orientation

2008-12-27 Thread Bill Brooks
Peter, You are wrong about Vmp being a function of irradiance. It is a function of temperature and remains unchanged from 100 to 1000W/m^2/. Max power trackers look at the product of Volts and amps. The dithering routines can vary dramatically from company to company. Bill. -Original