Planning a new system, going with Victron. Previous system was an all in one from MPP Solar and it has died.
Off Grid Only
Inverter: Multiplus II 120V 3000VA 24Vdc
Batteries: 18x lead acid Trojan T875 8V in 24V bank
Solar Charger: MPPT 100 50 Smartsolar
Generator: Honda EU1000i 1000W inverter gen 120V
Solar Panels: 2x 550W in parallel 49Vdc
Previous inverter managerd the solar input and generator input so could use both at same time.
With the new planned system my question is what happens if I am charging batteries using solar, and decide to run my generator through the inverter charger? Is this a concern?
No problem, your maximum charge current from solar and honda is 80 amps, you have 6x170ah batteries parallel, together 1000ah, so you’re well under 0.1c charge current.
@Ludo Thank you very much for a quick detailed response!
So two separate DC sources can charge batteries at same time without some kind of syncing or central control? I am from the Vac world where syncing of sources is critical but I guess Vdc is different.
In this case its no problem, as the only critical things are the max power and voltage, the voltage is controlled seperately in each charger, the max power can’t be reached.
Yes, things are a little more complicated in 3 or 5 phase ac-world.
Hi @Mmiller347
Your main issue will be overloading such a small genset. The Multiplus can be limited with it’s AC Input, but there’s only so far you can go doing that. The model you list has a minimum Input setting of 9.5A @120V, so that’s more than that little Honda can handle.
There’s workarounds for this, but they require close attention to your AC loads. That’s a lot of battery, and this may become somewhat of a tedious process. Consider a bigger genset too…
@JohnC Thanks for the info! I thought I read I could set AC input as low as 7 or 7.5A. Could have been a different inverter model though. We also have a 2200W genset we just prefer the quieter honda. AC loads are very small, approx 200W max between lighting and Starlink, unless Keurig is running and when thats the case we never have the genset on as it overloads immediately.
System is at a cabin thats used mainly on weekends. Usually we never need the genset as the batteries are fully charged via solar every time we arrive. But the dark Canadian winter can mean needing the genset at times.
‘Weak AC’ will affect the Charger output, only the Input as a result. Clumsy and mightn’t be enough anyway. You can set a Charge Limit directly though, but you’ll have to make allowances for any AC loads at the same time, which will be passed through from the genset.