The new boards are smaller and 2.5 X 3.0 inches. There is a size limit. The last board is the max size.
More BAD news. MY last CPT-1000 Watt GTI DIED Yesterday. It was at 300 watts and the fan sounded like it was running out of phase. Then arcing and a little smoke. That was all and it was done. Blown out 10 amp 250 volt fuse on the board in heat shrink. I cut it off and could barely make it out. The new boards came in. Tried to put one together. Ha Ha The switches I ordered are too big for the board. There is no device for it in eagle. So I will have to try and make one. What worked on proto board will not work on the pcb board. I added a few resistors to keep heat down. Well they had to be removed. It will not pull in the relay. Also as it stands you can only use 500 ma or less for the relay. I tried a car solenoid from the auto store and it let out lots of smoke and there was even flames before I could unhook it. I also with making all the changes tied the pin 13 the output of the chip to ground. By accident . DUH. So it will not energize the relay. I had to use a jumper to get power to pin 13. Now it works. So I started working again on the Mosfet version. If people hook this board up to car solenoids as I know they will. There will be disastrous results. Here is one board with mods I am testing right now. The burn mark next to the board is from the wires that melted during the test with the car solenoid. I had to use extensions on the wires for the switch.
From failure comes understanding, from understanding comes success. Hang in there Sparky (or is it Smokey?)
I heard Sparky then I looked over and saw Smokey. I played around awhile and got the device for eagle made. Now just have a few adjustments to make. Here is a picture of the mosfet switch for the relays working. Took a little time not much. Now I just have to try it on the relay after I put the heat sink on it.
Got the new SunG 600 watt solar GTI in and hooked it up. It is sharing but not real close. Also bought a little pana vise and it will not hold boards bigger than 3 inches. So I modified it. Pop the little cap off the end. Unscrew the vise all the way. The rods are a light press fit pull them out they are 1/4 inch rods. Try and heat the screw up a little. There is threadlocker in the thumb screw. It has a brass insert. I used vise grips to hold the screw because I will be replacing it. Unscrew the thumb screw and pull out the threaded rod and remove and save e clip and two washers. The screw is 10-24 thread. I bought a 10-24 1 foot threaded rod and a galv 1/4 inch three foot rod. After some cutting and fitting this is what I came up with. It will now hold 10 inch boards.
Was not sure how the car relay would work. So I hooked it up. Had good wind today. The thing chatters and when I checked it. It was smoking. I have a feeling it melted the sleeve inside. It burned up not connected to the dump load. So I found out the hard way. Car solenoids will NOT work for dump load relays even if it is just every once in awhile connecting thing. (UPDATE) Coil was burned to a crisp. I just ordered a continuous duty relay rates for 150 amps. Testing will be on hold till it arrives. Boards should be here about the same time. Also since I hooked up the other SunG grid tie. I am seeing around 150-250 more watts at peak time of the day and voltages up to 18 volts. The hybrid always kept it lower than 14 volts. Hybrids are the worst idea ever. My average used to be 450-500 watts. Now LOOK at it. This is the third day of this. My production from now on will be higher.
Here is a link to the theory of why not to use a car solenoid instead of a continuous duty solenoid. http://www.diagnosticnews.com/tech/starter-solenoids-and-continuous-duty-solenoids/ It does not get any better than this explanation.
Wish I could have gotten a picture today. A storm hit with high winds for only about two minutes. Power went out just as it hit. That new dump load got light orange and lite up my room and down the hallway. I thought for sure it was going to shatter or break it was so hot. Good thing I was home for it. I flipped the switch and hooked it to the 12 volt batteries. It took a little time for that new dump load to cool down. Other than that all survived. Rain was blowing 8 ft inside the house thru the open windows. Have no idea how fast it was blowing but rain was going horizontal . So I am going to have to do something else with the dump load. Probable put the old one back up. The Windy Nation 500 watt turbine was on the dump resistors and it was just warm after all of that.
The dump resistors on the Windy Nation are 600 watts of 2.7 ohm resistance. The Effsun was on the recommended 5 ohms. So I just hooked up the 2.7 ohm resistor I received the first time and will have to wait for the next big event. Winds topped out at 52 mph last night.
I'm all set now. I have 1600 watts of dump at 2.7 ohms. Set up to be connected via the circuit in the picture. I found an old fountain transformer. 12 vac at 220ma. I made the rectifier added a cap and a 10 ohm resistor to cut the current to the relay and viola. The relay is held open till power fails. Then it closes and sends all power to the dump load. At least till I hook up the batteries. NO more great illuminations in my bedroom anymore.
Latest update. Considering that the boards I am making when used in dump mode. They pulse the relays every second to second and a half . I looked around for a 60 amp SSR so I am not driven crazy by all the relay clicking. I found these and a heat sink. I will be trying them out. I bought two of them to test. Will post results. Also the first modified board is still going strong so far. Hope to have the latest soon. Have not heard anything yet.
Spoke too soon. Got an email today. The three boards I ordered are back from Fab shop. I will be receiving them in a few days. SSR and Heat Sinks are here already. Sure was fast from china. Nice they sent a $5 off coupon. Here is a picture of them and the packing.
Hooray the boards are here and just finished one of them and it tests fine. I will be building and testing them over the weekend and let you know Larry on Monday. I was trying to test with a 9 volt battery for the supply and it will not pull in the relay. So you will probably have to have 11-12 volts min to energize the relay. It works fine at 12 volts that is what my battery is at.
Thanks Tom, !12v is fine. I will just hook it to my 12v bat bank as i have all my other things. I prefer to hook it to my bat bank anyway. Nice work.
Well to many wires and the metal control box was getting in my way. So here is a good use for burnt up GTI covers.
OK here is the Almost FINAL design. I hope this is enough info on the picture. Anything to add ? (UPDATE) A 10 volt voltage regulator was added to stabilize the board. This one would change the system voltage a bit when Turbine input rose. Was close to a 10 volt change over the setting.
Solid State Relays seem to be JUNK !!!!!! Resistance was 1 M ohm and 592 ohms across the dump side. After a few dumps I was not getting any GTI watt readings. ????? So I checked it out and now it is reading 293 ohms and 592 ohms. And the dump load resistor has 10+ volts on it. So I took it out and put in a relay. Now 0 volts at the dump terminal and getting power reading at the watt meter. I like that they are silent but going back to tried and true mechanical relays. This thing puked at 55 volts out of the little Effsun pma. Which ones are you running Leamy and what resistance readings do you get. Have they ever gone thru dump cycles yet??? (UPDATE) Nov 11,2013 The quartz resistor I was using allowed the voltage to climb to over 100 volts and burnt it up.
I also opened up that 60 amp SSR and there is only ONE Mosfet inside. It did not even get hot before it went out. I also did learn MOSFETS are mainly for full on or full off. Anything else and they will fry without enough heat sink.
