Thinking of self installing a 5kW solution onto a South facing garage. DIY solution appears to be 60% cheaper than hiring a local installer (Ohio)

  • evranch@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Conext series support modbus BUT only through an overpriced gateway unit, the actual devices speak Xanbus unless they have updated them. There have been reverse engineering efforts that I think found it to be a polarity flipped or bit flipped CANbus but at the time nobody had a reliable translation layer. I believe Schneider bought Xantrex and rebranded their inverters and chargers as their Conext solar line.

    The “do not exceed” nameplate ratings may be more typical in solar, but in the regular electrical world when I buy a solid state device like a 480 volt VFD, I expect it to run at 480VAC, and in fact to have a fairly broad operating range from probably 450-500VAC. Likewise I would expect the current rating to be full load operating current, hopefully with at least a 10% service factor and 20% safety margin on top of that.

    I was honestly pretty disappointed when a 150VDC unit tripped offline at 140VDC, not even making the “nameplate rating” but if this is standard for the industry I guess I can’t pick at Schneider for that at least.

    • ikidd@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      140 is a little light but yah, it’s definitely a solar thing only. It’s possible it bounced over the 150 for a very short time to trip the cutout, and the 140 number you’re seeing is a time-smoothed average in your reporting system. If you’re using something trustworthy like a Smartshunt to get that data, then yah, tripping 10V short isn’t great.