DC Immersion Heaters

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

Has anyone here actually got one of these? How well does it work?

I have a 48v 2.3kw turbine in the post and was hoping to use it for house energy but
my inverter blew up for no reason :-( So now i am left with 48v DC to try and use.

Anyone got any ideas what i could do with 2.3kw at 48v?

Answers on a postcard to :-


Mark

[Odsox]

Hi Mark.
I'd be very interested to know which turbine you have chosen.
I am trying to get to grips with setting up a turbine system and was thinking of a 2Kw 48v Albatross, but the company ignores all my emails.

Regarding inverters, of course there are no cheap far east 48v ones but I did find this man who seems reasonable .. http://www.jandrew-elec.com/acatalog/On ... s_119.html
Have yet to deal with him so I only pass on the link out of interest.

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

There is a company on ebay selling larger inverters at 48v from Taiwan.
I don't know if they are any good though, but they are not cheap items.
But they are cheaper than anything you'll find here.

The turbine i have was custom made as i could'nt find one that actually did what it said on the tin.
If you PM me i'll send you details. It was £780 including delivery to Ireland.
I have a factory made turbine here already and i would never ever buy another off the shelf again.
The sealed in, covered up nature of them makes repairs a night mare.
The one i have now is modular and i could weld bits back on if i wanted to.
If the PMA dies , i can put another one on , and so on.
Much more renewable in the long term.

Personally, i think i will probably avoid inverters in future.
I might be a cheap 1kw £30 jobby off ebay. Modified sine of course.
Just for running the odd power tool maybe.

Other than hot water i am at a loss of what i can do with all this power at 48vDC.
I did make a provision when i wired the house to convert it to DC lighting which i might do.
Lighting is the cheapest thing to run tho, so not going to pay for its-self anytime soon.

Personally, as a rule i would not give a red cent to any company that ignores emails.
There is a company on ebay from west yorkshire and they never answered any of my questions.
They seemed to be unable to speaky the english and had no knowledge of the specs of there own products.
I could not imagine shopping anywhere else though. ALL of the so called retailers are way too expensiive.
And the products you get off the shelf are puney. Ignore 12m/s unless you live on a cliff.
Think more like 6-9m/s then see what you actually get.
If you go down the premade route, why not bring it in from china direct.
The chinese will help you import it etc. They will hammer you on postage for a "sample" but it will still be cheaper.

I cna get a 200L solar water heater with 20 x 6ft tubes delivered here in ireland for 400 euros from china.
Even with a bit of duty thats still 1/4 the price here.

Good luck either way.

[camillitech]

Morning I O B,

These people do DC heating elements http://www.tpfay.co.uk/ I've not checked out their website (lack of broadband) but I do have one of their 24v ones so I presume they do 48v if not you could use 2 don't be put off inverters just dig in your pocket and buy a decent one. Inverters quality is directly proportional to what you pay and if you think that the 'Ki Point' ones on ebay are dear then the one you've bought must really be a piece of cr4p because they are a quality inverter for half the price of a Victron or Trace. Me I have a Trace and it's delivered an uninterupted supply to my house for over three years and that's including ovens, tumble drier and a welder As far as Chinese wind turbines go if you can find me one single person who lives anywhere with a decent wind rescource who's not lost a blade, turned the slip rings to toast or had the tail fall off then I'll buy one and you only have to look at http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/ the main importers most excellent forum to confirm this.

Cheers, Paul

[contadino]

and you only have to look at http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/ the main importers most excellent forum to confirm this.

Who never replied to the dozen or so emails and voicemails that I sent/left for them.

[ajstone]

and you only have to look at http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/ the main importers most excellent forum to confirm this.


Who never replied to the dozen or so emails and voicemails that I sent/left for them.

.


Had you posted something on their forum which they thought might take business from them, you would have heard from them real quick


tony

[camillitech]

and you only have to look at http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/ the main importers most excellent forum to confirm this.

Who never replied to the dozen or so emails and voicemails that I sent/left for them.

They probably got lost amongst the pile of warranty claims

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

I have been looking into the Kipoint inverters and they seem to have a good rep.
I'm going to get a 3-4kw Kipoint square wave for the shed, will be fine for tools.

As for running the house of the pure wave...
I wonder if anyone has experience of using large UPS chassis for inverters?
That are pennies compared to the usual thing.

I don't think navitron, future energy of any of those big players are any good at all.
THey are all REALLY over priced.
Personally i mailed a few of the big players about turbines and their attitudes stank.
So in the end i had a turbine custom made for much less.
The PMA is a Jinlong 2.3kw. Its chinese of course, they all are.
But a good power curve on it and its very study.
The blades are imported american commercial grade graded blades 10'6" diameter.
So i hope i'm going to be in business.

Camile, is your immersion a dump load or on a thermostat?
What are the ressults like? I have'nt met anyone actually living with one....


Mark

[camillitech]

Hi,


Camile, is your immersion a dump load or on a thermostat?
What are the ressults like? I have'nt met anyone actually living with one....


Mark

Mines actually still in its box Mark but it is for a dump load on my mates solar/hydro set up. At the moment it just dumps into air heating in the battery shed and judging by the amount of time the loads are switched on I'm sure it will work well enough, it's just a matter of actually getting around to doing anything about it I dump AC through my inverter into oil heaters in the house as my battery bank is too far away to sensibly push 2.5kw @ 48v. Have a look on the navitron forum I'm sure there's people there who've tinkered with UPS.

Good Luck, Paul

[contadino]

and you only have to look at http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/ the main importers most excellent forum to confirm this.

Who never replied to the dozen or so emails and voicemails that I sent/left for them.

.

Had you posted something on their forum which they thought might take business from them, you would have heard from them real quick

tony

I tried that. Nothing.

If they can't be bothered to deal with sales enquiries, how good do you think their after-sales service is? They've had their chance. Strike one potential customer. Whatever their reason, it's academic now.

Now I've turned my attention to http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.html and will be building my own. At least that way, when it needs maintenance, I'll be able to provide it.

[Ireland-or-bust]

Contadino,


EXCELLENT choice.

Home made is well made, less chinese bean tins more real steel.

Repairing this cheap chinese tack is neigh on impossible.
I have one here myself (for sale) and i would never hope to rely on it.

My homemade turbine does however offer repair possibilities.
I don't have the tools to make the PMA myself so the PMA is an off the shelf one.
Unfortunatly its chinese! But its a really big fella and don't think i'll tax it too much.
The one i have is a Jinlong, they dont have agents in europe so far as i know.
This one was imported. But if it breaks, i can however, unbolt it and afix another one
whether it be factory or home made.

Mark

[Ireland-or-bust]

Cam,

I bought a 2kw 48v immersion from www.tpfay.co.uk.
They are expensive but it looks like a good product and its stainless steel not copper which is great as i have slightly acid water.

As soon as i get someone to come and cut down the trees that currently stop any chance of generating watt number 1, i'll pu the turbine up.
So have such people have eluded me. Cutting them down i can do, but i just want them capping which seems tricky to arrange in these parts.

I'm probably going to have to go down the battery and inverter route so i'm on the look out for these too now.
The KiPoints look ok and i hear good things about them. Not sure if its worth saving up for an outback though? Opinions?

I'm considering buying a 3kva UPS and using that as they are 48v, anyone done that?
I know one person who uses nothing else with great success and i can get one for £160+postage which is a lot as it wieghs 70kg with no batteries in it.

As for batteries...I really want forklift batteries but they seem impossible to find.
I found a guy in the UK selling UPS batteries which he swears are AGM, but i think they are VRLA personally, Ideas?
I've more or less got him down to £25 per 100Ah, which is better than anything else i've found.
If anyone has any ideas i'd be happy to listen. I want 1,000Ah worth of batteries all in all.
Shipping batteries to Ireland seems to be a problem too, not sure about that myself.

Mark.

[camillitech]

Hi Mark,

have a similar tree problem myself and have been wondering how to go about it, mine aren't near the turbine but I have nightmares about finding one on top of my workshop one morning after a gale. Me I would not buy anything other than a Trace as the programing and menu systems are designed for Americans so are very easy to use. The Outback is also a great product (designed by ex Trace employees) but is more difficult to interface with a genny. A fantastic piece of quality Swiss made kit at a reasonable price is a Studer but they are a nightmare to program as all the buttons have several functions and the manual is poorly translated. You spend hours setting it then all you need to do is accidently press the wrong button and it all goes t*ts up I've no personal experience of the Ki point but one who I respect swears by them Gel, AGM, or UPS batteries are in my humble oppinion fine with solar arrays but not really suitable for the often massive amperages put in them by a wind turbine. But if they're cheap enough you may get a year or two out of them. Me I live 100 miles from anywhere so tend to take the looooong view

Good Luck, Paul

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

What batteries do you use then?

The agms are rated at 300 cycles min on the sites i've seen them for sale on.

Mark.

[camillitech]

Hi Mark I use fork lift truck batteries http://lifeattheendoftheroad.files.word ... -small.jpg because they like a good charge and water's cheap. I spent months researching batteries before I bought these and came to the conclusion that they were the most cost effective NEW storage system available. There are plenty of good 2nd hand batteries out there from telephone exchanges, submarines, nuclear bunkers the channel tunnel and god knows what else. The trouble is you can't tell a good one from a bad one and as I live in a remote location with no mains back up I go for reliability over cost every time.

Cheers, Paul