Muhendis

I have an inverter fridge which was disabled by them. They found a way into the electronics and onto the main circuit board. There's a high voltage mains area and a low voltage DC area on this board connected by optocouplers ............... and ants. The ants must have been resistive conductors for some time because the heat of them conducting was enough to burn the board between the high voltage AC track and a low voltage DC track. There was a fair bit of charcoal left behind as well as a load of pretty useless electronic components. I called in the fridge repair man who was quite surprised by the amount of damage done. He had seen it before but on a lesser scale. He was also a lecturer at the local tech. college teaching students how to repair domestic appliances and he wanted the dead board as an example to show to his students. My thoughts were "if that's what ants can do, what will happen if the uncles ever get in".

That'l upset RoI time on solar.

Somebody made the comparison between VHS and Betamax. This was to emphasise the race between BEV and HEV. Let us not forget neither video recorder system is now in use. It was superceded by the CD. Perhaps tomorrow we will all be driving around in CD RW machines.

I still like this retro better Triumph Tiger 500cc

Oops. Was your car damaged and if so who paid for the repairs?

He is indeed doing nothing wrong. He is in control of his animals and that is usually in daylight. The problem is if he left them to wander unattended and they get hit by a passing vehicle. Then it is his responsibility.

Undoubtedly the buffalo owner is to blame as is the practice here in Thailand. It is the owners responsibility to keep his livestock from wandering around on the highway. In the picture it looks like the animal was tied to a plant which it then uprooted. Having said that the motor cyclist and the car drivers should have been driving at a speed which was within the limit of stopping distance of their head lights.

That's absolutely how it should be too. Likewise my trusty lead carbon batteries, in common with all other lead acid chemistries, gets disconnected by the inverter if the terminal voltage drops below a set point and, if that happens grid power is connected 'till the batteries are recharged. Lead acid and LiFePO4's are very similar in that respect. BMS is needed for LiFePO4 cells to stop them overheating and combusting. BMS not needed for lead acid. Lead carbon is a whole load less costly than LiFePO4 but requires the likes of Dwayn Johnson to maneuver them into position. Mine are 77kg each and there's 12 of them. This is all very much off topic but might be useful info.

Aha. Yes. I see now. I'm generally fast asleep at that time so I wouldn't notice 'till a few hours later. It is therefor true to say he is not going to get a long life from his batteries if that happens often.

Perhaps I should point out that I limit my night time battery consumption to 30% DoD and my batteries are lead carbon which have a very high charge acceptance and are anticipated to have a life expectancy of 11½ years. If I were to go to 80% DoD they would still be good for 2k cycles.

True. Especially expecting any solar activity at 3 a.m. Did you really mean 3 p.m.?

I guess you don't have sunny mornings at 3 a.m. Maybe a few more panels? ????

Yeah, and it rained too but solar still filled up 750 Ah battery.

This is a strange viewpoint. Please provide figures for your 20 year "payoff" (payback) time. I have an 8 kw system with batteries which recovered it's costs in five years. Also I am content in the knowledge that I am not contributing to climate change. For me, cost of instalation was almost zero. I have the skills and knowledge to do that myself. The Thai government will pay for any spare electricity you have but it's not much and can take a long time to organise.

Single phase is normal. The three phase brought to the development will be a high voltage and will be fed into a transformer for low voltage (220v) single phase for distribution to the houses. You can have three phase at a price if you really want it but it will be expensive and a three phase solar instalation also very pricey. It all depends on power usage and in particular the horsepower ratings of any motors you may want running. Above a certain size, three phase motors are smaller and more efficient than single phase. Normal domestic power is well served with single phase.

Great suff. Which Bank would that be?

On each piece of electrical equipment there is a rating plate which tells how many watts (not BTu's which is for thermal cooling requirements) that equipment uses. This rating plate is generally out of obvious site on the side or the rear of equipment. To calculate your power consumption you need to add these wattages together but only for the equipments which are likely to be running at the same time. This will give a maximun power rewquirement. Add 20% to this for a reasonable margine and for furure expansion. That is the output power you will need from your inverter. Solar panel power is usually limited to the maximum power input of the inverter (plus a derating factor of up to 20%). Since you are looking to "supplement" grid power with solar, you could split your electrical instalation into grid fed and grid/solar fed. If you want to consider battery backup, then size of the battery depends on how long you want to run for without grid power. Batteries are expensive. Repeat of Motdaen's question:- Why do you want three phase power supply?

Somethings not quite right here...........48 x 20 = 960Wh

Money

Yeah. Strange about the whole thing. Who was behind the camera? Transport laid on ready in case someone with an elite visa was on the 'plane?

Don't deceive yourself. He only wants to make himself, his family and his businesses more wealthy.

Your meter is doing what mine did after the village "expert" reconnected my power ever so slightly incorrectly. PEA would have spotted this if they had thought about it. The problem is that you have 1km of 25mm ali wire which is effectively running from the meter live to earth/neutral at your house. Taking into account the resistance of that 1km wire you are running about 4kw continuously. Meter very happy with go fast stripes. Swap live and neutral at the meter or the house isolator and all should be well. PEA were trying to help. They simply didn't first consider the obvious. I had problems explaining my similar miss-connection to them. They insisted on checking the cables artistically draped through 1km of trees from the meter to my house which, of course, were quite faultless. Like all engineers, including me sometimes, they were looking for a more interesting and complex problem.

With regard to UK banks, that goes without saying. Exchange rates with UK banks are inordinatly high whereas Thai banks are much more reasonable.

Brilliant Well done Anutin It's not true what they say about you

Sorry to jump in here. The alternative is easy and plentiful. you could get a low frequency inverter* which runs off a 48v DC supply.. Solar charge controlers and batteries to give you your 48v supply. * An inverter in this instance is a device which creates a mains AC voltage from a lower DC voltage.