Sol-Ark?

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Caribou

Time traveler
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I'm thinking about getting a Sol-Ark inverter/charger for my solar system. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated before I plunk down any cash.
 
You guys really helped me pick out our solar at the other site but I forgot most of what I leaned so here is a take on it.
Car could you explain a little bit what this does? Dose it help protect the system?

 
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Car go to 14:19 into video to skip to fuse vs circuit breaker. This is a good one IMO to help protect system.
 
You guys really helped me pick out our solar at the other site but I forgot most of what I leaned so here is a take on it.
Car could you explain a little bit what this does? Dose it help protect the system?


As I understand it, the Sol-Ark controls the charging of the batteries using either the solar panels or the grid depending on the sun. A generator is also able to be put into the mix. It also inverts the DC from the batteries into 120/240V AC for the house. If the batteries hit 90% it quits using them and goes to the grid or a generator. The batteries are charged off the grid at night or when necessary. Basically, it is set up as a seamless system that pretty much controls itself. It can also be setup to be EMP hardened. I live 20 or 25 miles from one of the major nuclear targets in Alaska.
 
As I understand it, the Sol-Ark controls the charging of the batteries using either the solar panels or the grid depending on the sun. A generator is also able to be put into the mix. It also inverts the DC from the batteries into 120/240V AC for the house. If the batteries hit 90% it quits using them and goes to the grid or a generator. The batteries are charged off the grid at night or when necessary. Basically, it is set up as a seamless system that pretty much controls itself. It can also be setup to be EMP hardened. I live 20 or 25 miles from one of the major nuclear targets in Alaska.

Ok I got it mixed up when I saw the 'Ark ' and thought it was ARC.. That sounds like a good thing to me Car so hope it works for you.
 
I like the Sol-Ark but dang $6500 is a lot for it. Then throw in the Lithium Ion batteries they recommend on top of that? I do like that it will utilize the grid, the generator and the battery bank automatically switching between one or the other as needed. It also claims to be emp proof?

I'm sitting on four 300 watt panels right now that I want to put to use. I also have 100 feet of AWG2 wire that I bought from a contractor that had left overs. Now I'm a bit confused on the watts output of my panels. If I have 1200 watts of panels ( The four 300 watt panels) how much wattage will it produce in a day? How many more panels would I need to produce enough power to step completely way from my power company? My power company will not buy excess power but will credit you for what you have extra. I question the legality of that. I thought that if you produce more than you use they have to buy it by law. Am I mistaken?

https://www.energystoragenetworks.c...tery-based-inverter-provides-high-efficiency/

Sol-Ark 8K, 48-V battery-based inverter provides high efficiency

June 25, 2018 By Kathie Zipp Leave a Comment

sol-ark-500x450.jpg
Sol-Ark has discarded traditional design methodologies of DC- and AC-coupled battery systems and reduced the cost [over 25%] by combining all of the electronics into a single DC transformerless system in its 8K solar inverter. The transformers are needed for power conversion and 120/240-V split phase in/out, but are massive, expensive and create wasted energy. Eliminating transformers allows achieving a 96.5% efficiency, while using low-cost 48-V external batteries. Several expensive 380-V battery solutions claim high efficiency but fail to include the 380-V conversion losses to 50V in the battery.

Battery grid-tied designs can provide continuous power for selling back to the grid, but these sacrifice peak power for starting motors off grid. Peak power is why traditional DC-coupled inverters continue to dominate off-grid applications. Even though the Sol-Ark 8K has good continuous grid-tie power, engineers doubled the components for excellent peak power off grid to 20-kW. The 20-kW peak power improves long-term reliability and cooling of the system.

For customers living off grid, Solar-Ark incorporated programmable loads for running A/C and hot water on solar power instead of batteries (adding years to their lifespan). One of the single biggest issue with living off grid is knowing how much battery capacity you have left. so Solar-Ark incorporated a proprietary battery learning algorithm that accounts for aging batteries.

The inverter also includes a color touchscreen display and remote monitoring. Sol-Ark 8K was designed to be the easiest battery solar install ever, so even customers could installed themselves if they desired.

The Sol-Ark 8K is also reliant against EMP, solar flare and cyber-attacks. Independent government labs hit Sol-Ark 8K ~140 times at twice the military levels (100 KV/m) without damage to the inverter, appliances or panels. The inverter can also be updated remotely.
 
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Our Magnum Energy 4,000 watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter/Charger is transformer based and has an 93% peak inverter efficiency, it runs on a total of 24 volts of battery power with an input range of 18.0 to 33.8 VDC and an output of 120/240 volts AC with a maximum of 5,800 watts for 5 seconds or 5,200 watts for 30 seconds. I'm a bit old tech in that I run true deep cycle lead acid batteries, a total of 20 6 volt golf cart batteries, series/parallel for 24 volts for a total of 1025 amp-hours. The solar array, when I get it installed, will be eight 195 watt panels for a total of 1560 watts, series/parallel for full sun output of 72 volts processed through an MPPT solar controller to keep the battery bank charged. When we have had grid power loss the system transfers so seamlessly that it's almost like it was just like the lights blinked for a microsecond. I designed this backup system to mainly run two refrigerators, a freezer and a few LED lights, but when it's kicked in on a few occasions, it's ran a lot more without any problems, in fact the transition was so smooth that I had to check the inverter to see if it was doing the work. I like the 6 volt golf cart batteries because they are easy to get ahold of, we bought all ours from Costco, they generally have a lot on hand and their price is low compared to most other battery suppliers, however Interstate Battery has unbranded 6 volt batteries for pretty low prices that are of a high quality as well.
 
I did want to mention that usually home developed solar systems are generally a lot less costly than premade systems, sorry I don't have all the receipts on hand for our project. What I recommend is to find local suppliers that you can go to and pick up the equipment to build a system because shipping can really add a large amount of money, we saved over $200 by picking up things ourselves.
 
Thanks Viking! Right now I have 16 6V 225A batteries for a total of 3600A at 6V. I'm planning a 48V system. I currently have 4 250W solar panels but plan to triple that as funds allow. I'm looking for a 5K to 8K inverter/charger with two AC inputs, and power diversion.
 
Our Magnum Energy 4,000 watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter/Charger is transformer based and has an 93% peak inverter efficiency, it runs on a total of 24 volts of battery power with an input range of 18.0 to 33.8 VDC and an output of 120/240 volts AC with a maximum of 5,800 watts for 5 seconds or 5,200 watts for 30 seconds. I'm a bit old tech in that I run true deep cycle lead acid batteries, a total of 20 6 volt golf cart batteries, series/parallel for 24 volts for a total of 1025 amp-hours. The solar array, when I get it installed, will be eight 195 watt panels for a total of 1560 watts, series/parallel for full sun output of 72 volts processed through an MPPT solar controller to keep the battery bank charged. When we have had grid power loss the system transfers so seamlessly that it's almost like it was just like the lights blinked for a microsecond. I designed this backup system to mainly run two refrigerators, a freezer and a few LED lights, but when it's kicked in on a few occasions, it's ran a lot more without any problems, in fact the transition was so smooth that I had to check the inverter to see if it was doing the work. I like the 6 volt golf cart batteries because they are easy to get ahold of, we bought all ours from Costco, they generally have a lot on hand and their price is low compared to most other battery suppliers, however Interstate Battery has unbranded 6 volt batteries for pretty low prices that are of a high quality as well.

What are you using to switch from grid to battery bank?
 
What are you using to switch from grid to battery bank?
There is a built in transfer switch in the inverter/charger. I forgot to mention that my inverter/ charger can be stacked up to 4 units using a router that I have for parallel use but after running my single MS 4024 PAE unit I have found that it does a more than adequate job taking care of all the necessary electrical needs of our home, the only thing I need to do is build the solar array mount system and wire it to the solar controller so that I will no longer be relying on the grid system for charging battery bank, I really hope to have that taken care of before summer of the coming year. Due to my congestive heart failure earlier this year, I really got set back from doing the job this year, I was lucky to get my firewood supply for the winter taken care of, that's the biggest bump in the road of life I've had to deal with and I'm very happy to be on the other side of all that, thanks be to God.
 
What are you using to switch from grid to battery bank?
I also need to add that the grid and solar backup going through the inverter feed a dedicated subpanel that only feeds circuits that take care of the two refrigerators, a small portion of other outlets and one light circuit, all other circuits are grid fed and not as critical under a grid down situation.
 
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