 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Electronics : Controlling a GTI into the ozinverter
  Page 5 of 6   |
|||||
| Author | Message | ||||
yahoo2 Guru  Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
Impressive stuff Madness! Trying it on a 5kw HF inverter is certainly jumping in the deep end, if any inverter is going to play up it will be one of them. I am excited to see this, its been on my Christmas wish list for a while. I have been looking into the wireless side of things, the ESP8266 has some quirks and workarounds that I am struggling to get my brain across. In theory it should not only be able to do the wireless link but replace the arduino uno as well. in practice it is OK for some things and a real pain for others. However the ESP32 has some of these kinks sorted out and a lot more pins available. The downside is that it is so new there is not much code/library adapted for it yet. Give it a few months and it should be possible to easily run oztules program directly on the ESP32. There will be a lot shields and adapter boards around soon and it is possible to configure them to do over the air changes and updates. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
||||
oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
I am thinking of a more mundane robust solution... perhaps as simple as a voltage controlled oscillator, transformer coupled to the home "mains"via a capacitor. This would impress a simple frequency onto the power lines, and require only a receiver to convert the frequency to a voltage at the other end. It would be universal, and stupidly simple and robust. The little isolation transformer will have a capacitor in series with the hv side to keep the 50 hz heavily attenuated before we even get going. So a VCO and receiver should solve the problem simply and elegantly.... unless I'm missing something. ........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
Arduino I can work with and there is unlimited options and it is a proven platform. I can't see myself trying to learn something else at this stage that may or may not do the job. As for VCO solutions, I will leave that in your capable hands Oz. If you can get a signal with a 5V range then you won't even need any different code, just connect it to pin 6 of your existing design and nothing else needs to be changed. Arduino I can do with modules beyond that I am in the dark. I did try it on an Aerosharp first in case something was wrong, the 5KW Zeversolar Inverter has not put a foot wrong, it gave an error 30 at first when the MOSFETs were not completely isolated. Once I made it completely Isolated the GTI just did what it is supposed to do. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
||||
| yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
That the beauty of it, the arduino core for these chips can be added to the IDE. Once it is set up the process of compiling and downloading is exactly the same. Anyway, we can look at all that later. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
||||
Clockmanfr Guru Joined: 23/10/2015 Location: FrancePosts: 429 |
Sounds good. Saves installing 1km of data cables. (the other half would not be happy) As I am simple minded chap there are a couple of things that give me concern. Frequency would have to be very small power but vey high, off beat so to speak, to avoid resonance HZ frequency's with my GTI wanting it within parameters, and the OZInverter Mini grid HZ not being interfered with especially when backcharging. But yes, sounds elegant and simple. Everything is possible, just give me time. 3 HughP's 3.7m Wind T's (14 years). 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (10 yrs). 21kW PV AC coupled SH GTI's. OzInverter created Grid. 1300ah 48v. |
||||
| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
In reality, we can get by perfectly well with a single tone for a 1 and no tone for a 0. 1 represents too much, and zero represents not enough.... which is essentially what happens now.... we fuzzy dance around the set point, we never actually stay still. This would emulate the same thing with very small change to code for the absorb voltage.... but the same thing applies to the float voltage. The receiving computer does not know why we are sending a tone or not, it just obeys, so the transmitter set point just changes when the tone will apply... that should do it...... so the tone function of the sending nano will be enough to get it to work I think... say 15khz, this should be so high away from the 50 hz carrier, that the attenuation will be huge. Now that is simple as. We will need a few watts to make this happen, but the tone is only on the line when we have too much power anyway, not enough voltage will be represented by a silence in the 15khz range.... so no power then. May look into this sooner rather than later perhaps.... although I don't need it myself. ........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
Is the distance really 1 KM? There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
||||
| Clockmanfr Guru Joined: 23/10/2015 Location: FrancePosts: 429 |
Line of site, well up and over a slight hill/rise is just 500m. The OzInverter mini grid 230vac cable then Zig Zags to each buildings. I have already put in 220m of cat cable, but digging again is something I am not fond of. Everything is possible, just give me time. 3 HughP's 3.7m Wind T's (14 years). 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (10 yrs). 21kW PV AC coupled SH GTI's. OzInverter created Grid. 1300ah 48v. |
||||
| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
So it could easily be done wirelessly for very minimal cost if needed, however, I am sure Oz will come through his option. If you do need to do another run of cable for any reason it can be done with a repurposed wireless router instead. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
||||
RFburns Regular Member  Joined: 21/07/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 43 |
Clockman maybe if you needed full Ethernet you could have used a pair of these adaptor and the description Oz gives is the way tariff 33 is controlled so tried and proven the link here may be of interestpower comms .This uses FSK but the filtering may be of interest. RF Strong like horse smart like tractor! |
||||
| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Thanks RF, the filters are about what I hoped for... goody  ......oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
| Clockmanfr Guru Joined: 23/10/2015 Location: FrancePosts: 429 |
Hi Madness, Yes wireless tech works great, and I have used a simple system, but the things get problematic with more than 2 GTI's at different locations. ...... 1. Biggest problem over time is reliability, offset against cost and ease of use. 2. I have to install, especially with that hill in the way, good TX & RX aerial adapters for that 1/2km distances, so more complications. 3. Ruggedness of the wireless system. Some of my installations get hammered by the rain/humidity, so a lot of conformal coating and waterproofing required, again adding to the cost and complexity. 4. With the wireless system, in the end, I operated a dead man handle type, ie, with out a valid signal the GTI,s would not switch on, don't want to cook my batteries. But then dreaded reliability again. 5. Interferences ... around our property here its small milking cow herds country, and every farmer has old mains voltage fed electric fences, and boy do they bleed interference. one fence is shorting out closer to my TX than my RX. We also get constant thunder storms and that certainly stops things. So I have stopped using the wireless system and fine tuned my GTI's to shut down at a 245vac voltage rise and 1vac differences. Sorry for writing the above in this simplistic form, I am surprised at how many folk study this particular topic. Everything is possible, just give me time. 3 HughP's 3.7m Wind T's (14 years). 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (10 yrs). 21kW PV AC coupled SH GTI's. OzInverter created Grid. 1300ah 48v. |
||||
| Clockmanfr Guru Joined: 23/10/2015 Location: FrancePosts: 429 |
Thanks 'Rfburns' nice article/thesis link. I can even understand some of it. Made me smile when I saw that SPICE test program still exists, (memories of inserting a floppy and trying to get it to work in the Mid 1980's). And yep those filters sure are helpful. Everything is possible, just give me time. 3 HughP's 3.7m Wind T's (14 years). 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (10 yrs). 21kW PV AC coupled SH GTI's. OzInverter created Grid. 1300ah 48v. |
||||
| Clockmanfr Guru Joined: 23/10/2015 Location: FrancePosts: 429 |
Oztules, Yesterday my 14 year old managed to get our new internet/phone/4g mobile hub extender/tele, etc, etc, up and working. Taken 15 years but finally entered the modern world with good speeds.  So I can actually look at stuff rather than enter a page and go have a cuppa while the page loads. Bit of a shock for this old fellow going from Sat system at 500k up, on a good day before 08.00hrs, to 50mb at any time of day. We are 2 hours from Paris but finally the French Regional Government paid, been trenching 60km & taken 3 years, to have Fibre Optic cabinet/installation/back up UPS etc, installed at 600 meters away and switched on last week. Upshot is ........ I can do some serious research now! It would be neat to add another supplement to the OzInverter Book, about a simple controlling system for the GTI's that are on the OzInverter created 230vac mini grid. Everything is possible, just give me time. 3 HughP's 3.7m Wind T's (14 years). 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (10 yrs). 21kW PV AC coupled SH GTI's. OzInverter created Grid. 1300ah 48v. |
||||
| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
The controller has been working perfectly over the last week, with a couple tweaks to the settings it is working alongside my current commercial MPPT charge controllers. I have been able to adjust times and voltages so they all share the load and switch to float within 15 minutes of each other. Once I am happy with the design I will get PCB's made of the bigger version I am working on that will be able to control all my panels both GTI and dc - dc all off the one Arduino. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
||||
| yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
If you have to do a order of ten, I would buy some of your spares Madness. I know I should do it myself but I have been feeling decidedly unmotivated lately. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
||||
| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
Hi Yahoo, Yes I can help with extras, the price of 5 is very little less than 10. I am keeping the PCB to 100 X 100MM to keep the cost down. Is there anything that you would like to see on the board? There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
||||
| yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
No , dont think so, most of my DC stuff is pretty simple and modular now-days. As long as there is power I can convert to 3.3 volts for a wireless module I should be fine. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
||||
| Mulver Senior Member  Joined: 27/02/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 160 |
I'd happily chip in for a couple if it's an option Madness! I'm not yet at making pcb status. FYI I bought myself an Arduino starter kits for fathers day and have been working on an automatic ssr dump load controller based on oztules code. This will be used to consume power to control the back charging before needing to throttle back the grid tie. Based on this code Variablessr As soon as it's cleaned up I'll post it here. |
||||
| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
Hi Mulver I will be doing the same also, the new version of the PCB I am working on will require an Arduino Uno. This gives a lot more flexibility to add shields for networking, data logging. I have used code similar to that before but it can play havoc with your inverter, I now turn the SSR on when at full battery voltage and off again if it drops too far. Other things I will add is temperature compensation to the battery charging algorithm, I will also be using the temperature to control an SSR for air conditioning to keep everything cool, last summer my batteries were getting up to 40 degrees. Learning to write code for the Arduino opens so many doors to solve problems, whether it is water the garden to a robot the possibilities have no limit. Anyone wanting boards can you PM with numbers please and I will let you know cost etc. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
||||
| Page 5 of 6 |
|||||
 Print this page |
