> I would recommend something from http://www.bestpower.com I am a dealer
> and would be happy to talk with you off the list.
I agree, Best inverters are very good, nicely programmable and geek-
friendly. However, if you're going to be running it from a generator,
make sure that they give you the back-door password as well as the
setup parameters so that the inverter will be happy on the generator.
The Best Ferrups units, due to the nature of the ferroresonant regulator,
are quite fussy about the power line frequency. From the factory, they
will assume that the power is "bad" if ot is off by as little as 0.5 Hz.
When running on a genset, this causes problems, as most generators aren't
that well-governed. So you have a power failure and the inverter goes to
battery. Then the generator kicks in, the inverter switches back to line
power from batteries, and the load causes the generator to momentarily sag
in frequency. The inverter sees this and switches back to batteries,
removing the load from the generator. This causes the generator frequency
to rise, so the inverter thinks all is good again and cuts back to line.
Repeat every few seconds until something breaks, the batteries die, or
Edison comes back.
So, ahead of time, get the secret codes from Best and set the thing up
to accept a wider frequency range and be more forgiving of the generator.
They'll be happy to tell you how to do it, but you need to ask. And while
your inverter is cycling on and off every few seconds in the dark isn't
the best time to ask.
-- -- Jay Hennigan jay@west.net 805-884-6323 -- WestNet: Internet service to Santa Barbara, Ventura and the world.
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