3 Phase to Single Phase Step Down Transformers

[Ray70]

Don't bother trying to parallel your 803. Get it hooked up running and test your setup and see where you're at.
You may find out that your fine with 1 803 a soft start on the AC condenser and a little common sense.
Don't over complicate your emergency setup for little to no benefit and but less reliability.

 

[Scoobyshep]

Don't bother trying to parallel your 803. Get it hooked up running and test your setup and see where you're at.
You may find out that your fine with 1 803 a soft start on the AC condenser and a little common sense.
Don't over complicate your emergency setup for little to no benefit and but less reliability.

Keep it simple, unless complex is really really cool

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

 

[3gunguy]

Depends how automatic you want to go and your skill level

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

Automatic load balancing and all that. I can manually turn things on. I am mildly technically proficient but nothing compared to you guys on this site.

 

[3gunguy]

Don't bother trying to parallel your 803. Get it hooked up running and test your setup and see where you're at.
You may find out that your fine with 1 803 a soft start on the AC condenser and a little common sense.
Don't over complicate your emergency setup for little to no benefit and but less reliability.

That is great advise and some of my own in most cases. Simple is better and the less moving parts, the better.

 

[3gunguy]

Well, we are talking about the common person that does not have those skills. I am one of them. I know how to do household wiring and I can read directions well but I am not good with making up my own controls and I would not trust my house and family to them. I am the common sense emergence management type of person. When the power goes out I run my house on my 002 5K unit with no problems. Some sacrifices need to be made but we are comfortable. I have soft start on my A/C if I decide to run it but I do not for the most part. I lived for 45-50 years without A/C in my houses so it is not that much of an inconvenience. If I want to run the A/C I shut the well pump off and make sure no cooking is done on the electric stove, I bring in my Coleman camp stove for all cooking and set it on top of the stove. Works just as well. ALL about management. How many OLD guys do we have here that remember the days when a bad storm was coming you would fill the bathtub with water to use for cooking and flushing the toilet? Yes youngsters, you can flush a toilet by dumping a half bucket of water in the bowl. And a full bath tub holds roughly 55-75 gallons of water depending on the tub. I still do that to this day.

I get you. I could do the same and grew up without A/C but now with two young children under 3 in south florida with a hurricane in august...The piece of mind gained by keeping the house cool frees up a lot of bandwidth.

 

[kayak1]

You might be better off with an inverter:
Such as:

15K Whole Home

Sol-Ark® Whole Home 15K-2P solar hybrid inverter is a powerful whole home backup that is 48V battery agnostic, has 200A grid pass through, and NEM 3.0 ready. Learn more.

www.sol-ark.com

or

EG4 18kPV Hybrid Inverter | EG4-18kPV-12LV | 48V Split Phase 120/240VAC | UL1741, CEC

Signature Solar provides solar panels, off-grid solar systems, grid-tie, and hybrid systems. Quality solar inverters, bifacial solar panels, complete solar kits, solar batteries. Featuring brands such as EG4 Electronics with their solar battery, LifePower4 and EG4 LLifePower4 and EG4 LL

signaturesolar.com

A battery bank (large enough to support your generators charging rate) and then the appropriate number of:

EG4 Chargeverter | 48v 100A Battery Charger | 5120W Output | 240/120V Input

Signature Solar provides solar panels, off-grid solar systems, grid-tie, and hybrid systems. Quality solar inverters, bifacial solar panels, complete solar kits, solar batteries. Featuring brands such as EG4 Electronics with their solar battery, LifePower4 and EG4 LLifePower4 and EG4 LL

signaturesolar.com

A MEP-803A would require two.

If you convert from AC to DC and combine the DC, you don't have to worry about keeping the generators being out of phase.

I think you will find that with the inverter, you will not require more than one generator.

The solar and batteries are subject to a 30% tax rebate.

 

[DieselAddict]

Please dear god, not a solark. Anything but one of those.

 

[3gunguy]

Or you could go with the 10xx series machines that can parallel out of the box. By the time you do all the work to make an 80x generation machine do it, you've already paid the price difference to get 10xx machines.

Nah...I don't like the computer screen control. My buddy had an 806B and that went bad...NIGHTMARE...I should a bought an 004 is I am learning. Either way...I think I am good for now....I should have this whole thing set up and running in the next day or so and then I will know what's what.

I like the idea of a battery bank to charge but those are way expensive and I dont have the space for them at this location. I plan on relocating in the next several years to some land and all this education and experience will come in super handy when I develop my true homestead.

I am going to emerge myself into the 803 for now and it will give me great experience for the future.

I am learning a lot from you all. Thank you for taking the time!

 

[kayak1]

Please dear god, not a solark. Anything but one of those.

I have an Outback 8048A; it's a bit old-school. I have heard good things with the Solark, but I don't have any personal experience with them.

I was pointing at larger inverters as it gets expensive to stack the 8048A's.

 

[DieselAddict]

You can find people testing them in grid-down situations. They do not perform to their nameplate when running from battery alone. Seems they are optimized for parallel operation where the utility handles inrush currents. When running straight off battery they can trip offline when a heavy inductive load hits.

I don't have personal experience with solark but I do have two Schneider XW6048s and one SW4048. They all perform ABOVE nameplate. Its good to know that even when you have the inverter loaded up that there is more than enough headroom to kick over an air compressor or well pump. They are absolute beasts. Also the standby current is very low (~15w each). That is a benefit when you are not running loads in the middle of the night. Good to not be wasting 100-200 watts of battery power 24/7 like many of the high frequency inverters do.

 

[3gunguy]

Hey all! Update. Got the MEP-803A hooked up to the house after the electritian did his magic on the breaker box and line to the side of the house. Works like a charm! It wont run the whole house but it will run a lot of it! Plenty of it in fact. AC, hot water heater, 2 fridges, freezer, all the lights a coffee maker and a dishwasher get it to 10K ...got some juice to spare! If I eventually get that brandon water heater, I will have even more available juice!

Thank you all for your time, knowledge and assistance.

I am going to be searching the forums and maybe starting a new post on MEP-803 thermostat, water temp guage not working....lol....my only small issue with the gennie!

Man that thing is awesome. Quiet and doesnt even flinch during AC kick on.

 

[rickf]

There is a lesson to be learned here, don't overthink things. We have all done it. I still do at times and then I say wait a minute, Sit down and clear the slate and start over here. Sometimes you get laser focused on something and you do not look at your options.

 

[cbisson]

Sometimes you get laser focused on something and you do not look at your options.

Guilty