Opinions on Mecer Inverter

[savage]

Pure insanity - but hey, what do I know...

 

[joeyhza]

I appreciate your opinion Savage - would be nice knowing why this is a bad idea - reading through your previous PM regarding the installation - it wasn't made clear at all why this is a bad idea. Its certainly possible. it certainly works. I'm completely unclear to the negatives here.

For purposes of clarity I am NOT using a suicide cord or a dead mans cable or whatever other description is used to refer to an electric cable going from the output of my inverter to a normal wall socket.

My setup is hooked to circuit breakers and with a transfer switch. When i need power from my inverter i flip a switch and the inverter powers the circuit. When i need power from eskom i flip the switch back and eskom power goes to the circuits.

 

[KOPITE]

For purposes of clarity I am NOT using a suicide cord or a dead mans cable or whatever other description is used to refer to an electric cable going from the output of my inverter to a normal wall socket.

Nothing wrong with back feeding into the mains. Ran it previously with my ups and now doing it with my 2000w pure sine wave inverter.

Just one question guys, can I leave the inverter on connected to the mains when the power goes off. Will my inverter take over power without tripping anything. Then I can switch off the mains, geyser, stove and fridges while running on the inverter.

 

[Dimpie (COMPUTEK)]

Seperate DB linked to main DB - yes. You sound incredulous which makes me a little tense

Mind sharing a picture(s) of the setup ?

 

[joeyhza]

Out of interest - does anybody leave their inverter running constantly and if so any idea how much power it uses (Kw per hr). I observed mine draws quite a bit of power when running. Havent used any tools yet to measure, will get my hands on something though. I turned all appliances and geysers off for an hour and recorded my meter reading at the start of the hour and after an hour had lapsed.

 

[joeyhza]

Nothing wrong with back feeding into the mains. Ran it previously with my ups and now doing it with my 2000w pure sine wave inverter.

Just one question guys, can I leave the inverter on connected to the mains when the power goes off. Will my inverter take over power without tripping anything. Then I can switch off the mains, geyser, stove and fridges while running on the inverter.

How does you config work? Sounds like you have a suicide cord configuration. Do you backfeed by plugging a cable end in to your inverter and the other end in to a wall outlet?

 

[KOPITE]

How does you config work? Sounds like you have a suicide cord configuration. Do you backfeed by plugging a cable end in to your inverter and the other end in to a wall outlet?

Yes

 

[joeyhza]

Yes

Eish! lol

 

[KOPITE]

Am thinking of maybe going on the DB board. My brother is an electrician. Will see how much it costs

 

[joeyhza]

Its not expensive at all - at least your brother is an electrician. I've been quoted by an electrician and they inflate their prices for something so simple. My personal opinion from past experience. All in all, costed me less than a thousand to do mine - and that thousand comprised of buying a multimeter, an Earth leakage tester AND and voltage detector.

 

[Dan C]

Out of interest - does anybody leave their inverter running constantly and if so any idea how much power it uses (Kw per hr). I observed mine draws quite a bit of power when running. Havent used any tools yet to measure, will get my hands on something though. I turned all appliances and geysers off for an hour and recorded my meter reading at the start of the hour and after an hour had lapsed.

I definitely don't run mine constantly, that fan will drive me batty.

 

[joeyhza]

Yeah - that fan is quite loud - good thing mine is in the garage - can barely hear it

 

[getafix33]

how will an electric garage door run with this been a modified sine wave inverter or wont it matter.

 

[FlashSA]

how will an electric garage door run with this been a modified sine wave inverter or wont it matter.

I was wondering the same thing after reading that motors don't like this power source

BUT, garage door and gate motors run on battery and their power supply trickle charges the battery so I don't see a problem with an inverter supplying power to these items.....

 

[joeyhza]

Works perfectly on sliding gate motor and garage door motor for me

 

[Dan C]

Just get a few batteries in parallel

 

[KOPITE]

Okay gents, took a few pics of my mains

 

[KOPITE]

Just felt like messing around so I took off the cover. Would this be easy to add a small db as I have a gap next to it and hidden in the built in cupboards

 

[savage]

Dunno who did that DB, but OMG...

Breakers are supplied from the top, your load is connected to the bottom - industry standard (frankly, I'm not even sure a breaker will work correctly if wired the other way around). I see numerous breakers fed from the bottom. I see numerous loops on Live, as well as Neutral as well...

If you intent to connect your Mecer to the DB - sigh - it is ILLEGAL! Just like your dead mans cables.

EDIT: You may want to work on your labeling as well. A incorrectly, or incompletely marked DB is a COC failure.

 

[Dimpie (COMPUTEK)]

@ KOPITE, Mine is also an old setup like that, but at least i know what's cooking on the inside ... I have no clue what's happening with your spaghetti

EDIT: mine from outside > http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...-invertors?p=15487988&viewfull=1#post15487988