Does he do the installations himself?. Normally such jobs are carried oit by electricians. Photo is an engineer. Engineering barely has any practical training.
2 things to point out : 1) Probably the only video where Photon is not blowing something up 2) He makes the most organized contraptions in the world. It is not messy, cables neatly packed in the little box. Even the giant power supply he has made is neat. Btw, my lights are literally kind of flickering and we are in a storm. Imagine if my power goes out literally while I am typing a comment on a video that shows how to have power when your power goes out. That would be hillarious lol :)
we all know whats coming. i've noticed solar acts as a UPS at too and DIY solar is waaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy cheaper, especially with Lifepo4 destroying lead acid and ruling the market with it's insane life span of 10 years plus vs 3 for lead acid.
"my lights are literally kind of flickering and we are in a storm" maybe your electricity comes from a cable on a pole? terrible, but it works mine flicker randomly when it's perfectly still, only when a supercell formed over the balkans recently did they flicker twice in rapid succession, i think the building uses underground cables
I've been a sparks for 16 years and not once did i think of this, i feel ashamed. I've only just found this channel and i'm utterly amazed, please keep up the good work and vids! Just one thought, you mentioned being qualified to carry this out... you do realise you must state which qualification they need unless you want a load of Chefs blowing their faces off. The world is a stupid place.
well this is the UK, if you keep quiet about it they'll never bother you, they don't even check if tenants have adequate fire safety/alarms, but we can use that to our advantage as long as we know what we're doing, and as long as we can undo it when we leave the property
Regardless if the price of power does not change during the day and night and you don't save any money by doing this, you STILL have a powerful backup source of power for your entire house, and when/if something goes seriously bad and the neighborhood's out, you'll be the smart fellow with all the lights on, living easy. I'd opt for a larger setup since I'm not fussy about background noise, though.
Sine wave inverters are generally OK with magnetic ballasts. The problem is the modified square-wave models; these produce long periods of zero voltage. Under sine wave input, the lag introduced by the ballast, means that when the arc current reaches zero, the voltage available to the ballast is high. So, that when the arc extinguishes, the ballast can instantly provide a high reignition voltage to restrike the arc. With a modified square wave inverted, the long zero V prevents reignition.
Well done! I've been planning doing this for awhile now, and got some very good tips from watching this. It's not uncommon here to get ice storms that knock the grid out for 7-10 days at a time. The gasoline generator is noisy and thirsty. A battery backup would allow me to run the house off of it, and only start up the generator to recharge it every couple of days. Not only would it save gas (petrol), but sometimes, during large outages, you can't buy gas locally. Either they sell out if, or they don't have power to run the pumps. Thank You for this. And welcome back! :-)
Terryblount Not at all. The trucks don't have to deal with the problem of making it work seamlessly with or without the mains supply which is the real puzzle here.
***** I would not say so. If you're charging during night and draining batteries during day, you're cycling it quite a lot and it will result in worn out batteries in quite a short time (2 years maybe), then you will need to replace it. Now count how much you will save at rate difference, subtract some efficiency loses (pumping all energy through inverters 2 times - when charging and so when discharging plus chemical process in batteries) and compare it to prize of batteries. As a backup solution it's definitely great and can run for years (10?) in frequent blackouts easily, but I don't believe it will actually save you money if your night rate is not just 20% of day rate or so...
Pavol Čuj Of course. The storage of energy is a standing engineering challenge. Doing it with lead-acid batteries cannot be viable, unless an aggressive night-saving plan is in place, probably not even then. Maybe one day, when we get used, but still properly working car lithium batteries for handyman purposes, it could work. There is pumped-storage hydroelectricity type of plant that works better than any batteries for this purpose.
I look at the high voltage high frequency flyback transformers, then I see Andy's 240,000 volt power supplies, that make flyback transformers look like toys!
I'm just blown away at the work you did here. I could totally see myself doing something like this, provided I had to pay for my own electricity, but I don't. I wasn't sure what you meant by the (Econo Lighting) Then I realized, here in the states, we refer to it as fluorescent lighting. I have to agree, and say that EVERYONE should be using such lighting in as many places as they can. It sad to know that most people in the US, are STILL using incandescent bulbs at this time, while some countries have banned the sales / purchase, and use of them since 2007. It's mind blowing to think that CUBA banned them back in 2005. Wow, CUBA, ahead of the US in a green matter. Not that it's an alternative, but I took it one step further. LED's I don't think, could replace the brightness of Fluorescent Lighting, but I even installed strips in our pantry, where conventional lighting would not help, nor would it be allowed. One bulb way up above the pantry would not light up the divided sections of food, where a small strip of LED's allowed us to see each section at ease. The only thing I'm unsure of in your set up, as far as cost wise here in the US, is the nice blocks you have for the switch, panel, breakers, timer, and such, would surely be expensive here. I could easily see just those parts costing us well over $2,500. Good job man, but since I know your background based on prior videos, it doesn't shock me.
Yeah, in the video he mentioned the batteries had 10 years of shelf life. I'd love to see a long-term review video where he mentions his experiences with the system and what he'd do differently today. After all, it's nearly been 10 years (bloody hell).
Wow. I was looking into stuff like this to power the television for an upcoming ice storm... The whole concept of using all of your power at night is a fantastic idea.
I showed my wife some video's today :) she likes the inverter system too. She also told me that you need a wife like she is, being allowed to do what you want aslong as she can do what she wants and food is on the table. Yes she got a sister ;)
you have a type o on the label in your control box "Berore Work" Also, to save power on battery mode, replace all incandescent globes with either led, or low draw fluro
Personally I've wired the lighting loop to solar charged batteries with a charger back up. All lighting 12v LED. The trouble is if you are down for any length of time you have no means of charging. By all means use the inverter for sockets but not the lights.
Flipping hell Do you work in a nuclear power station ? You play with electricity like its a joke . But always With knowledge not out of stupidity . Your videos are brilliant Right up my Street , I only wish I could understand what a watt is compared to an volt , Is an electricity watt different to a speaker watt? Or what, Like an Amplifier that's rated about 90watts Has 225 watts on the back of it for eg.
+Mark C all the same. no other measurement apart from the Watt. Power is measured in Watts and a Watt is the Voltage (Volts) "times" the Current (Amps)
A watt is a unit which can be used for any system which dissipates/absorbs energy. It's broken down as joules per second (J/s). So the speaker which says 225 watts on it is indicating that it is comfortable with dissipating 225 watts of electrical power provided by the amplifier as acoustic energy. The amount of watts dissipated by the speaker is equal to the voltage across the terminals of the voice coil multiplied by the current flowing through it. As in P = IV (P is power(watts), I is current(Amps) and V is voltage). I do believe that the 225 watt figure on the back of the speaker is an average of sorts, in reality there will be transient events which could cause the speaker to operate way above its rated range, but they don't damage the speaker if they're not too high because they last for a very short time. 90 watts on the back of the amplifier indicates that 90 watts is the maximum amount of energy that the amplifier can supply the speaker.
+motown shogunate Tooo much , All I do know is a 400watt rms speaker played off a 90watt per channel rms amplifier distorts very easily but when same 400watt rms speaker played from a power amplifier rated with say 600watts rms the Amp not running at full capacity is maxing out the speaker , But then with cheap speakers they might go loud tone flat , but heavy bass they blow them selves to bits .
In the case of your 400W speaker and 90W per channel amp, it's actually the amplifier output that's distorting, not the speaker which has far greater power handling capacity than the amp. The output voltage of any analogue amplifier is limited by its power supply rails (typically around 70 to 80 volts DC on the positve and negative rails depending on the design). When you max out the volume to try and drive more acoustic power (sound energy) out of the speaker, the peaks of the audio signal run into the amp's power supply rail limits and get "clipped" flat, which is why this kind of distortion is known as "clipping". This results in the amp's maximum positive/negative DC voltage output applied across the speaker's voice coil which causes it to heat up very quickly, creates horrible nasty distortion and burns out the speaker very fast. The type of distortion caused by over-driving a smaller speaker with a bigger amp is more gentle and will take much longer to destroy the speaker as the voice coil gradually heats up to the limit of its power handling capacity. Many speakers have protective devices built in to prevent this kind of damage, but they can't protect against clipping. So it's a bit counter-intuitive, but it's actually much easier to blow up a big speaker with a small amp, than blowing up a small speaker with a big amp! By the way, google "Ohm's Law" to get a greater understanding of the relationship between power (Watts), voltage (Volts), and current (Amps). It is the most basic fundamental law of electromagnetism, pretty much the first thing that every electrician or electronics technician/engineer learns. Good place to start if you want to know more.
So the problem with this is the battery lifetime. Batteries only last a limited number of cycles, and they're expensive to replace. There's a maximum amount of power you can charge and discharge in the battery life, and if you do the math you find that the battery life cost of storing a kWh is around the cost of a kWh on a normal tariff, even if you look after the batteries by not discharging them too much on each cycle and limiting the discharge current. Add in the cost of a kWh on the overnight tariff and you end up with your total cost per kWh being more expensive than a normal tariff.
You might be able to use a grid tie inverter as it would stay in sync with the mains input and always be running. Not sure how it would cope if the mains supply went off though! Might try and feed the entire street!
I always wondered about solar in UK being unreasonable, in Australia my 5,250 watt panels make 28Kw/h per day most of the year, average house with a pool the power companies say uses 24Kw/h per day, not sure what my tenants pay for power maybe nothing however.
The only way around it as I know is to run the inverter all the time and power those critical loads entirely on that inverter. Even if mains power is live it would be used to charge the battery then in term powers the inverter. You'll get a pretty big efficiency drop doing it that way but you can eliminate the transfer switch altogether. From the way it looks, that's how he has it setup. 6:52 "You cannot have the grid on and the inverter on in the same time" I didn't catch it first time :)
He says its not complicated... Yeah, to engineers like him lol. Inverters, transformers... No idea the purpose of them or how they work. I wonder how much he'd charge people if he did this for a business. He would be rolling in money. Its great idea. Bet the government and councils hate him for his genius lol. Wish he would come back, just managing lockdown by watching his videos again lol.
transformers increase the voltage and decrease the amperage or increase the amperage and decreasing the voltage. inverters take DC and convert it into AC
Wow, lucky man, I've never had a computer last that long, a recent one, I've had one from 2001 that still works to this day but nowadays nothing will last.. I build my own computers now..
If you wanted to protect the inverter from the grid, why not put a three way switch in, so you can either feed from the grid or the inverter without having to isolate from the fuse box switch.
This is great. I'm building something similar but have solar panels that I got used. Scrapyards are a great place to get everything from battery isolators, breakers, heavy cable, timers like the ones I bought for 25 cents each which are actually for HVAC and have thermostat functions too with an internal battery. I love stuff like this especially when I can make my meter go backwards legally. No more turning it upside down. (just kidding)
They still do vampire meters??? (cheaper electricity at night) I remember my parents taking the vampire meter out of our house in the mid 1980s and putting a proper one in, they also bought an old property to do up in the mid 2000s which had a vampire meter, which was one of the first things to come out along with the cast iron bath, storage heaters, and 1950s kitchen units..... when we bought a new build a few years ago a vampire meter wasnt even one of the options we had........
6:45 I'm pretty sure you must be able to get inverters that can sync to the grid by using a low current line to the mains input. Could simplify the installation process.
Really awesome system. Watched it many times now and can't get enough of it :D I reckon it's mostly useful for a fairly large house in the UK because you've got that HIGH-LOW unit system and I don't know what other countries do that. The reason I say that is (and please correct me if I'm wrong - not an expert) if you pay the same price/kw throughout the day like I do for instance, I reckon the amount of power it'd take to charge them batteries fully would outweigh or at best be the same as the energy you'd save by running the house on them, so you wouldn't really save any power...just a thought. Perhaps the charging process is indeed efficient enough that it'd would consume less power than what the batteries can then provide.
This only saves money by shifting load to a cheaper time. If your power is always the same cost, this system will actually cost you more. There are inefficiencies in every stage - charger, batteries and inverter.
I would love to have that setup in the US, or even a small portable unit as an alternative to gasoline generators that are loud and dangerous, and weigh about 500lbs = 0.25t(US) = 0.22t(UK) = 0.23t(metric) = 227kg.
Very well thought out comment. According to the numbers as of today, the EU has an unemployment rate of 10.2%. The US is 8.1%. They also spend way more for basic staple items such as fuel. They also pay income tax at a much higher percent than Americans. At least until our country socailzes health care.
Some of the appliances photon uses require a 12 volt-ish dc supply, the reason you can plug them into the mains is because they have a transformer inside them and a smoothing circuit that provides the appliance the required voltage..... so I was wondering if it could work out a lot more cheaper if the transformer in each appliance was bypassed. That way you could do away with one of the invertors. In anycase you could balance the entire load with extra batteries. Lot of work I know !!! just a thought ?
I have one of those Matrix 5000va units. I put it down in our front room a few years ago. And I can't bring myself to try picking it up again. It's just too heavy!! So I use an APC unit, which I was able to install easily without lifting gear or a guy on each corner!! Even just moving 40kg batteries about has killed my back. Sometimes, I'm inclined to think that mains electric might be a good idea, after all!!
Do you ever get the elictric company bangin on your door and how long did it take you to know all that stuff youre videos are ace dude reckon if i do owt like that in licolnshire the feds would bum me :D
Yes, that's what he meant. "Hot" is common slang for the "Active" leg of an AC circuit in Electrical Engineering circles. E.g. "that's the Hot wire coming in there". It can also mean "live" depending on context, e.g. "don't touch that terminal, it's hot!".
Every house should have this system in case of a power failure.... Cmon, it's so useful. Especially like someone for who uses a computer that consumes loads of power every day, for example, me...
Forever Computing Yup, 110v is a bit less efficient. I would've gotten higher than gold but I didn't think it'd be worth it. Thinking about it, I should put a current monitor inline with my PC and peripherals to track how many watts I'm drawing. Edit: corrected terminology.
where do you get all them cool toys? there is a Place by me that sells lots of surplus stuff like you have. but some of the stuff you have are hard to come by
I wanted to use a 12v 200 Ah Apex battery and inverter to run all the essentials and keep it charged w/ a smart charger. Thought I'd just let the thing just run and when the power goes out it would take over seamlessly. Any thoughts. I hate the generator. You are right about it sitting there and not starting when I need it. Cheers.
i had a thought couldn’t a solar panel be used to rotate the wind turbine and generate more electricity than the solar panel would provide, just hack a drill motor onto it 🤔
2 ish questions: 1. has there ever been a power cut, and how did the neighbors react when they saw you just not giving a shit? 2. can you come do my house as soon as i get my own place =D? (no seriously, if you ever need some money i bet you can make quite some by going commercial with this)
You know you could use relays to switch the Backup Converter on and to connect it to the home so your converter will not stay on unless there is no main power. You can also use some large capacitors after and before the relays (to the main power imput) to fill the power loss when there is no main power and the power inverter is not on yet. You can attach one wire to bypass the relays and capacitors so you can get the power you want without breaking the relays. I might do a schema to show what I mean.
Xmaster Official They cannot be used for the purpose you suggested them for. This discussion is going the way "We are talking about a bicycle...you cannot make it faster by putting in more coal..." "Yeah, but a train also has wheels!" :D
I pointed out this because you said that you can't use capacitors in AC. Of course in other purposes but you can. They are used pecially with OpAmps to smooth the sine wave or antennas to put inductance on a coil. :)
+Bork Madjai Because it's charging with the same amount power that he uses during the day at night, when power is 1/3 the price, so during the day, no external power is being used when it's more expensive per KwH.
If I can generate electricity and turn my meter backwards, the power company has to pay me for the power. Could you use your system to store cheap power at night and sell it back at top dollar during the day? What a racket that would be!
With that system he has, you can't. It has to to be synchronized with the grid. However, you are correct in theory. I know a guy who got in on a special deal where he got solar panels, basically for free, set up on his house and they were live all the time and that is how it was setup. However, I don't think it functioned as a back up as it had to run with the grid.
***** Some places you can sell the power back to the electric company. However, they don't like you running their meters backwards so they have a special meter for that and they usually only pay you what it costs them to generate the power. Seems sensible. That number is much lower than you are paying though so you are better off using the power yourself. You are not going to put a power plant out of business because they have economy of scale on their side and write the rule book on electric rates.
