I'm working on a 1930 32v lighting plant that was designed to do the following:
Provide dc power from a 32v battery bank to a lighting circuit in a house/shed with or without the generator running as needed.
Auto start the generator engine using the generator windings when current drawn exceeded 7.5 amps (4 lights or more turned on) and remain on until either the load was reduced/removed and/or the battery bank was fully charged.
These functions were all completed using one or both of two reasonably sized relays (I don't know for sure as there is no documentation available) which I don't have.
I will tackle each of the functions on the project one at a time and to start with, need help designing something SIMPLE (I'd actually prefer to put relays back, but where would you find 32v relays these days? ) to do the current monitoring task (and therefore switch on the starter circuit).
I guess I'm going to have to drop the system monitoring voltage down to something modern components can handle and then use a contactor of some sort to switch the higher voltages.
My battery bank is a 32v bank of 2v 1000ah off grid batteries. The current idle voltage of the bank is 33.6v and one person suggested using a voltage comparator, but I'd rather monitor the current load as it would take some time for the voltage of the bank to drop any significant amount, I. E, I'd prefer frequent top ups of the bank rather than longer charge cycles.
Hope I have given enough info?
What do you guys recommend?
Cheers
Chris
Provide dc power from a 32v battery bank to a lighting circuit in a house/shed with or without the generator running as needed.
Auto start the generator engine using the generator windings when current drawn exceeded 7.5 amps (4 lights or more turned on) and remain on until either the load was reduced/removed and/or the battery bank was fully charged.
These functions were all completed using one or both of two reasonably sized relays (I don't know for sure as there is no documentation available) which I don't have.
I will tackle each of the functions on the project one at a time and to start with, need help designing something SIMPLE (I'd actually prefer to put relays back, but where would you find 32v relays these days? ) to do the current monitoring task (and therefore switch on the starter circuit).
I guess I'm going to have to drop the system monitoring voltage down to something modern components can handle and then use a contactor of some sort to switch the higher voltages.
My battery bank is a 32v bank of 2v 1000ah off grid batteries. The current idle voltage of the bank is 33.6v and one person suggested using a voltage comparator, but I'd rather monitor the current load as it would take some time for the voltage of the bank to drop any significant amount, I. E, I'd prefer frequent top ups of the bank rather than longer charge cycles.
Hope I have given enough info?
What do you guys recommend?
Cheers
Chris