Is there any reason to not have Power Lifting enabled on my AC500?
I have an AC500 with two (2) B300S and two (2) B300, with four (4) 200W Rich Solar Panels. (Note: I’ll be adding two B300K batteries and two 195 W Ecoworthy PV panels.)
Is there any reason to not have Power Lifting enabled on my AC500?
I have an AC500 with two (2) B300S and two (2) B300, with four (4) 200W Rich Solar Panels. (Note: I’ll be adding two B300K batteries and two 195 W Ecoworthy PV panels.)
It is designed for purely resistive loads which kicks in only when the load exceeds the inverter’s native capacity. You risk damaging an appliance that is inductive if you do not have a safe buffer of output power left from the inverter. With that said, if you well within the tolerance level of the AC500’s inverter (in other words you get nowhere near the 5000W capacity) you can leave it on all the time, however, I would measure out all of your appliances to see how close to peak continuous load you are getting at. You have to account for what all your devices use continuously and whatever you have left over, make sure that inductive load appliance does NOT exceed what buffer you have left. But if you always have enough buffer at all times, then power lifting mode is pointless and you can just leave it off to protect inductive appliances.
Example: If you were using 3600W continuous you could plug in a purely resistive load that is 1500W (you would be 100W over), but you could not plug in an inductive load that needs say 2000W continuous (say an air compressor) and run it reliably. The voltage needs to be stable and the motor will try to draw more current to compensate for the low voltage, which can overheat/burn out the motor windings or damage the inverter.
The AC500 features a power lifting mode that can support pure resistive loads of up to 6000W, but two conditions must be met:
The load must be a pure resistive load.
It must be used off-grid.
Once this mode is activated, although it can support a 6000W pure resistive load, the machine will actually output 5000W. The power lifting mode can be considered as a constant current source mode, where the voltage is reduced to accommodate the pure resistive load, so the effectiveness of the load’s usage may also decrease.
Power lifting is a nice feature but I suspect a lot of users don’t fully understand the difference between resistive and inductive loads and when it should be used. Unless you specifically require this feature the simple answer would be to leave it off. If you were looking into purchasing a new system and determining your load requitements, you wouldn’t choose an underrated device with the intention of just using power lifting mode to make up for the shortfall, you would make sure you have more than enough capacity to satisfy your needs. So I consider power lifting a nice to have feature for special circumstances but not everyday use.
I’ve just tested the Elite 100 v2 on my kitchen kettle, it draws 2,060W from the grid @ 240VAC. When the Elite powers the kettle its inverter provides 1,800W max, but at a reduced voltage. Excluding power losses, the simple math is 1800/2060 x 240 = 210V. I boiled a litre of water from grid power, then another litre from the Elite, it took approx 40sec longer, because the heat generated was less, but still worked very well.
In simple terms, most things with a heating element are resistive, most things induction, have an electric motor.
There are other types, but, let’s keep it simple…
A consequence of power lifting mode on an induction motor would be stalling due to less torque generated by lower voltage. The mechanical force is still proportional between voltage and current to generate the torque needed. If the voltage drops, the current will step in (to a certain point), but voltage stability is generally key to appliances operating efficiently.
My issue is that if I turn on the microwave, and two window AC units. This system basically shuts down and I have to go and manually restart the AC500. Would Power Lifting allow for all three items to be running at the same time?
No, they are all not compatible because they are inductive loads. The compressor in the air conditioner and outside of the heating element in the microwave (i.e. the transformer) is inductive. You will kill your air conditioner. The inrush current of these devices are extremely high when they turn on (i.e. the compressor kicks on.) A better solution is purchase another head unit to split your AC loads OR just elect to turn off the air conditioner when you want to use the microwave. Simply put your system/load sizing is inadequate for your needs. Your Bluetti unit is not enough for your demands all on its own, so you either need to size up (i.e another head unit/inverter) or consolidate how much you run at one time. If you get a 2nd head unit you can run split phase 240V to run things like washer/dryer as well.