Midnite Solar Announced their new 10kw AIO at Intersolar Today

[Lt.Dan]

Yeah, you Cali folks are special.

Hey. My mom says I'm handsome!

 

[Robin Gudgel]

Ryan’s response isn’t 100% correct, so I will attempt to clarify it here. The “ODM did not give us a ten year warranty. What is an “ODM?”. We are using a very established and competent manufacturer to build the ONE for us. It is our design! We cannot in the USA buy components as inexpensively as they can. Plus we have to pay at least 25% tariffs on every resistor, capacitor, PCB, transistor etc as these parts are virtually not made in the US any longer. We aren’t happy at all about that, but what can we do? We really take it in the shorts in order to manufacture the Rosie, our charge controllers and dozens of other products in Washington state where I have been designing and manufacturing electronic products since 1970. We want to build and design as much in the US as possible rather than give our technology away. I want to thank all of you who have supported us over the years. It is really important. We are the last inverter manufacturer in the US for this kind of stuff. Now back to warranties. We designed the ONE. We just don’t manufacture it in Arlington Wa. MidNite Solar is providing the second five years of warranty for the ONE. We have confidence in the product. The design and quality of the build. We have our own people that monitor production. The ONE is a grid tie inverter. We have to offer a ten year warranty by law. So, why don’t we have a ten year warranty on the Rosie? Good question! I come from the offgrid world where five year warranties have been the norm for 25 years. I guess the off-grid industry hasn’t caught up to the grid tie world yet. I will take a serious look at that though as it is a great question. I would also like to point out that having designed and or manufactured inverters at Trace Engineering, Outback, Xantrex and Magnum Energy, I and our other engineers have always tried to make indestructible inverters. Have any of you had the opportunity to see or use a Trace inverter? Chances are it was made before you were born. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that over 80% of those 30+ year old inverters still work, We have the core engineers from Trace, Outback and Magnum as well as dozens of the assemblers from these great companies here at MidNite. Our engineers do not scrimp on the designs. We design them for longevity. I can’t say that about some of the other AIO inverters out there. So, I wouldn’t be too worried about the Rosie. It is going to last just like all the other inverters I have been involved with.
Thank you,
Robin Gudgel
President
MidNite Solar

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

I have had the opportunity to look at a trace that's a beast ,
Never owned one but yes last I heard some are still functioning where I am from.
Don't know their age either but I am guessing pretty old .definitely over the 20year mark

The only thing that came close to those are Outback VFX series
Mine is around the 15years old and I am not the first owner.

 

[BuffaloTrace]

Have some relatives that run 2 old Trace in split phase. Total beasts, run everything, never had outtage, or machine they couldn't run. His only complaint was fast clock speed and a buzzy ceiling fan??

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

Have some relatives that run 2 old Trace in split phase. Total beasts, run everything, never had outtage, or machine they couldn't run. His only complaint was fast clock speed and a buzzy ceiling fan??

They don’t need restart or reboot just keeping on going like the energizer bunny.There were some new old stock on eBay some time ago was tempted to get two for split phase .
Can remember why I didn’t go through with them .

 

[SolarScott]

Ryan’s response isn’t 100% correct, so I will attempt to clarify it here. The “ODM did not give us a ten year warranty. What is an “ODM?”. We are using a very established and competent manufacturer to build the ONE for us. It is our design! We cannot in the USA buy components as inexpensively as they can. Plus we have to pay at least 25% tariffs on every resistor, capacitor, PCB, transistor etc as these parts are virtually not made in the US any longer. We aren’t happy at all about that, but what can we do? We really take it in the shorts in order to manufacture the Rosie, our charge controllers and dozens of other products in Washington state where I have been designing and manufacturing electronic products since 1970. We want to build and design as much in the US as possible rather than give our technology away. I want to thank all of you who have supported us over the years. It is really important. We are the last inverter manufacturer in the US for this kind of stuff. Now back to warranties. We designed the ONE. We just don’t manufacture it in Arlington Wa. MidNite Solar is providing the second five years of warranty for the ONE. We have confidence in the product. The design and quality of the build. We have our own people that monitor production. The ONE is a grid tie inverter. We have to offer a ten year warranty by law. So, why don’t we have a ten year warranty on the Rosie? Good question! I come from the offgrid world where five year warranties have been the norm for 25 years. I guess the off-grid industry hasn’t caught up to the grid tie world yet. I will take a serious look at that though as it is a great question. I would also like to point out that having designed and or manufactured inverters at Trace Engineering, Outback, Xantrex and Magnum Energy, I and our other engineers have always tried to make indestructible inverters. Have any of you had the opportunity to see or use a Trace inverter? Chances are it was made before you were born. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that over 80% of those 30+ year old inverters still work, We have the core engineers from Trace, Outback and Magnum as well as dozens of the assemblers from these great companies here at MidNite. Our engineers do not scrimp on the designs. We design them for longevity. I can’t say that about some of the other AIO inverters out there. So, I wouldn’t be too worried about the Rosie. It is going to last just like all the other inverters I have been involved with.
Thank you,
Robin Gudgel
President
MidNite Solar

My 12 volt Y2K system is still up and running. Has been powering a small deep freeze that is just as old. Thanks for a good product!

 

[Robin Gudgel]

200 amp vs. 100 amp Inverter pass through

For 30+ years customers have requested whole house backup. This goes all the way back to my Trace Engineering days in the early 1990’s. We barely had a 60 amp bypass relay in our inverters back then. I suppose we could have used an expensive external 200 amp contactor, but we couldn’t justify trying to run the entire house from a 4000 watt inverter, so we talked the customers out of that idea. OK, jump decades into the future and has the story changed? Yes and no. Some very popular All In One inverters now have internal 200 amp relays and breakers. So, can you just put these inverters between your utility meter and the main distribution panel? Physically you sometimes can, but it isn’t quite that simple. This type of connection is not legal in North America.

Not Legal??? It is being done every day! Well probably not as simple as stated above. You see those 200 amp circuit breakers built into the inverter have only a 5000 amp interrupt rating. They are not designed for or approved for direct connection to the utility. They are not rated as a service disconnect. So how you ask are they doing it?

There must be a utility approved disconnect/overcurrent device upstream from the 200 amp inverter!

These devices aren’t cheap and neither is the labor to connect them. It will require a licensed electrician to schedule and connect equipment directly to the utility. Approvals for this type of connection are somewhat more complicated than merely adding circuits to an already existing distribution panel. A 200 amp bypass switch may be required in your jurisdiction and they are expensive, but it is a very good idea anyways. You will also be required to change your grounding as it is no longer to come from the main distribution panel. The grounds now have to be moved to the service disconnect. None the less some customers believe it is much simpler to have the whole house run off the inverter during an outage. The simple answer is it can be done just fine. If you have an inverter capable of powering a fair amount of your larger loads and a battery bank capable of supporting them for the intended time, it can be a great way to go. Plan on multiple inverters and literally tons of batteries. Unfortunately, in most cases a single inverter isn’t going to do the job. Today’s inverters are now rated for as much as 10,000 to 12,000 watts of continuous output. Here is a simple math exercise for you to ponder. Electric range (12,000 watts), Hot water heater (5,500 watts), Electric clothes dryer (5,000 watts), Air conditioners (3500 watts each), fridge (800 watts), EV charger (7,200 watts). Lights, up to 1000 watts, hot tub (don’t even go there). Now you wouldn’t normally have most of these on at the same time, but even just a couple along with lights and TV can and usually will put you over your inverters power capability. When that happens the inverter will shut off to protect itself. These loads listed amount to 35,000 watts. It is quite conceivable that one or more of these large loads could be on during an outage. We haven’t really even included normal loads such as toasters, microwaves, lights, TV, and such. If you are like my wife, there might be a wine cooler, freezer, espresso machine hair curler etc. You just can’t tell when there will be a utility outage and you certainly aren’t going to plan your electrical usage based on what ifs! No worries, the industry has a solution for this. Look at the picture to the right.

This is a concept of what a Load shed box or system might look like.

Here is how the story might go after your first utility outage. The day after your utility outage occurs and your nice new shiny inverter system just shut off rather that supplying your whole house, you call your installer. You and your family are confused why the new expensive back up system failed to back anything up. Just so you know, installers hate getting these calls. And you hate going around in the dark trying to figure out how to get the power back on. Nothing is obvious. You were probably warned this could happen during the quoting phase, but you declined the additional $4,000 to $8,000 to add a load shedding box/system. Afterall, the utility disconnect/bypass already cost you thousands more and wasn’t anticipated. There are a couple of ways this would work though. Some load shedding boxes are nothing more than relays that will shut off circuits once there is a utility outage. Those boxes have between 3 and 8 relays. Wiring is run from the main distribution panel to the relay box and then back again. This system would immediately shut off your large loads. Kind of messy. Another method would be more elegant and programmable. (more expensive, but still just as messy) This would look at battery voltage or state of charge and will shut off certain circuits based on how they were programmed to act. This now requires communications between the battery bank, inverter and relays. It is also possible to use shunt trip circuit breakers with an associated power supply and control system, but they will not turn themselves back on once the utility comes back on. Plus, they will not fit inside the main distribution panel.

So you can see these 200 amp inverters can back up your whole house as long as you don’t mind spending thousands more for multiple inverters and very large battery banks. You can likewise design a system to shut off part of your house during an outage. Hmmmm, something just doesn’t sit right with either scenario? You pay for a whole house back up system, but have to shut off certain parts of it due to inadequacies of the products plus you have additional expenses and complexity. There is a big difference between running a few loads during an outage and attempting to run a utility connected home off-grid during an outage. All off-grid homes run “whole house” 24/7. This is something we know about. In 35 years of designing manufacturing these inverters and systems, we have heard every horror story imaginable.

How do you avoid these problems? Glad you asked. We at MidNite Solar have been involved in most of the truly great off-grid inverter companies for over 30 years and we actually know how to deal with limited inverter and battery capacity. Now if money is no object or if you think your inverter would never shut down during an outage, you can stop reading.

• We do not want an expensive 200 amp disconnect/overcurrent and AC bypass switch device to be required in front of the inverter on the utility side.
• We need to deal with these large house loads without requiring an external load shedding box that costs thousands of dollars.

The first thing we did is what we have always done. Design for a 100 amp sub panel for all critical loads. We know from history that utility outages are mainly about lights, TV and cold beer! That may be a bit over simplified, but you get the idea. Select the circuits that you absolutely can’t live without during an outage. We provide four 120V circuit breakers to aid in this, but a separate 125 amp sub panel may make more sense. You can also use the four 15 and 20 amp breakers built into our inverter for backing up circuits of choice. Lights, AC outlets, fridge, microwave, TV or two, water and sewer pumps, freezers, etc.

Then since you don’t know how long the outage will last, we added three 120/240VAC programmable load circuits. If the outage is brief, why shut down some of your larger important circuits? We added one 30 amp, one 50 amp and one 60 amp circuit complete with breakers and programmable relays. This is actually six 120VAC or three 120/240VAC circuits or a combination of both depending on how they get configured on-site. It is up to you and your installer to decide what circuits to back up, so choose wisely. The goal is that these included programmable load shedding circuits will suffice for all but the most demanding home. These three programmable load shedding circuits will also save the customer many thousands of dollars over an external load shed solution. The good thing is these breakers and relays are already included in the MidNite inverter. You can program them to turn on and off based on battery voltage, battery state of charge, utility outage length of time etc. They operate totally automatic. No intervention is required once set up.

One of the things that can also force an inverter to unexpectedly shut off is the surge that some loads demand when turning on.

 

[Robin Gudgel]

I had to cut out a significant portion of my 200 amp whole house write up due to the length allowed here. I would ask you to go on the MidNite Solar website for the full write up when it gets posted. It also includes a write up I found by Barry Cinnamon of Cinnamon Energy systems. Barry is a California dealer/installer. Barry did his own write up on the subject of whole house back up. I do not know Barry and have never spoken to him, but he came to the same conclusion as I and several others here have done. Whole house back up can certainly be done, but you need to go into it with your eyes open or it could cost many thousands of dollars more than you budgeted for. So, please read these full write ups and then decide for yourself.

 

[Hedges]

When people with 10 year warranties on their cheap imported equipment need to get online to see if the warranty is still honored, they will visit someone with an ancient Trace, Outback, or Midnight Rosie system, far out of its 5 year warranty, because their power is still on.

200 amp vs. 100 amp Inverter pass through

There must be a utility approved disconnect/overcurrent device upstream from the 200 amp inverter!

Here's my preferred approach, "Load Side Tap".
Right after the meter, have a 200A main breaker.
Then branch off to loads panel and PV disconnect.

For a Hybrid (rather than GT PV as shown), you can have a protected loads panel fed by the inverter.
And, you can backfeed an interlocked "generator" breaker in the main loads panel.

If grid goes down, important loads stay on automatically.
If you want to run anything in the main loads panel, walk out to it, shut off excessive loads like electric furnace, flip the interlocked breakers.

I was lucky to have a "meter main" with out branch circuits at my previous house.
My current house I've just upgraded the same way.

You can pull this off with a CSED Combined Service Entrance by installing a new sub-panel, transferring all branch breakers to it, inserting a 200A tap or breaker as the only thing in your original main panel. (Instead of 120% rule, this is the sum of breakers rule.) That way your existing CSED is used as a Meter Main.

 

[Brucey]

I had to cut out a significant portion of my 200 amp whole house write up due to the length allowed here. I would ask you to go on the MidNite Solar website for the full write up when it gets posted. It also includes a write up I found by Barry Cinnamon of Cinnamon Energy systems. Barry is a California dealer/installer. Barry did his own write up on the subject of whole house back up. I do not know Barry and have never spoken to him, but he came to the same conclusion as I and several others here have done. Whole house back up can certainly be done, but you need to go into it with your eyes open or it could cost many thousands of dollars more than you budgeted for. So, please read these full write ups and then decide for yourself.

Thanks Robin, not sure if you feel like splitting it up into multiple posts if not we'll read it on the Midnite site.

Certainly it seems like a lot of the people running solarks and eg4 12ks etc are mostly running with grid assist so rarely actually realize what the inverters are capable of when only relying on batteries.

 

[Hedges]

Load shed and priority switching would extend what the inverter can power.

Same for the grid itself!

A Miele Washer & Dryer pair had water heating, and power daisy chained in a manner that it only heated one or the other, so single outlet sufficient.

Lots of appliances would lose their operating state if power removed, we'd rather tap in to their heating elements or motor. But too invasive to implement for most consumers.

Load shed is going to have to be a boutique solution for a few discriminating customers. The rest should be happy they have lights, fan, cold beer in the fridge. We can shed a panel full of loads based on SoC easily enough, but not based on wattage exceeding inverter. Well, The One may be able to priority select or round "Robin" a few outputs. And use a "Cudgel" on those that get out of line.

 

[realpinochet]

We are using a very established and competent manufacturer to build the ONE for us.

If one was to suspect SRNE or Perhaps Deye would one be correct? Asking for a friend! Do we have any testing info and videos of this unit being tortured tested like Rosie? Second, do you guys have any RF info graphs / scopes to share so we can get a good idea of the RF it puts out? Particularly interested in HF bands and 2m/6m. Thanks for your input here.

 

[Brucey]

If one was to suspect SRNE or Perhaps Deye would one be correct? Asking for a friend! Do we have any testing info and videos of this unit being tortured tested like Rosie? Second, do you guys have any RF info graphs / scopes to share so we can get a good idea of the RF it puts out? Particularly interested in HF bands and 2m/6m. Thanks for your input here.

From what Robin mentioned the factory building the One for them doesn't build for any other companies.

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

If one was to suspect SRNE or Perhaps Deye would one be correct? Asking for a friend! Do we have any testing info and videos of this unit being tortured tested like Rosie? Second, do you guys have any RF info graphs / scopes to share so we can get a good idea of the RF it puts out? Particularly interested in HF bands and 2m/6m. Thanks for your input here.

No . I think Robin mentioned it's not Deye or SNRE or any kind f the others
Did a bit of digging think this is it:

Fenghua Hualong Solar Energy Photoelectricity Co,.Ltd​

we haven't seen any torture test as yet.
I was hoping I would have been selected for the 20 give away units but I guess I missed that by a mile.

I can't speak on your other questions .Sure some of the guys here would.

​

 

[realpinochet]

No . I think Robin mentioned it's not Deye or SNRE or any kind f the others
Did a bit of digging think this is it:

Fenghua Hualong Solar Energy Photoelectricity Co,.Ltd​

we haven't seen any torture test as yet.
I was hoping I would have been selected for the 20 give away units but I guess I missed that by a mile.

I can't speak on your other questions .Sure some of the guys here would.

​

​

I believe they also make high voltage commercial inverters like the sandi inverters. Can't wait to the DIY has HV inverters as the norm. AIMS and Eaton and I believe outback seem to be dipping their toes into this.

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

I believe they also make high voltage commercial inverters like the sandi inverters. Can't wait to the DIY has HV inverters as the norm. AIMS and Eaton and I believe outback seem to be dipping their toes into this.

Yes Sandi came across that in one of their write ups.

 

[realpinochet]

When people with 10 year warranties on their cheap imported equipment need to get online to see if the warranty is still honored, they will visit someone with an ancient Trace, Outback, or Midnight Rosie system, far out of its 5 year warranty, because their power is still on.



Here's my preferred approach, "Load Side Tap".
Right after the meter, have a 200A main breaker.
Then branch off to loads panel and PV disconnect.

For a Hybrid (rather than GT PV as shown), you can have a protected loads panel fed by the inverter.
And, you can backfeed an interlocked "generator" breaker in the main loads panel.

If grid goes down, important loads stay on automatically.
If you want to run anything in the main loads panel, walk out to it, shut off excessive loads like electric furnace, flip the interlocked breakers.

I was lucky to have a "meter main" with on branch circuits at my previous house.
My current house I've just upgraded the same way.

You can pull this off with a CSED Combined Service Entrance by installing a new sub-panel, transferring all branch breakers to it, inserting a 200A tap or breaker as the only thing in your original main panel. (Instead of 120% rule, this is the sum of breakers rule.) That way your existing CSED is used as a Meter Main.

View attachment 214268

I wonder if this is my best approach. I just moved into a new house, it already has a whole house generator and transfer switch installed. In the pics below you can see the generator on the left and then the meter; some sort of breaker in the middle and then the transfer switch which apparently gets the utility feed and generator feed before its output goes to the one and only main panel. I wanted to have a idea of what I wanted before going down the path of getting quotes. One caveat that makes this core complex for me is I wanted the batteries to be outside the house and was thinking of putting in a solar shed to house the batteries and inverter/s.

 

[Hedges]

You do have a meter followed by main breaker only, like mine.
Is the box on the right breaker panel, or transfer switch?

For extended outages, I'd think you would want generator to feed inverter on-demand.
Or, feed a ChargeVerter.

Transfer switch may be whole-house, but you might rather have inverter back up things it is actually able to. And load shed based on SoC (generator doesn't have that limitation, except if you know gas is getting low you might conserve. Natural gas? Then no problem.

I want batteries outside too (unless AGM). You could put them in a shed/vault a few feet away. Inverter too, if you want.

I think you need to start with capacity of grid/generator/inverter and catalog your loads, decide priority of backup.

I have enough inverter for everything, but not enough battery. So for me it is just SoC based load-shed. And optional electric heat belongs direct on grid, switch to gas when grid down.

 

[realpinochet]

You do have a meter followed by main breaker only, like mine.
Is the box on the right breaker panel, or transfer switch?

For extended outages, I'd think you would want generator to feed inverter on-demand.
Or, feed a ChargeVerter.

Transfer switch may be whole-house, but you might rather have inverter back up things it is actually able to. And load shed based on SoC (generator doesn't have that limitation, except if you know gas is getting low you might conserve. Natural gas? Then no problem.

I want batteries outside too (unless AGM). You could put them in a shed/vault a few feet away. Inverter too, if you want.

I think you need to start with capacity of grid/generator/inverter and catalog your loads, decide priority of backup.

I have enough inverter for everything, but not enough battery. So for me it is just SoC based load-shed. And optional electric heat belongs direct on grid, switch to gas when grid down.

To the right of the meter is a box with a rubber cover ..I pulled it back and it looks like a breaker. I assume this is the 200A main breaker. To the right of the box in the middle is a (Eaton) transfer switch which from my observations has inputs from the grid side and generator then it's output runs through the attic to the other side of the house and terminates in the only panel (main) in the house.

I originally wanted to put inverters between the panel and transfer switch for a whole house backup but this thread has me reconsidering this. I appreciate Robin explaining this more in depth.

But, what my sticking points are is I want the batteries to be outside the house which I suppose means the inverters will also have to be outside do to the length of DC run required. I was debating building a solar shed to house inverters / batteries with a new main panel and bypass switch and having the utility company move the meter to the shed and then the shed feed the preexisting transfer switch where the grid currently is. That would make my current main panel a sub panel which should mean I'd just have to separate G/N?

But, as someone mentioned to me the generator would not be able to charge the batteries unless it was moved as well. I wished the home didn't have this already as I think it would have made it easier.

I'm trying to figure out my best approach with what's currently installed that allows me to have the batteries outside the house so I can start to diagram things and get an idea of what I want an electrician to quote me.

While my house uses propane for heating and cooking I still want to get a overall electrical usage idea..what tools do you guys recommend for this?

And, any good free online diagram tools that are web based since I run linux and there's nothing really good unless gimp is your thing?

 

[Hedges]

My N-G bond is at the first main breaker, so separate wires for everything after that. Inverter doesn't switch N, just passes through.

Maybe your generator bonds N to G, and transfer switch switches N? I'd be inclined to modify it in that case.

Will your inverter have separate generator input? Or do you want to DC couple through ChargeVerter? In that case you would generally not use transfer switch. Run separate wire to inverter. But you could keep what you've got as backup when grid and inverter are both down.
(Might need a disconnect to keep ATS and Generator from looking like grid to the inverter.)