Outback Power Panel (Old School)

We often get asked about our own off grid system by our customers and so here is a look at the power panel and battery box that is housed in our as yet unfinished utility room of our as yet unfinished house.

You will notice in the picture of our Outback Power panel that the AC and DC enclosures are green. These were the first units from Outback Power under the PS prefix. These enclosures have been replaced by the larger silver Flexware range of components. The enclosure on the right (PS2DC now called the FW500-DC) houses the DC breakers, starting from the right hand side of the enclosure we have the large 250amp inverter breaker, then the smaller panel mount breakers for the Solar array, charge controller, Wind Turbine Air X, Wind Turbine Whisper 200 and the Ground Fault Protection.

To the right of this enclosure is the FM80 Charge controller which mounts to the side of the enclosure with knockouts for connection between the DC enclosure. The inverter sits in the middle between the two enclosures and use conduit adaptors to provide connection for the wiring. The DCA is used for the DC enclosure and the ACA is used for connection from inverter to the AC enclosure. Currently we only have one VFX3524 inverter installed but have the ability to add a second one at a later date for 120/240VAC. I would like to do this soon as a back up incase the other inverter ever needs service or repair, although we have had it in service now for almost 10 years.

Above the DC enclosure you can see the charge controller for the Whisper 200 wind turbine. The charge controller has a resistive dump load and so requires a certain amount of clearance above for heat dissipation. To the right of the Wind Turbine Charge controller is the vent pipe from battery box. We have an inline vent fan installed which is controlled via the Charge controller aux connections. the vent is a 12v model which is the one recommended for Outback Inverters and charge controllers.

We have the Outback Mate2 flush mount version system controller, which is essential for changing inverter default settings, it monitoring ability is fairly limited and so we have a Trimetric meter which gives an accurate way to monitor what is going in or out of battery bank and battery state of charge. On the left hand side of the power panel we have AC enclosure which has the AC bypass switches to allow inverter to be off line and use generator only if service ever required. The other breakers control the various AC circuits of the house.

It takes a good 8-15hrs if not more for the DIYer to assemble and wire all the different components together in this system and this doesn't include mounting to wall. Outback now offer prewired Flexware systems that come complete ready to hang on your own wall. Next time we will explore the solar panel array and combiner box and breakers. I can almost hear my wife yawn!