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Hi, I need a control board 240v/48v/15kw 50hz with charge& heavy duty relay with GS custom control chip and display, ship to UK, can I buy?
This is to be used to upgrade my existing setup. This is the current board I'm using. You might have seen this image around the other forums.
Welshman. good to hear from you! That looks like a v3.6 control board. If so and it still works, you probably have the best control board powerjack ever produced, including the most recent versions. Wish I had 3 just like it (except 60hz instead of 50hz)
For the time being, it's probably better than anything you could replace it with. (Haven't tried Oztules' control board)
Hope you get what you need!
Hi, I need a control board 240v/48v/15kw 50hz with charge& heavy duty relay with GS custom control chip and display, ship to UK, can I buy?
At least for right now, we don't do international shipping, it's quite the logistics challenge + costly.
As far as PJ control boards...the one you have seems to be what longtime PJ customers want to hang onto, as the newer boards reportedly are considerably less reliable. Unfortunately, the older boards also use a completely different main MCU (microcontroller), which we can't program. Newer boards can be reflashed with GS firmware and can then talk to a GS WiFi LCD board...but whether or not the inverter will last...
PJ and "heavy duty relay" don't go together. They like to use a single 30A (or 40A--depending on the label) relay for charge input. (Can't tell if yours is 30A or 40A rated.)
We can't offer a GS control board (with a 70A relay, etc.) as for some reason, the PJ mainboards end up with FETs overheating much past 6kw. I'm pretty sure this has to do with the PJ mainboard PCB layout...routing the FET gate traces all the way around the board.
So...not sure what to do.
@dochubertOldest board I have is a Rev. 4.0, and it looks basically identical to a Rev. 9.0. Sometimes people like higher numbers...
thanks for the replies. i also have a spare of one of those boards that last time i tried to use it, it blew the fets, like the lf driver board was damaged, but i was certain i had repaired the one on it. i see i am better off looking at it and getting it repaired. the custom gs mcu was of interest to me as im currently using a raspberry pi and windows iot core application i've written that talks to some rs485 devices measuring various points in the system and activating relays to turn generators on and off and to control inverter faults, powere cyciling etc, data logging and web interface. but i ran into a problem after all the work i put into the software side of it, turns out i have a memory leak native to the windows runtime that slowly gobbles it up to a crash and sometimes the rpi doesnt boot up and needs a manual reset and microsoft will not fix it. such nonsense. so the appeal of buying your off the shelf product was there to replace what i have. im currently working on a liquid cooled mosfet bridge. i likes the novely of it, so i designed the pcbs etc and almost finshed putting it together. i wanted a companion control board to go with it, something that had a bypass and sync built in so it could take shore power from a generator or something else. the pj setup seems to be the only system that can do it right now and you've added a lot of value to that control board.
im also in the process of buying an 12kw ac 60v motor and controller to having it coupled up to a 10 kva single phase alternator as a backup that could run off the batteries and provide a 50hz at 3000 or even 1500 rpm. not sure if im going to ratio it or not yet. will have to see. that's kind of what i've been up to slowly if anyone is interested and doing some repairs to LTO batteries and istabreeze wind turbine purchases and rebuilds.
@dochubert & @<a data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="/profile/2-sid-genetry-solar/?do=hovercard&referrer=https%253A%252F%252Fforums.genetrysolar.com%252Ftopic%252F210-purchase-gentry-pj-control-boards%252F%253Ftab%253Dcomments" href="/profile/2-sid-genetry-solar/" rel="" style="background-color:transparent;color:inherit;" title="Go to Sid Genetry Solar's profile">Sid Genetry Solar
the only modifications i made to the pj control boards was swapped out the relays. the standard ones on it are way underspec. they need to be 100a just to survive daily seperation and sparking, not to actually carry any more current, they stick and cause all sorts of weird behavior and i'm certain that when debris builds up on the standard relay contacts they start to cause the fets to blow on changeover from charge to inverter. after many years of daily use as a mini grid. so i found myself a nice massive contact 100a old fashioned style relay and soldered up some nice thick cables to and through the pcb. the relay is no longer on the pcb. i regular push 9-12kw through the system for up to a hour or so maybe longer at times. even the lto's fully charged batteries dont last too long at that kw. heat doesn't seem to be an issue. the only heat problems i run into are the transformers on hot days when charging. they get up to about 60 deg and just shy of the high temp trip point. sometimes on really hot days it's so close after a few hours at 3kw that it faults on changeover due to it being too hot for startup , im guessing, but not shutdown while on charging, who knows. gets to about 48deg at constant 9 kw on a average day and stays at that. i wonder why there is so much extra heat in the transformers when charging compared to when inverting.
i wanted a companion control board to go with it, something that had a bypass and sync built in so it could take shore power from a generator or something else. the pj setup seems to be the only system that can do it right now and you've added a lot of value to that control board.
Ah, so your photo at the beginning of the thread is making more sense now...
Still, the FET drive stuff has me slightly worried, as we haven't gotten that quite figured out. I will note that with a fully balanced MOSFET driver circuit, the transformer is almost completely silent at no load (compare to an imbalanced driver, the AC buzz is very pronounced in the transformer). FETs also run a lot cooler, etc., so that's better. But it does seem to run much higher EMI; not fully sure why yet.
the only modifications i made to the pj control boards was swapped out the relays. the standard ones on it are way underspec. they need to be 100a just to survive daily seperation and sparking, not to actually carry any more current, they stick and cause all sorts of weird behavior and i'm certain that when debris builds up on the standard relay contacts they start to cause the fets to blow on changeover from charge to inverter.
I believe you're right on. To my knowledge, the PJ code does NOT check to make sure the relay is disengaged before driving the FETs back in Inverter mode--which means that if the relay sticks, the FETs blow.
GS inverter design actually tries to switch the relay on at or around the zero crossing--which considerably helps with the surge/sparking. Seriously considering implementing a software "seamless switch", where it keeps the inverter mode running for 1-2 cycles AFTER turning the relay on. (This would make the relay surge current virtually nil.)
the only heat problems i run into are the transformers on hot days when charging. they get up to about 60 deg and just shy of the high temp trip point. sometimes on really hot days it's so close after a few hours at 3kw that it faults on changeover due to it being too hot for startup , im guessing, but not shutdown while on charging, who knows. gets to about 48deg at constant 9 kw on a average day and stays at that. i wonder why there is so much extra heat in the transformers when charging compared to when inverting.
Assuming you have custom-wound transformers? If so, curious what voltage winding specifications you used?
So from a practical standpoint, battery charge turns the low voltage coil (I consider it the "primary") into a makeshift boost converter. FETs are actually shorting that coil out, and then releasing it @ 20KHz (for EU 50Hz), with using the PWM pulse width to regulate the resultant voltage. The "splash" back from the transformer being released goes through the MOSFET body diodes (effectively a bridge rectifier) and out into your batteries.
Still, I'd expect the FETs to be getting quite hot in charge, not necessarily the transformer.
the custom gs mcu was of interest to me as im currently using a raspberry pi and windows iot core application i've written that talks to some rs485 devices measuring various points in the system and activating relays to turn generators on and off and to control inverter faults, powere cyciling etc, data logging and web interface
Ha, I guess I could see as much. GS control boards have built-in generator start control (2 channel), and you can communicate directly with the MCU via RS-232 MODBUS. (Or through a WiFi LCD board via WiFi / JSON / HTTP Post. Planning hardwire support for the LCD board with options for [isolated] RS-232, RS-485, CAN, LIN communication support. MODBUS when possible.)
We'll see. I'm currently ordering another prototype run of Rev. C GS control boards--made too many mistakes on the previous revision. Might be able to work something out...
Do you have an oscilloscope / have checked the MOSFET gate drive waveforms at high load?