washing machine,inverter,genny wows

[coventrylad]

Hello every body, not posted for a while because i have been cracking on quite well with the project, un till this last week or so.Here is the set up.3 kw petrol genny,( old style) which feeds my 2100 watt continuous( 6000 watt peak ) sterling pro combi pure sine wave inverter which is 24 volt.I also have a 140 amp alternator (24 Volt) driven of my engine which of course charges the main battery bank which is of course connected to the inverter. Right here is the problem, my Zanussi zwc 1301 auto washing machine will not work when the genny is running it just starts miss behaving does not like it at all, it will run no problem from just inverter, or when main engine is running, but i fitted the genny so as not to have to run the main engine, now i have tried 2 separate gennys same result, the inverter is pure sine wave, so why does the washing machine not like the old stlye gennys ? i would of thought the inverter would of sorted all this out ? the gennys will run the tv and micro wave no probs, please do not say i need a pure sine inverter genny. sorry for such a long post !! so come any clues please, cheers Michael.

Edited November 16, 2013 by coventrylad

[by'eck]

Hello every body, not posted for a while because i have been cracking on quite well with the project, un till this last week or so.Here is the set up.3 kw petrol genny,( old style) which feeds my 2100 watt continuous( 6000 watt peak ) sterling pro combi pure sine wave inverter which is 24 volt.I also have a 140 amp alternator (24 Volt) driven of my engine which of course charges the main battery bank which is of course connected to the inverter. Right here is the problem, my Zanussi zwc 1301 auto washing machine will not work when the genny is running it just starts miss behaving does not like it at all, it will run no problem from just inverter, or when main engine is running, but i fitted the genny so as not to have to run the main engine, now i have tried 2 separate gennys same result, the inverter is pure sine wave, so why does the washing machine not like the old stlye gennys ? i would of thought the inverter would of sorted all this out ? the gennys will run the tv and micro wave no probs, please do not say i need a pure sine inverter genny. sorry for such a long post !! so come any clues please, cheers Michael.

 

Your Sterling Combi when fed by AC from a generator simply passes this through the unit just as it would if fed from a shore supply. In such situations the inverter part of the Combi is not running so in no way can influence the correct functioning of the washing machine.

 

You ask not to advise you need a pure sine wave generator, but that does seem to be the solution. Washing machines are very fussy about such.

[Guest]

 

Your Sterling Combi when fed by AC from a generator simply passes this through the unit just as it would if fed from a shore supply. In such situations the inverter part of the Combi is not running so in no way can influence the correct functioning of the washing machine.

 

You ask not to advise you need a pure sine wave generator, but that does seem to be the solution. Washing machines are very fussy about such.

Almost exactly my setup, and same results from washing machine (Candy 1000). It needs a PSW genny.

[slammer]

Just to add , plugging your sterling combi into a non pure sine genny can be costly, I ran mine on one for approx 12 months until it went bang and cost £480 quid to be repaired by Mr sterling. He stated that it was the genny that had blown my combi. I now run off a Kippor 2.6 pure sine genny and have had no problems at all in the last few years.

[coventrylad]

Well , you have confirmed my worst suspicions thank you very much, more expense !what you say makes perfect sense, I do wonder what effect the old style genny has on the inverter when it goes through it battery charging regime ? Again thank you very much. I have given you both greenies for your help !!

Edited November 16, 2013 by coventrylad

[Phil Ambrose]

This why I like seperate battery charger and seperate inverter, combi anything is always a compromise.

 

Phil

[by'eck]

This why I like seperate battery charger and seperate inverter, combi anything is always a compromise.

 

Phil

 

Following on from Phil's comment it may be cheaper to buy a good sized stand-alone battery charger, say 40 amp plus @ 24 volt. Your existing 3kW generator should run this ok.

 

You would isolate AC input to Combi though so that it ran its inverter powering the washing machine. I have the same Combi and washing machine so know this works.

 

Your new charger wouldn't keep up with demand during peaks of current draw from batteries during w/m heating and spin but shouldn't take long to catch up and your battery bank should buffer the load in the meantime.

 

ETA: The charger will provide useful redundancy as well as keeping the batteries on float when left unattended on shore power. With the Combi switched off there will be no chance of inverter cutting in and flattening batteries, assuming you don't have latest model with charger only option.

Edited November 17, 2013 by by'eck

[BEngo]

Almost all non-inverter generators have an awful wave-form. It's not so much the fundamental at 50Hz (or 60 Hz) that's the problem but the large number of additional harmonics that you get whether you like it or not. It's not confined to single phase generators as I know of a big 3-phase site generator which is acceptable to some washing machines, but not all of them. It might be worth checking the genny speed- frequency is speed dependent and if it's out the washing machine may not like it- if the machine rating plate says 50-60Hz then setting it a bit higher than 50Hz on load might help. The trouble is that generator governors suffer from inherent droop and are usually pretty crap too, so as load falls the speed rises. Finally, check the voltage on-load and off. Cheap generator regulation is as bad as the waveform so the voltage is rarely constant with load, and probably is not easily adjustable either!

 

Otherwise the only easy way round it is to find a big battery charger that the genny will drive and use this to power the w/m through the inverter. The hard solution is to fit a big 12V alternator for the genny engine and use that to drive the inverter.

[dor]

Zanussi washing machines are notoriously fussy about their waveform, even that supplied by good quality PSW inverters. The old Candy Aquamatic 1000 had a very simple programmer and was much less fussy. Unfortunately these are no longer made.

[Guest]

I have never tried this, but it is often stated that adding a resistive load to the crude genny output helps to tidy up the waveform. A couple of 100W light bulbs have been used to good effect (allegedly.)

Zanussi washing machines are notoriously fussy about their waveform, even that supplied by good quality PSW inverters. The old Candy Aquamatic 1000 had a very simple programmer and was much less fussy. Unfortunately these are no longer made.

We have the old 1000, and it is great because you can chuck some hot water in with the washing which saves endless electrical power. Oddly it ran fine on one rather crude frame genny, but was unhappy on another one. We always run it off the inverter these days (PSW) because using the "jug of hot water" trick, the demand on the batteries is quite low.

[Eeyore]

The resistive load trick certainly works with some frequency meters, mine usually reads the 150 hz harmonic until the conventional filiament lamp load is added. Unfortunately I didn't have a scope to observe the waveform.

[coventrylad]

 

Following on from Phil's comment it may be cheaper to buy a good sized stand-alone battery charger, say 40 amp plus @ 24 volt. Your existing 3kW generator should run this ok.

 

You would isolate AC input to Combi though so that it ran its inverter powering the washing machine. I have the same Combi and washing machine so know this works.

 

Your new charger wouldn't keep up with demand during peaks of current draw from batteries during w/m heating and spin but shouldn't take long to catch up and your battery bank should buffer the load in the meantime.

 

ETA: The charger will provide useful redundancy as well as keeping the batteries on float when left unattended on shore power. With the Combi switched off there will be no chance of inverter cutting in and flattening batteries, assuming you don't have latest model with charger only option.

That is a cracking plan By ,eck. I am on a tow path mooring with no hook up,so are you suggesting sort of forget the shore power feed to the pro combi, and just use the genny to feed a stand alone batt charger connected to the main battery bank, any suggestions for a stand alone 24 v battery charger please, oh would these clever 4 stage batt chargers run on an old stlye genny ? thank you once again friend. Michael.

[Guest]

The resistive load trick certainly works with some frequency meters, mine usually reads the 150 hz harmonic until the conventional filiament lamp load is added. Unfortunately I didn't have a scope to observe the waveform.

Interesting. I had a scope but it is gone now. I will get around to trying this experiment one day.

[coventrylad]

I spoke to mr Stirling in the week about this,This was his suggestion also and said it may work. i tried it with both jennys and still the same effect !!!

[Keith M]

Interesting. I had a scope but it is gone now. I will get around to trying this experiment one day.

 

I have used this solution many times and about 8 out of 10 times it will work

 

But it must be the old style bulbs

 

Keith

[George94]

It doesn't work with a 500W halogen and my Avantixx 6. Sadly.

[Guest]

It doesn't work with a 500W halogen and my Avantixx 6. Sadly.

A pity. That is certainly a fairly large resistive load.

[pearley]

We used a 1000W fan heater with our old gennie to give some control on the frequency but it was a 6 kva unit so plenty of reserve.

 

Regards

Pete

[George94]

We used a 1000W fan heater with our old gennie to give some control on the frequency but it was a 6 kva unit so plenty of reserve.

 

Regards

Pete

 

Fantastic - it works!

 

Expensive way to wash clothes, but more convenient than the laundrette.

 

ETA: How do washing machines know when there is enough water in them? I would like to wash on cold but add coal-heated hot water to the drum before switching on. Do machines measure the water going in, or do they sense when there is enough?

Edited November 20, 2013 by George94

[Taslim]

 

Fantastic - it works!

 

Expensive way to wash clothes, but more convenient than the laundrette.

 

ETA: How do washing machines know when there is enough water in them? I would like to wash on cold but add coal-heated hot water to the drum before switching on. Do machines measure the water going in, or do they sense when there is enough?

They usualy have level sensors rather than flow sensors so you should be OK. Lots of folk bung in hot water.

 

You could use a 1Kw kettle instead of the heater?

Edited November 20, 2013 by Taslim

[George94]

They usualy have level sensors rather than flow sensors so you should be OK. Lots of folk bung in hot water.

 

You could use a 1Kw kettle instead of the heater?

 

Yes, I could... And probably see the machine stop when the kettle switches off.

 

But thanks for the reassurance about level sensing.

[by'eck]

I used the 1.2kW immersion heater to load my Mastervolt Whisper 6000 when running Eumenia compact w/m. This generally worked fine and certainly better than a kettle, although it would occasional stop with error code if the water was already warm and the immersions thermostat cut the load before w/m cycle had finished.

[George94]

I used the 1.2kW immersion heater to load my Mastervolt Whisper 6000 when running Eumenia compact w/m. This generally worked fine and certainly better than a kettle, although it would occasional stop with error code if the water was already warm and the immersions thermostat cut the load before w/m cycle had finished.

 

Yes, that is what I fear. Fortunately it is no hardship to run an electric fire in this weather.

[Biggles]

And this is why I built a 12v genset and let the batteries and inverter sort out the mains.

[Guest]

And this is why I built a 12v genset and let the batteries and inverter sort out the mains.

Seems a good idea, especially if the inverter is a high output with a good waveform.