Re: (ET) How the E20 saved Christmas...

[Max Hall <mhall maxmatic com>]

That is a great story! Love them tractors!

That's interesting about the "spike" capacity in the rotary inverter.

On Sun, Dec 25, 2022 at 1:54 PM Chris Zach via Elec-trak <
elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu> wrote:

> So..... On the 23rd the power went off here at about 11am. This sucked
> as the winds were at 60mph and temps were at 35 and dropping by the
> minute towards zero. No clue as to when the power would come back so it
> was going to be a race against time to keep the radiant heat pipes from
> freezing during the night....
>
> Ran extension cords from tractor to house and got ready. Brought some
> 100ah batteries and 17ah batteries from the Robomower in for inverter
> power for my fireplace insert. With that in place I fired up the insert,
> ran it hot, and used the batteries to run the fans to keep the house 
> warm.
>
> Nightfall came and I decided to try firing up the heat system. I have
> hot water radiant fired by gas, but the system needs power for the 3
> Taco circulation pumps and they're pretty good sized. About 200 watts to
> keep them running but a large current to get them going....
>
> And of course my 1500/3000 watt inverter exploded when I plugged it in
> earlier today. These things happen, so I was down to a 1000 watt backup
> inverter.
>
> First I tried to start the pump motors with the 1000 watt inverter. No
> dice, it could not start them. So I plugged in the 900 watt rotary
> inverter to the E20 and sure enough the motors came up one by one. Heat
> had returned!
>
> Ran it for about two hours to heat the whole house, then stopped to
> check status: The tractor was fine, wires were cool, and the batteries
> were getting low, but still worked even in the 0 degree F cold and 60
> mph winds. Thus the kids and I played monopoly with lights on downstairs
> (battery inverters) until 10pm when I went out, turned off the inverter,
> let things quiet down.
>
> So.... The E20's rotary inverter is good to have. Even though it's only
> 900 or so watts it has the torque to start the big motors and keep them
> going. Glad to have it!
>
> Chris
>
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