Curious, how do you know your grid quality is bad? Does it sound a lot better late at night than during the day? Or have you done any measurements? Thanks
Battery Power
- Thread starter Kingrex
- Start date
There are also LTO batteries (Lithium Titanate) which are considered safer than Lithium Ion batteries. This is what Taiko uses in their Olympus server.
I did a bunch more digging. Its not hard to find ststistics on Perplexity. Anyone can confirm data if you prod it 4 or 5 times to confirm results.
It looks like fires with EV cars is 18% to 30% heppen when charging. It appears 25 EV per 100,000 catch fire. Compare that to about 1200 gas cars per 100,000 catch fire. In comparison, per 100,000, there are like 2300 kitchen fires and 600 dryer fires. So EV on the surface seems safe. Buy, you can not put a Lithium battery fire out. Its a blow torch that runs for a long time. I watched a EV burn down the street from my home. I have seen multiple gas cars carch fire that are extinguished quickly. I had one catch fire myself. I tured off the car and it went out
Yes bikes and power tools cause all sorts of fire. I know 2 people who lost their houses due to a Dewalt charger fire. I charge all my battery tools on the concrete floor, away from walls and other stuff. I charge the trolling motor in my boat outdoors.
If a system can be powered by a in room battert/Inverter power supply, it could very well be a much better solution than reworking your electrical. A lot less expensive. It depends on the complexity of getting power to the room.
Remember, you can take your Battery/Inverter with you. And you don't need to change anything with your existing power. And the inveter puts out a more clean, stable and accurate voltage than the wall. And its relatively unlimited in power. Sort of. Easy to have 50A power in your room. Configurable to have 300A outside the room.
After researching I'm still unsure. I don't make money like Taiko. I can't afford a lawyer. If a battery blew and burned a house down, the owner would sue everyone, including me. I don't want the risk when I'm only doing the work as a hobby.
It looks like fires with EV cars is 18% to 30% heppen when charging. It appears 25 EV per 100,000 catch fire. Compare that to about 1200 gas cars per 100,000 catch fire. In comparison, per 100,000, there are like 2300 kitchen fires and 600 dryer fires. So EV on the surface seems safe. Buy, you can not put a Lithium battery fire out. Its a blow torch that runs for a long time. I watched a EV burn down the street from my home. I have seen multiple gas cars carch fire that are extinguished quickly. I had one catch fire myself. I tured off the car and it went out
Yes bikes and power tools cause all sorts of fire. I know 2 people who lost their houses due to a Dewalt charger fire. I charge all my battery tools on the concrete floor, away from walls and other stuff. I charge the trolling motor in my boat outdoors.
If a system can be powered by a in room battert/Inverter power supply, it could very well be a much better solution than reworking your electrical. A lot less expensive. It depends on the complexity of getting power to the room.
Remember, you can take your Battery/Inverter with you. And you don't need to change anything with your existing power. And the inveter puts out a more clean, stable and accurate voltage than the wall. And its relatively unlimited in power. Sort of. Easy to have 50A power in your room. Configurable to have 300A outside the room.
After researching I'm still unsure. I don't make money like Taiko. I can't afford a lawyer. If a battery blew and burned a house down, the owner would sue everyone, including me. I don't want the risk when I'm only doing the work as a hobby.
Good question. Unfortunately, concerning mains audiophiles love to believe in magic and voodoo and seem to hate measurements or technical quantifiable debates.
Fortunately statically most people have adequate mains and do not have problems with mains. But without diagnosing mains and analysing our specific equipment characteristics and system topology, it is hard to recommend anything.
I put a scope on maybe 30 different mains and maybe 10% or less had distortion levels lower than a Victron inverter. Non have a stable 120 volt without fluxuation. Some have a 59 to 59.5 hert sine wave. I don't think I have ever seen a sine wave in a home with the creast of the wave not distorted on the leading edge. Many have a DC component but that is much harder to measure when coupled to the AC. You need special probes on the volt meter to idolate and accurately measure it. But a humming toroid transformer is a pretty good indicator its there.
In short, its very easy to measure the power at your wall and power from a inverter to know which is better. A good inverter gives a near perfect sine wave that is rock solid stable at 120 volts.
Clear and interesting claim. Since long inverters were on my interests in the highend audio, we had a long and inconclusive debate in WBF triggered by Steve Williams comments on his solar power system, but I have not need able to find the technical data needed to discuss it. At that time I asked several inverter manufacturers for more complete datasheets on their performance and could not get it. Can you point us to such data?
Accurate and stable voltage - easy to debate. But "clean" is mainly a word to be used in washing machines ...
Victron data sheets publish their inverters are less than 3 percent THD. Same for Exeltech. Exeltech publishes they are closer to 1 8% under load. If you look around the off grid community, there are plenty of videos where people have a scope attached to their setup. Plenty of video show prople loading and overloading inverters. Usually with a bunch of space heaters A overloaded high frequency inverter sine wave looks highly distorted. But then again, I measured a branch wire at a home on utility power with 2 Shunyata Denali on the branch and the wire had 18%THD and was very distorted. Part of the reason I advocate multiple branch wires to the rack. Part of why 2 inverters and 2 batteries to 2 power strips would be a good way to feed a stereo.
Victron has a 20,000 switching FET that turns the DC to AC, then a large copper core step up transformer boosting the voltage for 24 to 120 volts. 20,000 is right in the sweet spot of a Puritan filter and I assume most any other filter. I don't see any reason you can't have a absolute distortion free 120 volt power supply at the rack.
A battert with a 100A DC fuse on the DC cable to inverter. A AC cable, less than 3 feet with a female plug from the inverter going into a filter with a CB or fused IEC inlet.
A single 100AH battery at 24 volts is 2400 watts. Run to 80% thats 1900 watts reaerve run time. Constant draw of 500 watts is a solid 3 hours. Add a secod battery its 6 hours. If you got desperate, turn the charger back on. Run indefinitely.
Inverter is about $1500. each. battery about $1400 each. Chargers $500 each. Cables about $500. Your done. Take it with you when you move.
Well, I address proper measurements, not a scope. We would need at less a measurement of distortion spectra, a wide band spectra of RF noise and measurements of transient behaviour.
And sorry, for me amateur videos are not proof of anything.
IMO percent THD only shows how poor are some inverters - not how good they are.
If it shows how poor a inverter power supply is. Isn't it then showing how poor your utility power supply is when that has worse performance.
Buy an inverter and battery and do all the measurements you want. While you're at it, you should probably measure your QSA duplexes and fuses. And all the fancy power cables in your system.
You could also just plug it in and listen to it. You could also buy a Goal Zero and listen to it. Use the Goal Zero as emergency power or for taking to the park if you need it.
Sound quality of my system has declined dramatically over the last year and I have not changed a thing. Yes, there is a difference between daylight and late in the night.
Bass definition, depth and articulation, instrument separation, detail, microdinamics, presence, soundstage, holography and overall musicality and enjoyment has reduced dramatically.
Sound is now harsh and piercing, can't turn up the volume.
My system is pretty modest but it was super good, I could sit for hours non stop at high volumes.
I have not done any measurements but I live right in the middle of a big city.
PS: Forgot to mention. From 9pm it began to open up in a big way and it continued to get better and better until it's peak at 12:30 am. Sundays it sounded good all day. Now it's horrible pretty much all the time and in the evening it's unlisenable. I'm not imagining things I know what i'm hearing!!
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I have done it all at that time - the inverters I could test had poor performance. I could not get the same inverter Steve was using in his house, I forgot about it.
Currently I am happy with my mains, it is good quality. Besides I now retired and do not have access to a RF spectrum analyser anymore. BTW, power cables show differences in RF measurements but I could not correlate it with sound attributes.
@Kingrex - again, there is a very low fire risk from LiFePO4 batteries. I would be more worried about the inverter quality in the battery. The HOBOTECH youtube channel does a very comprehensive review of solar generators/batteries. At 12:40 minutes into this video he checks the inverter quality for audio and EMI noise.
I like the video. I will investigate the channel more.
Batteries do seem safer than I thought.
I would not put the inverter next to the rack. The AC cable can run 20 feet. The DC needs to be very short. The inverter and battery could be well away from the rack with a quality AC cable going to a filter or power strip.
An interesting change in the NEC is I can now parallel 2 to 3 inverters for 75 amps and I can ship it all to one of my SqD panels and load it all onto a single 120 volt leg. All you have to do is put a typed label on the panel saying its 120V only. No 240 volt loads. They did this because there are so many Islanding solar systems with storage that only have 120 volt inverters. Now you can use a great all copper panel and AFCI breakers to legally feed your room.
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I have owned many battery powered (or more accurately, battery buffered) audio components over the decades, including the Jeff Rowland Coherence II preamplifier, JRDG model 8 amplifier (with its companion BPS chassis), and more recently, the Aurender W20 music server - all fantastic performers!
Since we're on the subject of voltage regulation, DC, THD and noise on the power line, how do the PS Audio Powerplants sound, compared the various other AC power conditioning devices? They're not perfect (and I'm not trying to hijack the thread by injecting a different topic), but they do eradicate the AC power gremlins - they objectively measure better, so they must have merit, and sonic benefits, right?
BTW, this is the best objective test of the Powerplant I've been able to find on the Internet:
Since we're on the subject of voltage regulation, DC, THD and noise on the power line, how do the PS Audio Powerplants sound, compared the various other AC power conditioning devices? They're not perfect (and I'm not trying to hijack the thread by injecting a different topic), but they do eradicate the AC power gremlins - they objectively measure better, so they must have merit, and sonic benefits, right?
BTW, this is the best objective test of the Powerplant I've been able to find on the Internet:
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QuadDiffuser, am I right that you have installed a dedicated ( not shared with neighbors) mains transformer? Is adding a regenerator(s) redundant to what you get from your transformer?
Love your no holds barred approach to your room!
Thanks, Wil ! Hidden towards the middle of my very long post (see URL below), is the following sentence:
"A step-down transformer will not be necessary; by splitting the 3-phase power source into three separate single-phase branches, the conversion of 400V down to 240V happens "automatically"
www.whatsbestforum.com
"A step-down transformer will not be necessary; by splitting the 3-phase power source into three separate single-phase branches, the conversion of 400V down to 240V happens "automatically"
My dedicated audio room build - QuadDiffusor's Big Dig
Good news on the sourcing of my in-wall AC cables! Keystone Cable will manufacture customized AC cables for my needs, sold in 100m spools, for just a few USDs per meter, having: 1) copper conductor insulation: XLPE (superior dielectric and durability, compared to PVC) 2) multi-stranded copper...
www.whatsbestforum.com
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I reapect Paul M and PS audio. His regenerator is nterestimg. The power cord to the device matters???? Why would that be. When it was used on a system with large amps and the regenerator was plugged into stock house power, it was helpfull. As soon as the power was upgraded per my design, not even using my panels, plugging the amps directly into the wall was much better.
In fact, it can matter. I read about it long ago in a nice essay published by the Shunyata people about power cables. Any electronic equipment generates RF noise - starting with the rectification diodes. This noise is radiated and injected in the system by cables connected to it - different cables will absorb and transmit it in a different way.
Most audiophiles hate analysis and prefer holistic approaches, ignoring details. IMO a proper technical discussion of mains power matters needs spectral analysis - we must address the fundamental frequency (50 or 60 Hz) , the harmonics of it, and RF broadband noise up to the top of UHF, perhaps splitting it in a couple of bands.
Just a feeling, never measured it, but I think that most of the time, in power systems, poor contacts in wiring and connectors are a noise problem, not an ohmic problem.
100% agree about contacts. Dissimilar metals also make noise.
The problem with power cables is, how do you measure what your equipment is doing? And then get any sort of manufacturer to say, here is a cable that optimally works with it. Do you think any sales rep selling Shunyata cables is going to assist in analyzing your system and then understanding the cable to optimally select something. They'll do exactly what every salesperson does. They will try to squeeze your wallet to know how much money's in it, then take every penny they can get. If a $500 cable specified better then a $5000 cable, they would tell you, you needed the $5000 cable. It has 2 more 0 of purity. Damb the spec.
I agree with you. I have heard digital cables are highly impacted by reflection and length of cable impacts data transfer. I assume the same with power cords. And I bet a fraction of an inch matters. And material and especially geometry.
I have seen Shunyata offers cables they say are for digital, analog or amplifiers. Maybe what you're saying has something to do with that.
The problem with power cables is, how do you measure what your equipment is doing? And then get any sort of manufacturer to say, here is a cable that optimally works with it. Do you think any sales rep selling Shunyata cables is going to assist in analyzing your system and then understanding the cable to optimally select something. They'll do exactly what every salesperson does. They will try to squeeze your wallet to know how much money's in it, then take every penny they can get. If a $500 cable specified better then a $5000 cable, they would tell you, you needed the $5000 cable. It has 2 more 0 of purity. Damb the spec.
I agree with you. I have heard digital cables are highly impacted by reflection and length of cable impacts data transfer. I assume the same with power cords. And I bet a fraction of an inch matters. And material and especially geometry.
I have seen Shunyata offers cables they say are for digital, analog or amplifiers. Maybe what you're saying has something to do with that.
I had a very interesting conversation with the northwest Victron sales rep. Of interest was Victron Inverters and batteries are being used at certain concert venues to parallel the utility mains power to create a more stable sine wave, and instant current delivery . In particular he said amplifiers distort the sine wave and a parallel power source helps keep the peaks from distorting and flat topping.
This is very similar to what is going on at a home that has a solar system and a inverter that is exporting power to.the utility, and also the load in your house. It could be said, having a solar system attached to a inverter with very low fistortion is actually improving the electrical power supply. Maybe. Depends on how the inverter operates.
I also had a discussion on fundamental NEC rules and how their inverters apply to them. He seemed to not have any knowledge about what the NEC requires. In particular, a listed emergency shut off to stop the system from exporting power. Any secondary power source has to have a readily accessible shutoff on the outside of the house a fireman can activate to de-energise the premises wiring to safely spray water.
I'm still trying to determine how this would apply to a product such as stromtank. More particular to my providing a in room setup with a battery, inverter and power strip. Do I need an emergency shutoff? Not sure. Does Stromtank need an emergency shutoff. Not sure.
This is very similar to what is going on at a home that has a solar system and a inverter that is exporting power to.the utility, and also the load in your house. It could be said, having a solar system attached to a inverter with very low fistortion is actually improving the electrical power supply. Maybe. Depends on how the inverter operates.
I also had a discussion on fundamental NEC rules and how their inverters apply to them. He seemed to not have any knowledge about what the NEC requires. In particular, a listed emergency shut off to stop the system from exporting power. Any secondary power source has to have a readily accessible shutoff on the outside of the house a fireman can activate to de-energise the premises wiring to safely spray water.
I'm still trying to determine how this would apply to a product such as stromtank. More particular to my providing a in room setup with a battery, inverter and power strip. Do I need an emergency shutoff? Not sure. Does Stromtank need an emergency shutoff. Not sure.
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