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ackray
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# Posted: 18 Mar 2013 11:01pm
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How many people use them?
Had a long talk with the Power max guy this morning about the fried PM3-55. Since I am using the All Power America generator just to charge this and the H2O inverter-charger he recommended a power conditioner.
While I had planned to use one for the AV equipment I didn't think that the chargers needed one.
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2013 01:06pm
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hey ackray, I fried a PowerMax PM3-55 also. I did two things. I turned on the genny with the unit plugged in and the power might have surged? and I installed it on a wall. ie. not upright.
Good news for you though. I fixed mine with the help of a "rocket scientist" a neighbor who worked on rockets at one point.
Basically what fried is the surge protector. Drill out the rivets and take the case off. You'll see a thin green surge protector (a thin disk with two wires connecting to the board) near the "line in" next to the heat sink.
Remove this piece of junk from the board by heating the solder and pulling out the wires. Wire in a fuse. Why powermax doesn't fuse this thing in the first place is ...
I put in a 20 amp fuse. Installed the pm3 flat and level. and have made da&* sure I don't leave the thing plugged into the generator.
It has worked well all winter.
Good luck.
PS-his power conditioner line is a "save his a**" remark and bull*&(. I have a honda genny and it puts out very clean power.
PSS-there's a little pot that is adjustable. I turned mine up to 14.5. It was running at 14.1. I've read that you can go 15.5. which would be good for cold batteries or equalizing. It's a good cheap unit fairly well built. It's too bad they haven't dealt with the fuse problem.
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ackray
Member
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# Posted: 21 Mar 2013 01:04am
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Thanks!
Mine was still under warranty so I'm covered. But I will remember for next time.
Surge suppressor is good advice. Am planning to get two of the 100 amp chargers so I'm glad these are good units.
Still learning about generators and power though. Playing catch up.
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ackray
Member
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# Posted: 22 Mar 2013 07:46am
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After looking into this it looks like the best, and most cost effective, thing is to pick up a small 1 or 2 Kilowatt pure sine wave inverter and dedicate circuits to that. I'll either use a sub panel or just a junction box to handle the wiring.
In order to be sure on line conditioning I'd have needed to pick up hardware with Isolation Transformers. However getting one to cover enough of the circuits was not cost effective.
I did wire up a UPS directly into the 12v battery bank. Hacked a computer fan into it for cooling the transformer. Very ugly but it works. that should take care of the tv for the next couple of weeks while I get the new inverter.
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bobbotron
Member
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# Posted: 22 Mar 2013 09:24am
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This is an easy one, but let your generator run for 10 minutes before connecting a load to it!
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ackray
Member
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# Posted: 22 Mar 2013 09:53am
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@bobotron
I'm doing that with the small 2000w and the diesel currently. It was fairly easy to set up with the elk-960 relay and an old laptop power supply.
A few nights walking out to the Gen shed in rainy weather motivated me to figure it out. next step is the autostart set-up.
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