PowerShare and AC

[StainlessVoyager]

I am getting PowerShare installed and thy are telling me AC won’t work unless I have soft start on the AC. Anyone with experience

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[CyberGus]

Every AC compressor has a LRU rating, which is the peak amperage at startup. The limit for PowerShare is LRU 110, I believe.

Even though I was just under this limit, I self-installed this "soft start" anyway. It reduced the measured startup current to about 30A, which helps with voltage sags or possible overloading of the 11kW PowerShare limit. Theoretically, it also reduces strain on the AC unit.

 

[StainlessVoyager]

Thank you, it’s just they are here now.
I asked if they can connect AC to the backup and I’ll change to soft start later, but they said no. They told me it’s would be 975 dollars if they install soft start themselves which I think is steep. Now am thinking of skipping AC

 

[CyberGus]

Bay area? I'm shocked you even have AC lol

The LRA value is printed on the AC unit, is your really above 110? Mine is 105 for a 2.5-ton.

 

[jonesw67]

I am getting PowerShare installed and thy are telling me AC won’t work unless I have soft start on the AC. Anyone with experience

mine just went active last night and I tested a failover

my AC unit is 120 LRA and everything kicked over fine. when AC went on there was a slight dim of the lights, but otherwise no issue loosing any power while running on CT.

Switched to and from the CT did drop power for a few seconds each time.

I will probably look at getting a softstart added to AC unit anyway as it will just help generally and I don't like dimming lights

 

[Derektsla]

I am getting PowerShare installed and thy are telling me AC won’t work unless I have soft start on the AC. Anyone with experience

Here is real world when our truck powered our house for 4 days after the hurricane…

- We have 2 heat pumps for AC
- Both heat pumps COULD start and run at the same time without tripping the truck. (No soft starts on either) However, several times during our outage, the truck tripped when the first AC was running and the second one started up. Probably due to other loads running.
- I ended up just running one AC to save power and avoid periodic trips.
- The truck recovered well after each trip event and would be back in within 5 seconds.

I think it’s a good idea to install soft starts to avoid this if possible.

 

[Woodrick]

Here is real world when our truck powered our house for 4 days after the hurricane…

- We have 2 heat pumps for AC
- Both heat pumps COULD start and run at the same time without tripping the truck. (No soft starts on either) However, several times during our outage, the truck tripped when the first AC was running and the second one started up. Probably due to other loads running.
- I ended up just running one AC to save power and avoid periodic trips.
- The truck recovered well after each trip event and would be back in within 5 seconds.

I think it’s a good idea to install soft starts to avoid this if possible.

Soft starts are one thing, the drain on the battery is quite another.
It's nearly Halloween, so I'll use an analogy. AC units are worse than vampires trying to draw the blood out of your battery.

 

[StainlessVoyager]

I believe mine is LRA 82, but the AC is pretty old and the label is really worn so I cant be sure. I asked installer twice and he said his boss stopped by and said it would not work. I told him to just do it and Ill install softstart at the later date, but he said no and he needs to protect the system. I decided not to push it. There are total of 12 spaces and AC breaker would take 2 spaces. So I decided to pass at the moment and connect some other breakers. They were not able to finish because I could not connect the charger to the WIfi so they are coming back.

 

[jonesw67]

I believe mine is LRA 82, but the AC is pretty old and the label is really worn so I cant be sure. I asked installer twice and he said his boss stopped by and said it would not work. I told him to just do it and Ill install softstart at the later date, but he said no and he needs to protect the system. I decided not to push it. There are total of 12 spaces and AC breaker would take 2 spaces. So I decided to pass at the moment and connect some other breakers. They were not able to finish because I could not connect the charger to the WIfi so they are coming back.

I had to disable WPA3 on my eero system for the wall connector to connect to my wifi. then it connected immediately and installation could finish for the Tesla One app they were using. Wall connectors only support WPA2 security

 

[mongo]

I believe mine is LRA 82, but the AC is pretty old and the label is really worn so I cant be sure. I asked installer twice and he said his boss stopped by and said it would not work. I told him to just do it and Ill install softstart at the later date, but he said no and he needs to protect the system. I decided not to push it. There are total of 12 spaces and AC breaker would take 2 spaces. So I decided to pass at the moment and connect some other breakers. They were not able to finish because I could not connect the charger to the WIfi so they are coming back.

131.0 LRA
1.4 FLA

 

[StainlessVoyager]

Appreciate you finding it, so they were correct. I would have preferred if they moved the wires and i would wire soft start later. Paying 975 dollars for them to do it was just too expensive. But at the same time I dont think we will need the AC during the outage (so far PGE has been pretty quick to get the power back)

 

[StainlessVoyager]

I had to disable WPA3 on my eero system for the wall connector to connect to my wifi. then it connected immediately and installation could finish for the Tesla One app they were using. Wall connectors only support WPA2 security

I have xfinity, I tried to separate the bands and I changed 2.4 band to WPA2 but it didnt work. Not sure what I did wrong, it was also getting late so he didnt want to wait while I experimented. I have an extender as well and my plan is to connect it to extender 2.4 band next time

 

[mongo]

Appreciate you finding it, so they were correct. I would have preferred if they moved the wires and i would wire soft start later. Paying 975 dollars for them to do it was just too expensive. But at the same time I dont think we will need the AC during the outage (so far PGE has been pretty quick to get the power back)

Yeah, our wiring is old and convoluted so we'll need to do manual load shedding until I can add some AC and electric heat disable relays/ contactors.

 

[jonesw67]

I have xfinity, I tried to separate the bands and I changed 2.4 band to WPA2 but it didnt work. Not sure what I did wrong, it was also getting late so he didnt want to wait while I experimented. I have an extender as well and my plan is to connect it to extender 2.4 band next time

I also tried disabling my 5 band so it would only see 2.4 and several other items, but the only one that made any difference was when i turned off WPA3.

amazes me that new things like this coming to market do not support 5 and WPA3

 

[CyberEye2020]

What the heck happen to the Powershare Gateway Home Back-up for the Cyberbeast Installation credit of up to $4,000.00. I just got a Cyberbeast and told go pay for it yourself. Thanks Elon for the $20,000 surcharge plus no one from Tesla will give me a answer but they did send me the Powershare Gateway and on there website they Required: You must be in contract with a certified installer before purchasing Powershare Home Backup Bundle.

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