Hi,
I'm looking for something rather specific and I don't know if it exists or not.
I'm trying to plan a system that allows the lighting circuits in a house to be powered by a solar system and a small inverter when the battery has enough power, and will revert to a mains supply if the battery is empty. I have all this designed already.
The light bulbs will all be LED filament designed for mains AC to allow switching between the two.
When the inverter is turned on it still draws just under 5W even with no load. I'm hoping to find something that can detect when an LED light is turned on and send a signal to a relay that will turn the inverter on, that way it will only be powered up when a current is required.
Some inverters have an ECO mode where they will check for current draw every second or two, but that is no use since when the inverter is off the lights will simply draw from the mains.
If it was just normal filament bulbs then something like measuring resistance or continuity across live and neutral would work, but since the LED bulbs will be using a transformer and rectifier in each bulb I'm not sure this would work.
1. Does anyone have any ideas? Is this possible?
All I've been able to come up with so far is measuring current drawn through the circuit and having a relay turn the inverter on when anything is drawn.
2. I can't run the whole circuit (max probably 250W) through the coil in series, so would I need a micro controller connected to an ammeter to measure and activate the relay or is there a more direct way of doing this?
When a light is first turned on it would be powered by mains for a moment before the inverter kicks in and takes over. This might cause a tiny dark flash.
3. Could this be avoided, possibly by placing a capacitor across live and neutral (with a discharge resistor of course)?
Thank you in advance.
I'm looking for something rather specific and I don't know if it exists or not.
I'm trying to plan a system that allows the lighting circuits in a house to be powered by a solar system and a small inverter when the battery has enough power, and will revert to a mains supply if the battery is empty. I have all this designed already.
The light bulbs will all be LED filament designed for mains AC to allow switching between the two.
When the inverter is turned on it still draws just under 5W even with no load. I'm hoping to find something that can detect when an LED light is turned on and send a signal to a relay that will turn the inverter on, that way it will only be powered up when a current is required.
Some inverters have an ECO mode where they will check for current draw every second or two, but that is no use since when the inverter is off the lights will simply draw from the mains.
If it was just normal filament bulbs then something like measuring resistance or continuity across live and neutral would work, but since the LED bulbs will be using a transformer and rectifier in each bulb I'm not sure this would work.
1. Does anyone have any ideas? Is this possible?
All I've been able to come up with so far is measuring current drawn through the circuit and having a relay turn the inverter on when anything is drawn.
2. I can't run the whole circuit (max probably 250W) through the coil in series, so would I need a micro controller connected to an ammeter to measure and activate the relay or is there a more direct way of doing this?
When a light is first turned on it would be powered by mains for a moment before the inverter kicks in and takes over. This might cause a tiny dark flash.
3. Could this be avoided, possibly by placing a capacitor across live and neutral (with a discharge resistor of course)?
Thank you in advance.
