Miniature three-phase AC power grid (part 0 -- prelim. demo)

This is a preliminary demonstration of our AC power grid system. Many thanks to Automation Direct, Snohomish PUD, and Puget Sound Energy for donating parts and advise.

[@clynesnowtail1257]

This is so neat. I would have a lot of fun there.

[@farmsidney]

I think this project will be wonderful. I'm curious now. As your monitor connects to the system? It uses MODBUS protocol? The actuators use relays? I'm dying to see a more complete video.

[@BTCInstrumentation]

The communication driver on our HMI is set for "AutomationDirect Do-More Ethernet" to communicate with the "Do-More" PLC processors. I don't know if it's really Modbus/TCP under the hood or not. Modicon-standard Modbus is certainly an option available to us, though. Sorry for the lack of completeness on the video. We still have a fair amount of work to do on the generators before we make our mini-grid "hot" with power. Stay tuned for more videos in the next two weeks as I take my class through a two-week course on protective relays.

[@adaptine]

Are you going to monitor reverse current aswell? As in tripping the breaker to avoid the generator beeing drivven as a motor?

[@BTCInstrumentation]

We eventually plan to outfit the generator with as many protective features as we can (e.g. differential current on the windings, winding temperature, loss of excitation, reverse power, etc.). For now all we have is the SEL-551 relay which does overcurrent. We would also like to put in auto-synchronization so we can tie the generator to the grid either manually or have it do it all by itself.