I have not seen/read about the Xantrex connections... But, if it takes lugs--then yes, you would be correct that Copper Lugs with CU/AL ratings would work...

Which is kind of interesting (to me) because 20+ years ago the NEC would not allow us to require crimp lugs and the phone company required crimp lugs (at the time, crimp tools were considered to be specialized equipment which could not be required for the class of commercial equipment I was designing). I got around the problem by finding lugs that had binding screw connections on them...

-Bill

The XW inverter is brass thread stud/washer/nut

The XW charger is a encased plated Molex terminal block. Since it uses a screw compression block I wouldn't see any reason it would be restricted to copper wire, Molex data sheet makes no reference to wire type anywhere.

It would seem to me that what kind of wire the inverter uses is more or less irrelevant. Who in thier right mind would want to use aluminum wire between batteries and inverter. Wouldn't the corrosive nature of the battery box destroy the wire anyway? The only time I think I might expect to see aluminum wire going in to an inverter is if you use a Grid Tie inverter, am I right? Especially since your inverter is probably going to be very close to your batteries, 10 ft or less I would imagine. I wouldn't use aluminum wire anywhere unless I had too, and when it comes to the wiring of the array, at such a long run, I kind of had too. I wasn't going to pay 4 times more per foot for a special order of 4 gauge copper wire to come in, and then be required to by all that was on the reel because nobody else wanted it, not for that price.

iboc,
keep in mind that you can use aluminum wire, but you have to remember about its expansive qualities as opposed to copper with possible galvanic reactions between different metals and hence the tado about the connections, but also important is the fact that aluminum wire has 1.641641 times as much resistance as the same amount of copper wire. that means you need more aluminum and hence a larger gauge to lower the resistance back in line with what you would have gotten with the copper wire. example would be #10 al and cu wires for say 100ft in length. the copper wire would have .0999 ohms of resistance. the aluminum wire would have .1642 ohms. a #8 al wire would minimumly be needed to replace that #10 cu wire and at that the #8 al wire has a bit more resistance than the #10 cu wire so technically it should be a #7 al wire to replace it with or the distance the wire runs to be lessened until it equals the resistance of the cu at the longer distance. the bottom line is that it is the inline resistance that determines things and different metals fit into that differently for various thicknesses.
this does influence the voltage drop you'll see and thus the distances you can use that al wire for. cost wise getting the al wire still would have been the correct move imho, but you have a smaller distance usable than the same cu wire gauge and the added cost of adapting the al wire to the cu wire or connectors in this case.

Electric utilities use Aluminum wire all of the time for their distribution systems and house down leads... Properly done, AL is not the worst thing in the world.

Also, I believe that Aluminum is usually discussed here for long runs (such as form solar panel to charge controller). For short runs, copper is going to be the preferred material

But copper wire wet with electrolyte is not going to last very long either (tends to wick up the braid and seems to be almost impossible to remove/neutralize--at least on the cars boats I have worked on years past).

-Bill

you're right bill and i did agree with him that the al wire was the best move. utilities do use aluminum wire quite extensively, but they up the voltage to overcome losses just like we like to do with mppt controllers. the al wire just happens to have more loss for the same gauge or thickness due to its higher resistance is all i was pointing out and it must be kept in mind that it won't perform like a copper wire of the same size.

Well at 150ft, I figured that I could use #4 al at 80+ volts DC inside plastic burried conduit for up to around 1300 watts. The two #4 wires I have already in the ground will ultimately only have 860 watts max flowing though them. I will have to run one more conduit and wire for the last 6 panels (1290 watts max). I will run #2 if I have too, but when I purchased the wire I was using a wiring chart based on DC voltage through Aluminum wire, so I think that #4 should do alright, especially since I dont think this will see max output that often. Besides, these are sunpower panels. On the best days, they will probably drop in output a little due to surface polarization since Im not following the positive ground rules for max output and maintaining warranty. A warranty which, since I bought them second hand, the company will not honor anyway.

Ok guys, new question. According to the information that came with our newly installed SkyStream 3.7, it is possible to activate the SkyStream 3.7 by attaching it to the AC Out side of an Outback or Xantrex SW inverter. Then Using a special remote battery sensor, it can be used to charge the batteries when the wind blows. Effectively this would seem to me to turn the inverter in to a charge controller utilizing the AC Charge option of the inverter. Does this work from the AC Out side? Is it possible to charge and use the inverter simultaniously? This seems counter intuitive to me that it could do both at the same time, does the Ouback reverse current every time the wind blows and then as the wind slows the Outback switches back to generation mode from charge mode?..... Next, if this is possible, then would it also be possible to use the AC out leg on an ouback inverter to activate a grid tie inverter, then use the current genereated by the grid tie inverter to charge the batteries through the ouback inverter?

I would be very interested in Solar Guppy's take on this...

I reviewed the manual:

http://windenergy.com/documents/manuals/3-CMLT-1054_Skystream_Manual.pdf

And, to be honest, it does not make a lot of sense to me...

In general, as I understand the Xantrex and Outback inverter families, they have an AC input (utility power or generator power) and an AC output (inverter output). Plus an internal transfer switch (AC in to AC out when utility/generator power is available, which turns off the inverter).

The wind turbine manual indicates that they want the X/OB inverter output connected to the wind turbine's AC line output. This part, can work, as the wind turbine is a grid tied inverter and will sync with a X/OB inverter...

However, the typical grid tie inverter is "unregulated" output--i.e., it outputs the maximum power it can based on the wind speed. The typical grid tie inverter cannot really be used with a X/OB inverter (or even a generator) because if the "house load" is less than the Wind Turbine's output, the wind turbine will push the line voltage too "over voltage"--causing the wind turbine inverter to detect an "island" condition and shut down (used to protect utility company employees from getting electrocuted by home based generators/inverters--Edit: I believe that UL requires a "faulted" grid tie inverter to shut down for 5 minutes, then it attempts to restart, checking for proper line voltage and frequency).

The second question I have is that X/OB inverters would typically battery charge from the AC IN connection--it does not make sense for them to charge their batteries from the AC OUT connection because the inverter would be just charging its own battery bank.

The last question I have is how does the SkyStream battery box work at monitoring battery voltage and temperature... The inverter/charger has its own battery charge controller--so how does a Grid Tied wind turbine inverter control the X/OB inverter's charging? At best, this would assume that the X/OB inverter/charger would charge when "on battery" and that it can detect the amount of back-fed power from the Skystream inverter--and modulate the battery charge current from this feed back loop...

I guess it is possible, but I have never seen (read) that X/OB inverter/chargers ever had this capability.

If you are interested in using this SkyStream turbine as an off-grid system--I would ask them for references to see how it all works. At this point, I would have serious questions based on their rather "thin" documentation supplied.

-Bill

PS: You can also download the Software setup manual (includes battery monitor setup) from here:

http://www.skystreamenergy.com/skystream/resource-center/downloads.aspx

From the setup, it appears that the battery monitor only supports single stage charging (one battery voltage). Does not support equalization or float charge settings. So--to equalize your battery bank, you either need to reprogram the device with a PC a couple times a month, or if your X/OB does absorb/float/equalize charging, your SkyStream system will seem to worse than useless (X/OB set to 13.xx for float, SkyStream will "keep charging--how?, X/OB set to 15.xx for float, the SkyStream will set to 14.xx and cut power to X/OB and stop equalization???).

Again, all of the above are just a series of guesses... SkyStream may have all this worked out and running on 100's of systems. But I would want them to prove this to me (including how to setup the X/OB inverters to support this off-grid battery charging function).

None of this reflects on how their Grid Tied version operates... I see no big issues there. Assuming you have enough wind, it should work fine.

-BB

Yeah its grid tied right now, I went over the CAD diagrams in the manual, and though they are well put together. It almost seem like they just assume the inverter is FM (F***ing Magic) and can do whatever they want it to do so long as they draw it that way.... LMAO. I dont get how it could be used off grid either. Ours is grid tied for now, and may stay that way if we can figure out a better way. I wanted to be able to utilize the windmill with or without the grid as our solar power system is currently battery based and I intend to keep it that way. It just doesn't seem smart to spend all this money to be able to generate your own power without being able to take it completely off the grid if you so desire, or if circumstances require due to outage.
The whole Idea is to have an off grid capable system with 16 Trojan L16 batteries. The batteries are only for use in case of an emergency, the majority of our power will come off the grid and after batteries are charged, we will use the excess RE power to offset the monthly power bill.