Using battery power to go off the City's power grid


I'm using a Bluetti AC200MAX 2,200 watt expandable power station to take my system off the city's power grid.  It runs off a lithium ion phosphate battery with a 4,800 watt pure sine wave inverter. My total system only takes about 450 watts so I have never heard the fan kick on - it is totally silent. The music comes from a completely black background, with a huge soundstage that sounds very natural. I know that Ric Schultz has talked about these types of setups and there is a very expensive Stromtank battery system that is marketed to audiophiles. Anyone else tried this type of setup in their audio system?

Here is a link to a review:

 

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Electric power can be distributed over hundreds of miles with minimal losses.

The line feeding my house originates at the substation as a 12,470/7,200 volt wye circuit. That is a very common distribution scheme in the US, and it’s a big step up from the old delta circuit that my utility previously used. Either way, you don’t want that 7,200 VAC anywhere near your system.

My audio system uses dedicated, derated 20A lines and my utility - which is not a very good one, by the way - has no trouble delivering power on demand. If there is any doubt about your utility’s ability to deliver sufficient power, a "beast of burden test" will settle it. You would need a massive bank of batteries and capacitors to come even close to delivering the power a proper utility offers.

Shunyata Research believes in what is called Dynamic Transient Current Delivery.  Another audio forum describes DTCD in more details and I won't repeat the whole concept here.  From what I understand of it, power supplies pull current from the crests of the sinewave.  So the rectifiers are only open during a small part of the sine wave.  When the rectifiers are open, the instantaneous current that flows through to the power supply's storage capacitors can be 10 to 20 times the average current.  For example, if an amp draws 10 amps average, the instantaneous current can be 100 or 200 amps.  This doesn't blow the breakers because the average current is still below the line's rated current of 20A.  For the power supplies, it's best to get the number for the instantaneous current to be as high as possible.  Upgrading from a 15A line to a 20A line, using audiophile outlets, using audiophile power cables, are all actions that would increase instantaneous current.

The point I'm trying to make here is that one has to look at what is immediately connected to the audio system's power supplies.  This is the power cables, the power conditioner, the wall outlet, the 20A line, etc.  The quality of all those things would affect the instantaneous current.  In my decade in the hobby, I've found all of these things to be very important.  It's not just theory to me since I've proven it to myself over and over.  So I'm not really talking about total power or maximum average current.  I'm talking about instantaneous current to the power supplies which can be very different in two power delivery systems even when those two systems can provide the same average current.

So how does all of this tie back to batteries and inverters?  Here are the positives I see that can help increase instantaneous current for a battery/inverter.  The total length  of wiring from the battery and through the inverter is very short.  I'm using the high current terminals of the Giandel inverter which I believe can provide 41.67A of average current.  Generally, the higher the average current, the higher the instantaneous current.  It's difficult for me to know for sure if these qualities actually give my audio system more instantaneous current versus my previous 20A line.  Shunyata makes a device they call a DTCD Analyzer that can be used to measure but I don't necessarily want to buy one, assuming they would sell one to me.  I had to follow my ears on this one.

In fact you have now If I understand well two separated battery inverter system

- One for DAC ,preamp ,Amp with Shunyata Typhon

- The second one for Lumin streamer , switch etc...

Since I have a friend with a Denali , I will do the test with this conditionner .

For the audio system, I have just one battery and one inverter, the Giandel 5000W. The Giandel 5000W has one high current terminal and 4 normal US outlets. The conditioner is connected to the high current terminal and one of the normal outlets powers the HDPlex 300W power supply that feeds DC to the Lumin streamer, switch, etc.

I technically have a second inverter connected to the battery but it powers the HT system and is not part of my audio system. I experimented with the second inverter for the audio system but didn’t find it beneficial, at least not in the way I had things configured. I may experiment more with the second inverter in the future.

I haven't mentioned grounding recently but that is something I do with the system.  Grounding an inverter is different than grounding with a house AC line and different types of inverters may call for different ways to ground.  The Giandel manual says to ground to the car/vehicle or to earth.  The audio system's ground is grounded to  the house AC ground with a Puritan Ground Master.  I use another Ground Master on one of the isolated SPDIF connectors on the Lumin streamer and I also use another Ground Master on the ground pin of the Lumin streamer.  In the near future, I may decide to install a grounding rod outside and connect all these Ground Masters to this rod.  I think this would benefit the system.  I won't know until I try.

Any updates?

Anyone try 48 volt batteries?

Exeltech vs Giandel?

How about Victron?

I'm still off grid but I've taken the inverter out of the hi-fi system.  Everything is powered off DC and there is no AC involved.  I decided to remove the AC because I wanted to see how good the system can sound without AC gremlins like AC ground noise.  Also, getting off AC allowed me to sell most of my pricey AC cables and AC conditioner.  I'm still using quality DC cables and DC power conditioning.

As a consequence of this decision, I'm limited to components that only accept DC. Fortunately, there are great gear out there that run off DC directly. DACs I've tried include the Weiss DAC205 and Ferrum Wandla. Headphone amps include the Ferrum Oor and Geshelli Labs Erish 3.  The Singxer SU 6 acts as the USB to I2S converter.  Streamers include the Lumin U1 Mini or a Mac Mini, both converted to accept 12V DC.  The speaker amp is a high end car audio amp the Mosconi Pro 4/30 that is Class A/AB.  It's a four channel but I bridge the channels to run stereo.  The amp powers Magnepan LRS+ speakers. 

It all sounds pretty good.  It's in the same league as the best AC systems I've put together. But by far it is the best bang for the buck system I've assembled.