On May 9, 9:10*am, The Ghost in The Machine
wrote:
On May 8, 10:33*pm, Ron Hardin wrote:





Is there a simple power strip that has two male
plug-in cords instead of one, with a switch
controlling which cord connects to the female
outlets on the strip?

It's needed for quickly switching some stuff
between solar power and regular house A/C mains
power.


If you wire up a DPDT switch to switch quickly between two LIVE
sources, you will have big problems unless the sources are phase
locked....It is not easy to phase lock your inverter to the grid.

The more practical thing to do is wire a switch that has a center off
position. If you don't phase lock the sources then you MUST go to the
OFF position when switching from one source to the other.

Note that a UPS when it is running on batteries, when the grid power
returns, it does not immediatly switch back to the grid, it first
phase locks itself to the grid which can take a few seconds, and then
it switches. If you don't understnad what this means, then the
simplest course for you to take is to go through an OFF setting
between the two sources. Unfortuntly this means you have to interpupt
the power for a brief time.

If you don't do this, you can destroy the inverter. Don't ask me how
I know this.

Mark