Quote from: RE on Sep 13, 2023, 12:25 AM

Quote from: 18hammers on Sep 12, 2023, 08:08 PMYes, I have been thinking of making the jump to 24 volt. So many issues though, I have and I kid you not at least 6 great inverters I have picked up dirt cheap over the years, I have heavy duty 12 volt chargers, multiple. I would have to wind a new stator for the wind turbine. It is hard to make changes when things are mostly working fine but I suspect the jump to 24volts may be in the future or I am thinking about having both a 12 volt and 24 volt and just switch between them as needed. I don't know what I am going to do.

It's always difficult to make a change to a superior technology when you have invested a whole lot of money in an older tech and the hardware still works.  Think of all the big companies that had tons invested in IBM Mainframe technology when the Desktop computers hit the scene.  They were much slower at changing over their systems than newer and/or smaller ones that had never invested so much.  Besides the hardware, all the software they had custom written for their own systems also became obsolete as newer better software was developed for desktops and mass marketed, coming in at a fraction of the price of their custom packages, which also had to be individually maintained and upgraded.  Eventually of course they did switchover except for a few applications better suited to mainframe supercomputers.Another current example is trying to build all new Charging Stations for EV carz when there are tons of already built and still functional gas pumps which are going obsolete.

Is it worth the money to make the changeover from 12V to 24V?  You have to do a Cost-Benefit analysis.  For your own application, how much added efficiency do you really need now?  How much will switching benefit you in the future?  I would say as long as 12V does the job you need done and you can still maintain it in the future, it doesn't make economic sense to switch.  This is an individual decision for everyone, there's no single answer.

RE

it is a hard decision one I again have to make. I currently have a 24 volt system and am debating upgrading to 48 volts. I'm taking down the existing and reinstalling and the breaker and cabling costs will be high to do a legal system. So do I install everything I already have for charge controllers or up the voltage and install half as many at 48 volts... There is a cost to trade in and upgrade my inverter but probably less than the costs of twice as many breakers and cables and time...