Enerdrive News
Enerdrive Brings The Power To Your Door
Around the streets in the near future, our concept mobile showroom will be calling on you. The nature of every product we offer is technically based, and many of you want to touch, feel and see how they work before ordering the products. In developing this idea, we will shortly have our Mercedes Vito fitted out with a fully working model of nearly every product we supply. Although we have not finished the vehicle yet, here are some work in progress shots:
Some details - we will have 2 x battery banks on board outside of the start bank - a 24 volt bank for the XW Inverter / Charger system, with 2 x Sharp 180 watt solar panels on the roof feeding into the XW MPPT Solar controller. A 12volt battery bank will power all our mobile products, with the AC required coming from the XW system (a fully portable mini-grid).
The van will be fully wrapped in our company colours and will be a mobile promotion of independent energy products. We are confident that NO
ONE in this country is doing ANYTHING like this at all.
This is the first of our vans, and if the concept works, then we will roll out to all capital cities in this country. The idea falls into our company slogan of Driving your energy needs.
Cobra Marine gets new web site.
Interest in the Cobra Marine products continues to grow, we have updated the web site to allow for the exciting new products available to the marine communications market.
New BlueTooth© products have hit the market with great success and as safety in the marine environment becomes more paramount then so dose the demand of reliable communications equipment. Cobra Marine has some of the most advanced models available with features like "Rewind say again" which allows the listener to replay there last communication, a handy feature for any skipper or radio operator.
For more on the new BlueTooth© features visit the Cobra Marine Web Site ...
New 1300 phone number for Enerdrive
In an effort to make your contact with Enerdrive easier, we have just established a 1300 phone number. This ensures that any call you make to our office, from anywhere in Australia either on your fixed or Mobiles, only costs you a set fee. Just another move we are making to make your dealings with us more enjoyable. Phone 1300 851 535 to contact Enerdrive.
Australian Approval Update for Battery Chargers and Inverters.
BATTERY CHARGERS
Is your battery charger approved to Australian Standards? You would be shocked to find how many of the so called Smart Chargers on the market do not carry compliance to the basic requirements such as Electrical Safety. Some of you may have been aware that there has been many discussions back and forth between the Electrical Safety Office of Queensland (ESO) and the Boating Industry in general through Queensland. Many groups have become involved in this issue, and just recently the Electrical Regulatory Authority (ERAC) has delivered their findings regarding the use of APPROVED APPLIANCES on board all marine vessels. In relation to Battery chargers, their comments are;
- A Battery Charger used for charging the power supply to a boat meets the prescribed definition. If such a battery charger was used in the home (for example to back up solar system batteries), then it too should be considered as prescribed equipment. Battery chargers being normally expensive, high quality types does not ensure their safety, and can not be used to justify exemption from legislative requirements.
When this issue first started appearing in October 2006, we took the steps to have our range of Xantrex battery chargers approved (They had previously complied, but it is a necessity of the Electrical Safety office that the importer or manufacturer of a product holds these standards in their own name). This has proven to be a very costly and timely experience, and we only managed to have final sign off just a few short weeks ago (14 months after we started the process). We are pleased to announce that our range of battery chargers available approved to ESO standards are:
- The Xantrex BC charger line available in either 30 or 50amps @ 12 volts DC, and 15 or 25amps @ 24 volts DC. They offer 3 independent charger outlets, and will operate from a wide voltage range of 90-260vac. They are designed for a marine environment with an IP32 rating, and have ignition protection for use in engine rooms. The approval number on these units is A/10282EA (This is our main product recommendation for the Marine Market due to its more suited design).
- The Xantrex TRUEcharge range of chargers is available in 10, 20 or 40amps @ 12volts only. The 20 & 40amp model have 2 charge outlets. These are the base entry models, and perfect for any application providing you can ensure a good, clean and dry installation area. Operation from 240vac only (the TRUEcharge 40i model will run easily from a small portable 1kva generator if ever required). The approval number on these units is A/10279EA
C-tick is only part of the required compliance for Australian standards as C-Tick only covers the issues of Electromagnetic Noise and has nothing to do with safety. Be sure to check any of your products if they have their relevant C-Tick and Electrical safety ratings (will be two separate numbers).
INVERTERS
As you may be aware, the New Australian standards for Inverters are currently in Draft form. We will plan to cover this in detail with you in our next newsletter. There are many points in this that both us as importers, and you as resellers / installers will need to be aware of. More to follow soon on this topic.