Review on ⚡ Enhanced Xantrex PH-1800-GFP PowerHub: Optimize Your Power Generation by Mike Morris

We bought the PowerHub to service ham radios in a remote location where there could be a few brief outages each day, sometimes a day or two. We chose to install two 200Ah batteries instead of one or two 100Ah batteries that would fit in a battery cabinet. The PowerHub works flawlessly, and the radio and computer hardware it supports has no problem with the synthesized sine wave output that the PH-1800 produces. about 40 milliseconds, and we were concerned about how well the computer and router would perform during the switchover. Initially, we installed a small UPS between the PowerHub and other equipment, hoping that would eliminate the outage. The UPS came online as expected when the transfer occurred, but it did not recognize the PowerHub output as valid AC power. Therefore, it will not exit standby mode until power is restored. Several other UPSs have been tried and all behave the same. In the end, we simply powered all devices directly from the PowerHub. The computer and wireless power supplies easily managed the change, which actually takes less than 25 milliseconds. The PH-1800 offers a range of connectivity options including permanent (rather than plug-in) AC wiring, wind and solar power inputs. , and two battery connectors. We don't use them all, but it's good to see that they will be available later. The front panel LCD display is convenient to check battery voltage, state of charge, AC load, etc. The fact that the PH-1800 has a large ground connection on the back of the case makes this part a safe electrical installation. Conventional UPSs do not do this. Xantrex tells us that a 40Ah staged charge system can charge a 100Ah battery in five or six hours. Adding more batteries increases the charging time because the available charging current remains the same. It's important to note that the charger doesn't appear to be affected by the need to deal with four or six batteries. It just takes longer to charge them. This is important because the sister company wants a standby time of 72 hours and an 800 Ah battery pack is required. We monitor the health of the batteries remotely, so it was nice to find that the negative battery charge is connected to the chassis and safety ground in the PowerHub. This allowed us to connect monitoring devices directly to the batteries without having to create an interface that isolates the ground. All in all, a great, well thought-out and well-made product.