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Inverter saga
By wpowokal, Section Diaries Posted on Sun May 11th, 2008 at 02:14:09 PM MST
Inverter has hickups

I was woken at 0300 hrs last Saturday to the sound of my Fisher and Paykel washing machine's electronic distress signal, it bleeps when powered up and under fault conditions.
Ok so Allan gets up and finds power is going on briefly then tripping,I switched off the main AC board and headed over to power centre, to find the inverter is tripping on overload, bugger.
Switched off inverter then changed over battery banks(I did say it was 3AM) powered up again to the same fault, double bugger.
At first light I opened up my Solar Energy Australia (SEA) inverter, only imediatly aparant fault was the 10000uf/40v capacitors.

Ho Hum, just starting my winter fruit season, it's Saturday morning, weighed up the alternatives and headed for Perth (capital of my state) 2 hour drive to purchase a new unit.
Only one business was open on Saturday, business is so good others don't need to. Placed my hand deeep into my pocket for a new 3Kw Latronics sine wave inverter, these are Australian made quality units.

Pleased to say power was back on by around 4PM and even better the fridge showed no signs of defrosting after 13 hours of not running, this was very fortunate as the grog was still cold.
I have ordered 4 new capacitors for the SEA inverter, this is where I suspect the fault lies based on the apperance of the one on the right of the pic it looks to have overheated to me, and the fact that full 240 volts (asumption) was briefly attained each time the inverter rebooted. Worth a punt anyway, even if it has to go to inverter hospital after 5 years service it's probally time to change these electros anyway.
And if I can fix it I will come up smelling somewhat better than I did last Satuday with my hand deeep in my pocket being told it's not a good time for the inverter to fail, not quite sure when would be a good time actually.
Oh yea and I have a new wiz bang camera so pic quality should only be limited by operator competance.
Who was it that said I have free power?
allan down under

Inverter saga | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by goodlifer on Sun May 11th, 2008 at 12:21:08 PM MST
(User Info)

Pardon my ignorance, but how many /what size solar panels have you got?
So presumably the power produced by the solar panels goes into batteries (DC) and is then turned into AC power by the inverter? (I am not an electrician obviously!)
Are your solar panels commercially made or home made?
Where could I find out the size/number of batteries needed for any size of panel, and how do you know what power would be needed to run a large refrigerator-plus what size inverter would be needed? Or should I leave well alone?
We are looking to move to France in ther next couple of years, and I am trying to sketch out a system that will incorporate solar heater with compost heated water to supply dhw and power a heating system through radiators in the winter.
If I could minimise our reliance on mains electricity that would be a bonus.
John Winlow

Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by TomW on Sun May 11th, 2008 at 06:51:06 PM MST
(User Info)

John;

I would call this a blatant thread hijack.

You are new so I will simply point out it is considered rude to divert a thread with your own questions unrelated to the original. Doubly so in someone's Diary area.

I guess my question is what does this have to do with his Diary post about a failed inverter?

Sorry, Allan but these are very rude in my opinion.

Tom

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by goodlifer on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 02:53:36 AM MST
(User Info)

I do apologise for hijacking your thread. Is a thread all comments on one subject?
Would someone then direct me to the right thread to ask my question?
goodlifer

[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by wpowokal on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 06:16:10 AM MST
(User Info)

John you simply post your own question, to R/H menu box, in the mean time this site has some good reading.
http://www.rpc.com.au/products/services/examples.html

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by goodlifer on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 03:37:32 PM MST
(User Info)

Well, thanks (wpowokal) for directing me to the Rainbow Power Company website.It is a good website. It was good of you to take the time to explain how some of this posting/blogging stuff works (I am pretty new to computing)

Sorry about upsetting you TomW, re hijacking your thread. I had piles once, and they made me pretty unreasonable too, til the Doc fixed 'em, that is.
In the meantime I am going to find out what the hell a diary is. what my preferences are or ought to be,and what to do with my files.
I'd hate to upset anyone else by asking questions..

[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by ghurd on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 04:19:13 PM MST
(User Info)

You are logged in?
Then Top, right hand, Menu box...
"Submit Posting".

Choose a topic (wind, solar, etc.).

Stuff like "I did this" or "My inverter blew up" is often better in a diary,
meaning "new diary entry", under your name on the bottom right.

Any photos to be in the 'posting' MUST be up loaded first!
Follow the photo guidelines before uploading a photo. 480x480 is enough.
Under 50K is plenty. Usually under 20K is plenty.

Allan's inverter blew up, and he told us about it.
You asked about his solar panels, and how to figure panels, batteries, inverters, and more.

I do understand. I am not a computer guy.

Your couple simple questions involve a book or 2 to answer properly, or even poorly.
Reasearch the questions more. Google search the board, top right.

G-

[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by goodlifer on Wed May 14th, 2008 at 08:42:07 AM MST
(User Info)

Dear G,
Thank you for your kind and patient explanations.
I am not sure this is the right website for me, as my abilities (when compared to what you guys get up to!) are modest, and my aims fairly simple.
I took the liberty of looking at your diary and also 'wpowokal's. I have nothing but admiration for people who have that kind of ability and resourcefulness.
Many years ago I led a group of mainly American volunteers on a kibbutz in Israel. I loved their 'can do' approach to life, and made some very good friends.

What puzzles me is that I remember an American alternative energy mag that I came across in the '70s. It was full of clever ways of providing electricity and heating needs from natural resources. It was written simple enough so that even I could understand what to do! Your website caters for people with real engineering/technological skills, and as a simple plumber I think I would be out of my depth.
Your photos of the lake were great, and you are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful country. Here in England everything is a whole lot smaller, and we don't have the same conditions that encourage the resourcefulness shown by the Aussies and you Yanks.
If I knew how to include pics on this site I would show you some of the area where we live here!
Best wishes
John Winlow

[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by finnsawyer on Wed May 14th, 2008 at 09:02:05 AM MST
(User Info)

John, you should schedule some heavy night time reading and go back a couple years on this site and read everything up to the present. Many of the contributers to this site started out in a similar situation to you. While this may sound a bit harsh, I actually wish you the best of luck in your quest, but you will have to put in the effort.
GeoM
[ Parent ]

Re: Thread Hijacking... (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by jonas302 on Wed May 14th, 2008 at 07:57:32 PM MST
(User Info)

Be sure to go to the otherpower.com homepage also lots of stories that are easy to follow tons of fun reading there then come back with specific questions
Best of luck to you

[ Parent ]

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by kurt on Sun May 11th, 2008 at 05:01:19 PM MST
(User Info)

wpowokal, tell the new wizz bang camera operator that your pictures are 840 x 600 pixels max allowed here is 640 x 480 pixels mite wanna do something about that next time you post pictures please.

i am sorry to hear that your inverter failed i hope you are able to fix it.

http://www.reresource.org/

IRC

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by ruddycrazy on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 01:43:32 AM MST
(User Info)

Hi Allan,
Was it possible that got a surge into the 240 volt output from somewhere, as if that is the case you can kiss goodbye to that full bank of fets. This happened to my original inverter that forced us to upgrade in a hurry. Personally I haven't ever seen a SEA inverter so I know nothing about them but I reckon if you change the caps turn it on unloaded and hopefully it will work. Then try a small load at first then increase the load and see if trips. If it does time to take to the inverter hospital. Our selectronic SA32 inverter has been going now for near 5 years and I hope it doesn't go out in simpathy with yours.

Cheers Bryan

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by wpowokal on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 06:24:28 AM MST
(User Info)

Hi Bryan, while anything is possible it was the middle of the night no storms etc, but to be fair it does have a hard life. On thing I had not done was blow out the summer dust befor the wet weather, so that's a possibility.

I am hopefull, in any case I may as well replace the caps as be charged twice their value to have someone else replace them.

The SEA/Selectronics/Latronics inverters are all very similar, I would have no problem using any one of those.

allan
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
[ Parent ]

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by PaulJ on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 04:27:28 AM MST
(User Info)

Hmmm, my SEA inverter is 3 1/2 years old...

Paul.

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by Opera House on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 06:34:32 AM MST
(User Info)

If replacing those caps, I would add an additional two to four more. All caps have an ESR that can result in heating. A cap rated at 85C will only last a couple years if used full time. External caps at the input terminals will work just as well.

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by wpowokal on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 05:44:48 PM MST
(User Info)

Good point, I will see if it fires up first, it does work hard particually in summer when ambient is in the high 30's to early 40's.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
[ Parent ]

Re: Inverter saga (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by wpowokal on Fri May 30th, 2008 at 06:31:36 AM MST
(User Info)

Replaced the 4x 10,000uF 40v capacitors with 10,000uF 63V ones, powered it up and all seemed well, tried increasing loads all is very well, they show all signes of overheating.

Magic smoke had escaped from two of the capacitors

Since the replacements were physically larger(higher voltage) they just fit.

I haven't returned it to full service yet but am confident all is well.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

Inverter saga | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 editorial)

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