Damage to Inverter

[Joe Blake]

Yesterday there was a fairly violent storm going through with lightning to the extent that about 20,000 houses lost power for several (up to 10) hours. My neighbour (we live in side by side duplex) seems to have had his printer and modem fried by a power surge from one lightning strike (we have separate cables from the grid, but they are feeding from the same pole in the grid). After the strike and the power went out I went to kick in my inverter (SEA (Solar Energy Australia) "Tempo" model - 500 watts base load) from the battery bank and found it seemingly dead as the dodo, although it had been working earlier in the day (the "standby light" was flicking as it was supposed to.)

Under normal circumstances, in conditions like this I have the inverter off line, in order to maintain the power in the batteries (no sun to speak of) from the grid so that if something happens, I've got a few minutes (thanks to a UPS on my computer - my main concern) to get everything up and running. Although the inverter isn't feeding to any load, it's obviously hard wired to the batteries, so all I have to do is unplug the UPS (which runs the computer desk) from the mains and into the inverter, about 5 seconds with a "hot swap".

I haven't as yet started disassembling the inverter to have a peek inside (it's well and truly out of warranty now) but I can't seem to find any reason why this should have been caused by the lightning. The battery bank is connected to a small 240 volt trickle charger, as well as the PV panels. The inverter doesn't connect to the grid in any other way (there's no feed to it), and I can't see how the inverter could have been damaged without (a) frying the charger or at least popping a fuse, and (b) tripping the 12 volt circuit breaker on the inverter. (I won't know if the inverter has an internal fuse until I disassemble it. May have to find the manual.) Further, I would have thought that the batteries themselves would have acted to some degree to absorb any power spike, but they seem to be functioning okay.

Maybe it's just an incredible coincidence and the inverter decided it was time to shuffle off this mortal coil (and condenser) of its own accord.

Has anybody had a vaguely similar occurrence?

Joe

[Joe Blake]

Well,

"Lifted the hood" on the inverter this morning and saw nothing obviously amiss - except there was one very large (and somewhat dead) ant inside. It was difficult to gauge its exact position, because it fell out from underneath the circuit board, but it LOOKED long enough to have bridged to earth from one of the components. And there appears to be a smear of some sort where the ex-ant MAY have been ... so ... maybe that's what caused it. But I've put it in for repair. Bought a cheap temporary replacement (300 watt "modified sine wave" as opposed to 500 watts pure sine wave) today as well, but it doesn't seem to be up to snuff. Whilst it will run the TV and the digital set top box, it doesn't seem to be able to trip the relay inside my UPS, so I can't run my computer/ screen off the batteries. However, at the same time I bought some hardware necessary to be able to run the smaller of my computers and a 7" LCD screen directly off 12, so it may be a less difficult issue. Time will tell.

Joe

[Joe Blake]

Well,

In cleaning up the floor I managed to find the corpse of the ex-ant and even photograph it - and sure enough the expression "burnt bum" would be appropriate. I don't KNOW that the demise of this oversized formicator caused the demise of my inverter, but as they say in the classics I smell a rat - er - ant.

Joe

On edit:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/theant.jpg

[Joe Blake]

Interesting news.

I put the inverter in to be repaired, and even though it was, as stated previously, out of warranty, "they" (whoever "they" may be) repaired it free of charge (excluding $30 transport cost), and it is now busily chuffing away as it had previously.

(I even sent a copy of the photograph in showing the deceased.)

To buy a replacement was going to cost over $1000, so I imagine repairs would not have come cheaply.

Nice to know there are still people who believe in giving "good service".

Thanks people, whoever you are.

And thanks to the people at "The 12 Volt Shop" (just thought I'd give them a plug too, because seem to have done a bit of sweet talking, since I'm a regular customer. Many thousands of dollars have I spent there.)

Joe