BajaNomad

Inverter repair in BCS?

Mula - 5-11-2015 at 07:38 AM

Our older ProSine 1000 inverter is giving us the message DCDC Shutdown.

Wonder if there is anyone/anywhere in BCS to take it to for repair - or if it is repairable?

Thanks, in advance, for any suggestions.

willyAirstream - 5-11-2015 at 08:49 AM

Marcos Cannet at Cannet Auto service is a master of all things electrical. Mulege, across from the paint store. He has re build alternators, pressure washers, blenders, fans, battery chargers and an inverter for me over the years ( before I learned to move everything in flood season) :)

Bruce R Leech - 5-11-2015 at 08:55 AM

I agree with willyAirstream , Marcos Cannet is tops and has Integrity also.

Bob and Susan - 5-11-2015 at 09:11 AM

actually THIS is the guy for your repair

his name is Jim...call him first to see if the repair is worth it
he's in chino California...about 2 hours north of the border
(call in the morning when he answers)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JB-Inverter-Repair-service-Trace-Xan...

usually its parts that are hard to get

but if its repairable he's the guy

I searched everywhere for a reliable person

Mula - 5-11-2015 at 09:33 AM

Perfect. Thanks.
I am going to Long Beach in 2 weeks. I could take it with me.

Bob and Susan - 5-11-2015 at 11:19 AM

remember its only worth $500 new...don't over spend

monoloco - 5-11-2015 at 05:21 PM

I believe that PROsine, is a Trace/Xantrax/Schneider product, the company has changed hands so many times, and has so many products, that unless it's a generic off the shelf component that failed. it's unlikely that parts are available. Stick with Outback or Magnum, they are US companies, built like tanks, and provide excellent service if something does fail.

woody with a view - 5-11-2015 at 05:28 PM

anyone have a link to a repair guy in SD? I've inherited an Outback inverter "with a bad board" and it's out of warranty.

Bob and Susan - 5-11-2015 at 05:31 PM

some of the parts in my "outback" charge controller are made in china

same for rthe magnum

an outback is a great inverter but the "tank" part is all CASE
the inside could be in a plastic box...the good part is "plug in parts"

outback they make the cases really heavy so people THINK they are getting something different/great

a real "inverter guy" can replace those "diodes" and other electric "stuff"...anything can be "fixed"...it only takes $$$

remember the old saying..."water will flow uphill to money"

Mula - 5-11-2015 at 06:27 PM

This ProSine 1000 of ours was bought used many years ago so who knows how old it is. . .. .bought as a package deal. . . and been good to us.

But that said - really doubt parts are available and think we will go with something new and in the current technology realm.

Like all our Hughes Net stuff. . . We bought used systems for $125 or $150, brought them down, set them up and they worked fine for many years.

When the Exede installer came - he who has been doing installations since 1997 in the US - said these systems were 15 - 20 years old and no wonder they couldn't keep up with current technology.

So we are happy and will get another new one. Definitely not Outback, tho'.

No impressed with their products or service.

Thanks, all.

monoloco - 5-11-2015 at 07:07 PM

Quote: Originally posted by woody with a view  
anyone have a link to a repair guy in SD? I've inherited an Outback inverter "with a bad board" and it's out of warranty.
Best to send it back to Outback, they will make sure it works correctly and the turn around time is about a week.

ncampion - 5-11-2015 at 07:42 PM

Quote: Originally posted by woody with a view  
anyone have a link to a repair guy in SD? I've inherited an Outback inverter "with a bad board" and it's out of warranty.


Outback is top of the line in my book. I have two of their inverters and when I accidentally shorted one and blew a control board I called their customer service and explained what happened and they told me to send it to them they would repair it under warranty even though it was way out of warranty. They paid for shipping both ways, and returned it in about a week good as new. Good company, good products. Not cheap stuff, but you get what you pay for. BTW, try to find anything with a circuit board in it that is not "made in China" and you will the prize. The big difference is that it is designed in the US and built to US specifications.

Bob and Susan - 5-12-2015 at 05:46 AM

right now i have 3 Trace/Xantrax inverters and one outback

the outback is probably the best of the three...
i too have seen good service on the outback

the ONLY thing i dont like is that you have to use an "extra" mate to control it...beyone that its really good

in the 12 years i've had the Trace/Xantrax units
i've had to repair them several times...
as time goes by its getting harder and harder to find parts and someone that actually knows about their "guts" inside

when electricty finally arrives in the bay...i'll be FIRST in line

BigWooo - 5-12-2015 at 06:00 AM

Quote: Originally posted by woody with a view  
anyone have a link to a repair guy in SD? I've inherited an Outback inverter "with a bad board" and it's out of warranty.


I've had an Outback inverter go bad. Called their tech department and they helped me troubleshoot it. I bought a new board (and they gave me credit for the bad one) then replaced it myself. They have super clear instructions on how to replace it. If you know which end of a screwdriver to hold, you should have no problem repairing it yourself.

woody with a view - 5-12-2015 at 06:08 AM

i'll try that.

[Edited on 5-12-2015 by woody with a view]

larryC - 5-12-2015 at 08:48 AM

I have had Outback inverters for 15 years now and never had a problem with them. True you do need to buy a Mate to control the first one but if you stack inverters then that one mate, through a Hub, will control up to 10 inverters so you only have to buy the mate once. If it were built into the inverter then it would raise the price of the inverter and make your whole system more expensive.

Bob and Susan - 5-12-2015 at 10:45 AM

another thing i found was the only reason to stack inverters is because you want to use 220v like larryC

otherwise one is usually enough...
just another reason for the "inverter store" to sell you an extra inverter

larry...why do you need 2 charge controllers?
if you brought down the current at a higher rate wouldnt the fm80 be all you needed...
just a question for me later...

ncampion - 5-12-2015 at 11:35 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
another thing i found was the only reason to stack inverters is because you want to use 220v like larryC

otherwise one is usually enough...
just another reason for the "inverter store" to sell you an extra inverter

larry...why do you need 2 charge controllers?
if you brought down the current at a higher rate wouldnt the fm80 be all you needed...
just a question for me later...



Don't mean to answer for Larry, but as an old sailor, I try to always have two of everything. If one fails, it's better to have half power than no power. When you stack Outback inverters, it's not to create 220vac, (that is handled by the X-240 transformer) the Mate sets one inverter as the Master and the other(s) as slave. The slaves only activate when the current draw is going to exceed the capacity of the Master. Makes for a more efficient use of the power.

On another subject, I see Larry is running his system at 12 V so the amperage output of the charge controllers is pretty high, probably why he uses two.

larryC - 5-12-2015 at 12:56 PM

ncampion nailed it for me. I use 2 charge controllers because my system is 12v and one charge controller is not big enough to handle all the amps my array puts out. If I was 24 or 48 v then one charge controller would do it for me. Also I went with 2 inverters because #1 now I have a back up and #2 I used to have a problem if I was in the garage and doing some welding and my wife would be in the kitchen and turn on the micro wave it would pop the 250 amp circuit breaker on the inverter DC input. Now with 2 inverters that doesn't happen anymore. If she turns on the micro wave the slave inverter wakes up and helps out the master inverter and when the micro wave or my welder is done the slave inverter goes back to sleep and waits for another surge before it wakes up again. I could have saved some money by having a 24v or 48 v system but it just started out 12v and grew until it was too expensive to change to a higher voltage.

Bob and Susan - 5-12-2015 at 01:10 PM

larryC...if it works for you it works...but

you could wire the panels together and bring down the current at 48v
the fm80 will convert it to 12v to charge the batteries

i'm pretty sure you can bring down 5000w
you have about 2400w

as for the slave "going to sleep"...my stacked inverters never did

ncampion - 5-12-2015 at 01:45 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
larryC...if it works for you it works...but

you could wire the panels together and bring down the current at 48v
the fm80 will convert it to 12v to charge the batteries

i'm pretty sure you can bring down 5000w
you have about 2400w

as for the slave "going to sleep"...my stacked inverters never did


It's not the current down from the panels, I imagine Larry has that running at high voltage/low current, it's the current out to the batteries which has to be at 12 volts.

If the slave does not go to sleep, it is a programming problem.

Bob and Susan - 5-12-2015 at 02:24 PM

i was using trace units when i stacked...they both failed...i repaired both now they are my 2 back ups

the fm80 is the controller...it takes current from the panels to charge the batteries...higher current down (72v) means a smaller wire and cooler...less resistance

the charge controler (fm80) then charges the batteries at 12v

the voltage to the inverter is always the same 12v

using a welder with an inverter is incrediable ...
i don't have the guts

he probably bought more panels and his fm60 couldn't handle the extra current so he added another charge controller

now the 2 controllers fight each other about what condition the batteries are in voltage wise...one "fools" the other

i did that too...a mistake
but not a big one

i just split my system into 2 parts

larryC - 5-12-2015 at 05:16 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
larryC...if it works for you it works...but

you could wire the panels together and bring down the current at 48v
the fm80 will convert it to 12v to charge the batteries

i'm pretty sure you can bring down 5000w
you have about 2400w

as for the slave "going to sleep"...my stacked inverters never did


Bob
My panels are wired is series/parallel and run at about 65v into the charge controller. The hang up is out from the controller to the batteries. The fm80 will only put out 80 amps, it doesn't care what the battery voltage is 12, 24, or 48v. So 80 amps at 12v is all I get. The mx 60 will put 70 amps out to the batteries. Total I get 150 amps at 12v (on a good day) to charge the batteries. If I had a 24v system my panels could supply 75 amps at 24v and the fm 80 could handle that by itself and I would have saved the cost of a second charge controller and the cost of some large wire from the controller to the batteries. That's just the disadvantage of a 12v system.

As far as the welder, it has not been a problem. It is a 120v Hobart Handler mig welder. I tried to use my 220v volt 175 amp mig but it draws too much power for the inverters and blows both 250 amp circuit breakers so I have to run the generator when I run the big welder.

I agree with ncampion if your slave inverter wouldn't go to sleep then either there was a software problem or your master inverter was putting out so much all the time that the slave always thought it needed to be on. My slave wakes up when the master puts out more than 10 amps of AC. I imagine that with your system and trying to run a hotel with guests that are not used to being off grid that a lot more power gets wasted at your place than mine. It has got to be tough to run an off grid hotel. And the internet must drive you nuts trying to stay below your bandwidth limit. More power to you.
Larry

Alm - 5-12-2015 at 07:08 PM

Quote: Originally posted by larryC  
The fm80 will only put out 80 amps, it doesn't care what the battery voltage is 12, 24, or 48v. So 80 amps at 12v is all I get.

Yep. 12V bank limits the post-controller solar output from the Master to roughly 1000W, and current to battery is high. 24 or 48V bank would allow larger solar wattage and/or lower current. A lot of people are stuck with 12V system - the rationale being "it works, don't fix it" - but new homes are usually higher voltage.


[Edited on 5-13-2015 by Alm]

BigWooo - 5-13-2015 at 04:45 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Alm  
Quote: Originally posted by larryC  
The fm80 will only put out 80 amps, it doesn't care what the battery voltage is 12, 24, or 48v. So 80 amps at 12v is all I get.

Yep. 12V bank limits the post-controller solar output from the Master to roughly 1000W, and current to battery is high. 24 or 48V bank would allow larger solar wattage and/or lower current. A lot of people are stuck with 12V system - the rationale being "it works, don't fix it" - but new homes are usually higher voltage.


[Edited on 5-13-2015 by Alm]


I'm in the same boat. Started off when 12v was the only thing available and kept expanding. Someday I'm going to replace my 12 volt inverters with 48 volt and get rid of a few charge controllers. 48 volts would make charging the batteries much more efficient. A ton of 12volt batteries in parallel isn't a very efficient charging scenario, but it works. Every time I expanded it was cheaper to buy an additional charge controller than replace two inverters.

BigWooo - 5-13-2015 at 04:51 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  


using a welder with an inverter is incrediable ...
i don't have the guts



When we were building I had to go to Constitucion for the day. While I was gone, the guy showed up to put in our decorative metal hand rails. When I returned, the guy was plugged in with his huge welder just arc-ing away. Needless to say I was a bit freaked when I saw what was going on! He'd been welding for hours using my solar rather than his generator. My batteries were low, but my parallel 12v 2000w outback inverters did just fine.

Bob and Susan - 5-13-2015 at 05:29 AM

wow...woo : )
i think outback is still the best on themarke for now...but...things change

i still want to correct my system someday to 12v
i think we were told incorrect info in the past about systems


the loss of one 12v battery is nothing but
or 2- 6v

if you have a 6v system and lose one on a 48v system you loose
7 more batteries..$$$and POWER

inside the inverters 12v and 48v are simular...if you are stacking for wattage power then you are the same
the welder proved that

i corrected power from the panels to the charge controller by using a bigger wire and eliminating the combiner box and increasing voltage coming down
the batteries are much "happier"

Bob and Susan - 5-13-2015 at 12:50 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Alm  
...
12V bank limits the post-controller solar output from the Master to roughly 1000W, and current to battery is high.

... but new homes are usually higher voltage.


what does this mean...i dont understand

Bob and Susan - 5-13-2015 at 01:01 PM

here is what happened to me when i ran
2 separate charge controllers with
2 separate solar panel sets on
one bank of batteries....

the first controller would add voltage to the batteries "faking out" the second

remember controlers can ONLY read voltage not condition of the batteries

so as the voltage would go up the controllers would reduce the panel wattage thinking the batteries were charged when they weren't

they were fighting against each other and not charging the batteries

i would check the hydrometer and only get 3 balls out of 4
(3/4 full) when they should have been full (voltage indicated full)

the soulution was to only use one controller at a higher voltage and then let it reduce the voltage and charge the batteries


if im wrong or missing something please correct me

what did you do to avoid this

Alm - 5-13-2015 at 01:45 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
Quote: Originally posted by Alm  
...
12V bank limits the post-controller solar output from the Master to roughly 1000W, and current to battery is high.

... but new homes are usually higher voltage.


what does this mean...i dont understand

It means running higher voltage battery bank in order to get same charging watts with lower charging current. Or - more watts with the same current.

What Larry said. Controller outputs max 80A. With 12V bank it will output max 80*12=960W (make it 1000W because charging voltage is 13-14V).

5000W array on a good summer day could generate close to 4000W, so a single 80A controller with 12V bank won't be able to handle all the energy from panels. Which means - some energy will be lost. That's why with 12V bank he needs a second controller.

With 24V bank a single 80A controller would still output max 80A, but in watts this would be 2000W. It would (probably) still cut some power off during peak times, hard to tell how much - depends on time of the year, temperature, losses in the system and other things.

larryC - 5-13-2015 at 02:31 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
here is what happened to me when i ran
2 separate charge controllers with
2 separate solar panel sets on
one bank of batteries....

the first controller would add voltage to the batteries "faking out" the second

remember controlers can ONLY read voltage not condition of the batteries

so as the voltage would go up the controllers would reduce the panel wattage thinking the batteries were charged when they weren't

they were fighting against each other and not charging the batteries

i would check the hydrometer and only get 3 balls out of 4
(3/4 full) when they should have been full (voltage indicated full)

the soulution was to only use one controller at a higher voltage and then let it reduce the voltage and charge the batteries


if im wrong or missing something please correct me

what did you do to avoid this



This is only a guess but I would suspect a loose connection or a corroded connection somewhere between one of your controllers and the battery bank, causing one of the controllers to get an erroneous hi voltage reading. My controllers each put out about the same amps until the batteries are in absorb mode then one controller will start tapering off and the other picks up the slack. At that stage the amps have dropped off enough that one controller can put out enough to keep the bank in absorb.
I don't have much experience with hydrometers because I use AGM batteries, but hydrometers with balls are pretty low end, if it was me I would invest in a temp compensated hydrometer with the graduated float, much more accurate than the balls.

BigWooo - 5-13-2015 at 04:52 PM

Bob, do you have outback controllers? I have 5- FM80 controllers hooked up to a Mate to regulate them. They work exactly as Larry described. No conflicts at all...however, I'm not sure how they would work if there was nothing like the Mate to coordinate the charging. If you put a couple FM80's together without any coordination from the Mate, they might act just like yours did.



[Edited on 5-13-2015 by BigWooo]

Bob and Susan - 5-13-2015 at 06:41 PM

i've been reading...they need a mate to coordinate the charge controlers...its like a little computer

the controlers share the charging wattage load
as the batteries get higher in charge
the wattage goes down on both controllers

the reason they need 2 or more is because the controller has a limit it can release to the batteries
80x12= 960watts for a 12v battery bank

if they were using 24v system the controlers could use more power
from the solar panels
80x24= 1920watts for a 24v battery bank

if they exceed 960 watts to the battery a breaker will trip

so in reality a 24v system may be better than a 12v system if you use alot of energy


Bob and Susan - 5-13-2015 at 06:44 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Alm  
It means running higher voltage battery bank in order to get same charging watts with lower charging current. Or - more watts with the same current.


i still dont understand this statment...i really am a simpleton

was i right explaining it in the post above

wessongroup - 5-13-2015 at 07:08 PM

You guys are scaring me ...

Except the "Hobart" ... that's cool :):)

[Edited on 5-14-2015 by wessongroup]

monoloco - 5-13-2015 at 09:42 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
here is what happened to me when i ran
2 separate charge controllers with
2 separate solar panel sets on
one bank of batteries....

the first controller would add voltage to the batteries "faking out" the second

remember controlers can ONLY read voltage not condition of the batteries

so as the voltage would go up the controllers would reduce the panel wattage thinking the batteries were charged when they weren't

they were fighting against each other and not charging the batteries

i would check the hydrometer and only get 3 balls out of 4
(3/4 full) when they should have been full (voltage indicated full)

the soulution was to only use one controller at a higher voltage and then let it reduce the voltage and charge the batteries


if im wrong or missing something please correct me

what did you do to avoid this
You also need to make sure that ALL the set points on BOTH charge controllers are set exactly the same or they will do what you are describing.

larryC - 5-14-2015 at 09:01 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
i've been reading...they need a mate to coordinate the charge controlers...its like a little computer

the controlers share the charging wattage load
as the batteries get higher in charge
the wattage goes down on both controllers

the reason they need 2 or more is because the controller has a limit it can release to the batteries
80x12= 960watts for a 12v battery bank

if they were using 24v system the controlers could use more power
from the solar panels
80x24= 1920watts for a 24v battery bank

if they exceed 960 watts to the battery a breaker will trip

so in reality a 24v system may be better than a 12v system if you use alot of energy





You're getting the hang of it Bob.

Alm - 5-15-2015 at 02:09 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Bob and Susan  
Quote: Originally posted by Alm  
It means running higher voltage battery bank in order to get same charging watts with lower charging current. Or - more watts with the same current.


i still dont understand this statment...i really am a simpleton

was i right explaining it in the post above

Mostly - yes.

If breaker between panel and controller is rated to maximum ARRAY current (not controller current), - it will not trip when panels are pushing more watts than controller can handle.

The excess energy will just not get through. This type of controller will be "clipping" the excess watts off.

"Normally", the controller will not go up in smoke when doing this, though it will get hotter when running full 80A all the time. It's not good for electronics to run hot.