I have this inverter and i live off-grid and when there isn't enough sun, i charge my battery bank using a gasoline inverter power generator. Worked great for the last 2 years, but last evening suddenly the generator got into protection mode and cut the output power, even if i usually charge with about 50% of the maximum rated power of the generator. I do this because the inverter bypasses all the house to the generator when is running, so i let some power for the house consumers.

I restarted the generator and when i try to charge again, i se the voltage and the frequency on the inverter's screen (230v and 50hz) and then the inverter tries to switch to the generator for a fraction of second and switches back. I hear the relay clicking on and off fast, then it waits for 2-3 seconds and repeats. No error code on the inverter.

Does anyone have an idea what could cause that? 

I added consumers directly on the generator and they are working fine, i also checked the voltage and frequency and they correspond to what the inverter sees, so i don't think that the problem is from the generator.

 

PS: the inverter settings are the same for the last 2 years, so it's not from there.

Thank you.

5 hours ago, mariusvaida said:

I hear the relay clicking on and off fast, then it waits for 2-3 seconds and repeats.

That suggests to me that the power supply inside the inverter is marginal. Switching on two more relays is too much for it, and the power supply collapses, the relay drops out, reducing the power supply load, the power supply voltage recovers, and the cycle continues. But that's a pretty wild guess. The power supply would be the +12 V supply, which is important for all sorts of things, so I'd expect things to go pretty wild if that was the case. So maybe it's just a fault with the relay driver. They do attempt to reduce the voltage across the relay coil after it has pulled in; the capacitors in that circuit may be dried out and causing the voltage to reduce before the relay has pulled in properly.

5 hours ago, mariusvaida said:

PS: the inverter settings are the same for the last 2 years, so it's not from there.

You are probably right, but it's worth checking because it's possible that the tiny EEPROM chip that stores the settings is faulty or glitching. But hopefully you have already checked the settings.

Thanks @Coulomb for the answer. I tried to change a few settings with no success.

Next week should arrive a Deye inverter since i'm sick about the issues with the Voltronic ones, hopefully it worths the extra money and then i will be able to debug it more in depth, because i need power until then and thanks God that the rest of the inverter runs fine (until now, finger crossed).

Last year in a morning i found that the inverter is switched off so i opened it and i found a capacitor that was a bit bulged, i change it and it started fine and since then it was running without issues, so it might be the capacitors that got old. The inverter runs for exactly 3 years now 24/24 and until a month a go it was in a shed, where in the summer the temperature exceeded 30C.

Hopefully it will be able to run a few days more.

Thanks again,

Marius.

 

PS: the capacitor was exactly in the power supply area, so it worth checking more carefully there.

Edited December 2, 20232 yr by mariusvaida