Hi

I have a 5 kva axpert inverter. For some reason my lightning protector got tripped. I was not at home so not sure if it happened during a storm. I have now reset the lightning protector but have no feed from my solar panels to the Inverter although it was working well for the last 18 months.

Are there any suggeations as to what I could try before I call an electrician. Would switching off the power switch on the inverter reset the inverter? Or do I need to disconnect all batteries as well to do the reset?

 

thanks for the help

Pieter

 

Are there any fuses between the solar panels and inverter? If so, they could be blown as well. Or if there's an isolator it could have tripped too. It could also be blown diodes inside the solar panels.

An electrician probably won't be able to help much in this regard, unless he installed it and know about DC current and solar panels as well.

Yeah, I initially didn't want to chirp in on this, but my suggestion would be a simple process of elimination, which kinda sorta means you have to know how to do this sort of thing yourself, and you have to know your way around a digital multimeter. You'd put it on DC volts (probably around the 200v range or so if the meter isn't auto-ranging), and then you'd measure the voltage on the screw terminals where the cables go into the inverter... and if there is a healthy voltage there (above 60V) then something is up with the inverter, but if there is no voltage there, then you move backwards to the next thing (usually a DC-rated breaker of some sort) and you check both sides of that, and then up the cable to the next thing, which might be a fuse, and you test on both sides of that, and so you work your way up to the roof if you have to. At some point you will find a voltage (assuming the sun is shining of course) and then you know the fault is at that junction.

From previous forum posts, I'd have to wager that it is either a blown fuse or a blown MPPT. Have fun!

Edited January 26, 20197 yr by plonkster

10 hours ago, plonkster said:

Yeah, I initially didn't want to chirp in on this, but my suggestion would be a simple process of elimination, which kinda sorta means you have to know how to do this sort of thing yourself, and you have to know your way around a digital multimeter. You'd put it on DC volts (probably around the 200v range or so if the meter isn't auto-ranging), and then you'd measure the voltage on the screw terminals where the cables go into the inverter... and if there is a healthy voltage there (above 60V) then something is up with the inverter, but if there is no voltage there, then you move backwards to the next thing (usually a DC-rated breaker of some sort) and you check both sides of that, and then up the cable to the next thing, which might be a fuse, and you test on both sides of that, and so you work your way up to the roof if you have to. At some point you will find a voltage (assuming the sun is shining of course) and then you know the fault is at that junction.

From previous forum posts, I'd have to wager that it is either a blown fuse or a blown MPPT. Have fun!

Hopefully just a blown fuse.