Hi all

I have currently an Superwatt 5000W 48 inverter out of service for repair at my lab

I have problems for rapairing the SMPS that failed.

 

I have replaced all the caps, mosfets (IRF840 an IRF640N) and the -12V regulator. The IGBT mosfets have been also replaced.

Actually, the inverter not starting (not any display) and i can hear a small whistling sound near the yellow SMPS transformer.  Bad voltages values at the SMPS output. The control board is OK (tested on the same inverter i have).

 

Any ideas for same him ?

 

I can send the motherboard for analysis if required.

 

 

Edited January 10, 20251 yr by fhocorp

Another picture

@Coulomb and @BritishRacingGreen did you have ideas for the issue ?

Best Regards

Is U10 oscillating, i.e. is there drive to the MOSFET? 

Does U10 have power? 

Check the timing capacitor; I had a SMPS stop working because the timing capacitor wasn't soldered properly. Also, if it's gone high capacitance, the frequency could lower enough to make it audibly whistle. 

2 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Is U10 oscillating, i.e. is there drive to the MOSFET? 

Does U10 have power? 

Check the timing capacitor; I had a SMPS stop working because the timing capacitor wasn't soldered properly. Also, if it's gone high capacitance, the frequency could lower enough to make it audibly whistle. 

@Coulomb

Hello Coulomb, thank you for your reply.
U10 has current, by measuring I could have voltages between 5v and 7V on the pins.

Le mosfet IRF640N (Q36) have pover on it (battery voltage measured on the pins.)

For syncronisation capacitor, can you tell me the component name on the board  ? (C....). I have replaced all the electrolitics capacitors on the SMPS area. There is one i have missed ? 

I have attached a picture of the SMPS.
Marked in red the capacitors i have replaced, marked in green the Regulators/Mosfets that i have replaced and marked in blue the resistors i have replaced.

The U10 is faulty ? 

@fhocorp, did you properly re-connect the cut legs of D54 and the other 2 next to it? it seems that the one, where I cannot read the D-number, due to the glare is not re-connected...

11 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

@fhocorp, did you properly re-connect the cut legs of D54 and the other 2 next to it? it seems that the one, where I cannot read the D-number, due to the glare is not re-connected...

@Kalahari Meerkat Hi

Thanks for your remark, resoldered the diodes but no any change 😫 

The problem is not on this side 😐

2 hours ago, fhocorp said:

U10 has current, by measuring I could have voltages between 5v and 7V on the pins.

The chip only turns on at 8.7 V. Recommended minimum is 12 V. It should run at about 15 V on Vcc (pin 7 to pin 5).

2 hours ago, fhocorp said:

For syncronisation capacitor, can you tell me the component name on the board  ? (C....).

The timing capacitor connects to pin 4. On my very old schematic, it is marked C67. It's a tiny surface mount capacitor (0603 in the old imperial system, I forget the metric size, perhaps M1507). It may be 3.9 nF (0.0039 μF).

Quote

The U10 is faulty ? 

Get it some supply voltage first. I had a diode burn up in the power supply path; D53 in the photo below, towards the bottom:

Edit: It looks like you've replaced D53; assuming that's OK, check the power transistor and resistors feeding U10, and the whole power supply start-up circuit. I assume that you're switching on the unit?

Edited January 11, 20251 yr by Coulomb

53 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

The chip only turns on at 8.7 V. Recommended minimum is 12 V. It should run at about 15 V on Vcc (pin 7 to pin 5).

Thank for the infomation

58 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

The timing capacitor connects to pin 4. On my very old schematic, it is marked C67. It's a tiny surface mount capacitor (0603 in the old imperial system, I forget the metric size, perhaps M1507). It may be 3.9 nF (0.0039 μF).

Ok thanks. I have tested C67 and no problems on it (measured value near the 0.0039uF)

59 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Edit: It looks like you've replaced D53; assuming that's OK, check the power transistor and resistors feeding U10, and the whole power supply start-up circuit. I assume that you're switching on the unit?

Yes i have replaced D53 for safety. i will check D3 diode. The main power mosfet Q36 has been replaced and all resistors R215 R205 R224 and R211 also replaced. I will do some measurement but i suspect CMS components near U10 that are probably faulty.

@Coulomb measured a 8,7V at VCC and GND of U10. The problem seem's not U10. The D53 correctly power the circuit and D3 seems working. Tested C80 and seem's fine. The C10 capacitor just near the DC/DC bus is the only one that was not replaced (not near the SMPS) should i replace it for safety ? 

This is very hard to find the failed component on this board....😵

 

Edit : Replaced the one that was not replaced (C10, not near the SMPS)  and no change

Edited January 12, 20251 yr by fhocorp

21 hours ago, fhocorp said:

measured a 8,7V at VCC and GND of U10.

Because that's right on the threshold of turning on, there is a chance that U10 IS faulty, drawing too much current to allow Vcc to go any higher. Or a short circuit on the output, but you've checked D3 and Q36. Otherwise, trace back from Vcc: Q10, Q9, and associated circuitry. It looks like you have replaced C7 (light green one); check its polarity. [ Edit: Also check that you replaced R212/R213 with the correct value; my circuit says 6.98kΩ each. ]

21 hours ago, fhocorp said:

The C10 capacitor just near the DC/DC bus is the only one that was not replaced (not near the SMPS) should i replace it for safety ?

Well, it's on the 15V bus, so it might be drawing excessive current. I suppose something in the bus soft start circuit (U16) could be drawing current even though that circuit is supposed to be turned off, e.g. the dual diode (D64?)  on the output of U16.

21 hours ago, fhocorp said:

This is very hard to find the failed component on this board....😵

They can be tricky, especially if it's due to excessive current draw. So many parts can cause that. Sometimes if it's a near short, I'll inject current with a current  limited power supply, and  check for millivolt drops across PCB tracks.

I've been fault finding an Elcon/TC charger with a UC3846; very similar but more pins and more surrounding parts. It was not oscillating, and I eventually traced it down to part of a sawtooth waveform being chopped down by parts far away. Its Vref was outputting the required 5.1  V, which is usually a good sign that the chip is OK. What voltage do you see on Vref (pin 8)?

Edited January 12, 20251 yr by Coulomb
Added note re R212/213.

5 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Because that's right on the threshold of turning on, there is a chance that U10 IS faulty, drawing too much current to allow Vcc to go any higher.

 @Coulomb That's my conclusion....

6 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Otherwise, trace back from Vcc: Q10, Q9, and associated circuitry

No voltage on them

 

6 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

It looks like you have replaced C7 (light green one); check its polarity

I have replaced with the same capacity and values, for polarity, it is marked on the board lol so i can't make mistake

 

9 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Edit: Also check that you replaced R212/R213 with the correct value; my circuit says 6.98kΩ each

I have replaced the resistors with the same ones, i have used the colour code for correct values. The issue was the same before and after replacement.

16 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

What voltage do you see on Vref (pin 8)?

VREF + GND = 0.08V

 

On 2025/01/12 at 9:34 PM, fhocorp said:

On 2025/01/12 at 8:54 PM, Coulomb said:

Otherwise, trace back from Vcc: Q10, Q9, and associated circuitry

No voltage on them

That's likely the problem then. The emitter of Q10 should have almost battery voltage via D53.

You might want to bridge the SCC connector with say a 10k resistor while diagnosing this part of the circuit, since C7 will charge up in about half a second, during which time U10 should have started and powered itself via D49. The current through this 10k resistor should turn on Q9, which should turn on Q10 and raise its collector to near battery voltage.

On 2025/01/12 at 9:34 PM, fhocorp said:

On 2025/01/12 at 8:54 PM, Coulomb said:

What voltage do you see on Vref (pin 8)?

VREF - GND = 0.08V

That means either U10 is faulty, or it hasn't fully turned on yet with the meagre 8.7 V on Vcc. BTW, that 8.7 V should be coming via Q10 and R212/213, until the whole thing is working. So I don't think that you've penetrated the conformal coating when measuring Q10 voltages.

13 hours ago, Coulomb said:

That's likely the problem then. The emitter of Q10 should have almost battery voltage via D53.

@Coulomb   OK, Thanks for the information

13 hours ago, Coulomb said:

You might want to bridge the SCC connector with say a 10k resistor while diagnosing this part of the circuit, since C7 will charge up in about half a second, during which time U10 should have started and powered itself via D49. The current through this 10k resistor should turn on Q9, which should turn on Q10 and raise its collector to near battery voltage.

For the SCC connector, you are talking for the 2 PIN for startup the inverter when solar is OK? (the same 2 PIN connector just near the 2 PIN for Power On Switch). If yes, i have already tested with a cable so shot this for simulating the SCC power on command ( I'm sure that one of the control diodes on the SCC board becomes conductive when the SCC board detects power from the panels and needs to start the inverter) and that allow me to do some measurements. Via the 2 PIN inverter power on button, the sound of the SMPS just work about 2 or 3 second max and no measurements should be made after (the U10 should try to startup one time and not continuously).

13 hours ago, Coulomb said:

That means either U10 is faulty, or it hasn't fully turned on yet with the meagre 8.7 V on Vcc. BTW, that 8.7 V should be coming via Q10 and R212/213, until the whole thing is working. So I don't think that you've penetrated the conformal coating when measuring Q10 voltages.

I am pretty sure that U10 is faulty, and i will replace it for safety. Via R212/213 i have 8,7V on the output. Checked today with my electronic shop for the resistors and it is the good ones i have replaced so this not the problem of the resistors.

Edited January 14, 20251 yr by fhocorp

@Coulomb after some research on AEVA forum, my superwatt hybrid inverter motherboard is identical to the PIP 4048MS. Did you have a fimware for that one for testing ?

Best Regards

8 hours ago, fhocorp said:

my Superwatt hybrid inverter motherboard is identical to the PIP 4048MS. Did you have a firmware for that one for testing ?

That still covers a few models. What is the present (U1, DSP) firmware version?

If you can't tell, is it a 64 V model, or a 58.4 V model?

It seems to be PF1, i.e. 5 kVA and 5 kW, is that correct?

I do have firmwares for these versions (PF0.8, PF1 64 V, and PF1 58.4 V).

@Coulomb Here is a picture of the inverter firmware information.

The motherboard is identical as the PIP 4048MS (same design and components)

@Coulomb Received Today the same inverter but in the 4000W flavour

U1 LC 72.70C

More updated firmware that my old firmware on the other ones (the SuperWatt are on U1 11.27 marked as 52.30 on Solar Assistant).

There is a way to update the firmware on the Superwatt to newer version for connecting them all in parrallel ? 

In attachments are screenshots from Solar Assistant with some informations of the new added inverter, only the superwatt are in parrallel mode, the new one is in standalone mode.

Best Regards

15 hours ago, fhocorp said:

More updated firmware that my old firmware on the other ones (the SuperWatt are on U1 11.27 marked as 52.30 on Solar Assistant).

I find that very hard to read. I think that you are saying that the 72.70C firmware on this inverter is actually more recent than the one on your so-called 5 kW models, which show 11.27 on the LC Display U1 page, yet report 52.30 on Solar Assistant. If so, and if 52.30 is the same 52.30 that Voltronic released near the end of the Jurassic period (it's very old), then actually it's running very early PF0.8 firmware, i.e. 5 kVA but 4 kW.

I also note that  72.70C is one of our patched firmwares, popular with some clones for a while. Grr!

So it's possible that you could just run patched firmware version 73.00e (note: NOT factory firmware version 73.00 which will fall foul of fault code 90) on all these old models. These might be getting old enough that you should pre-emptively perform capacitor upgrades on them, but maybe they are new copies of old models. The problem is that around that time, there really were some 5 kW models running 72.xx (xx < 40) and 74.xx firmware; one was a 64 V model and the other a 52.8 V model. These have different transformer ratios, and you should never run firmware expecting a different transformer ratio. That goes triple if you want to parallel them.

You could take some observations of bus voltage and battery voltage, and calculate the ratios. From memory, they often came out quite close (within a few percent) to 7.0 and 8.0 back then. Later models used rations between these values.

@Coulomb We can see on my screenshot that the Superwatt models (rated 5Kva 5000W)  have bus voltage at 433-435V. The new one (rated 5Kw 4000W) have bus voltage at 415V. So they are not compatible due to the transformer issue ? 🤔 They are all connected to the same battery bank.

 

2 hours ago, Coulomb said:

So it's possible that you could just run patched firmware version 73.00e (note: NOT factory firmware version 73.00 which will fall foul of fault code 90) on all these old models

Tha'ts i want to test on all the inverters. They will be more updated and on the same firmware.

 

2 hours ago, Coulomb said:

there really were some 5 kW models running 72.xx (xx < 40) and 74.xx firmware; one was a 64 V model and the other a 52.8 V model. These have different transformer ratios, and you should never run firmware expecting a different transformer ratio. That goes triple if you want to parallel them.

Ah shit this is the goal of the project to parallelize them 😫

 

2 hours ago, Coulomb said:

You could take some observations of bus voltage and battery voltage, and calculate the ratios. From memory, they often came out quite close (within a few percent) to 7.0 and 8.0 back then. Later models used rations between these values.

I have already theses measurements on solar assistant. 

For the superwatt inverters,i have a third inverter for pieces (the one at the beginning of the topic) that can help if i brick one of the others if the firmware doesn't work.

30 minutes ago, fhocorp said:

We can see on my screenshot that the Superwatt models (rated 5Kva 5000W)  have bus voltage at 433-435V. The new one (rated 5Kw 4000W) have bus voltage at 415V. So they are not compatible due to the transformer issue ?

That comes to about 8.35 and 8.0. I suspect that something is bumping up the bus voltage, but I don't know what. Perhaps try again with the AC-in turned off. These are all 145 V max solar models, right? So the solar can't be pushing up the bus voltage. [ Edit: Yes, it's 145 V on the label. ]

I'm assuming that the battery voltage was around 52 V.

It's looking good so far. 73.00 assumes 8:1.

30 minutes ago, fhocorp said:

For the Superwatt inverters, I have a third inverter for pieces (the one at the beginning of the topic) that can help if I brick one of the others if the firmware doesn't work.

Ah. That's good insurance for this sort of speculative upgrading.

Edited January 21, 20251 yr by Coulomb

50 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Perhaps try again with the AC-in turned off.

AC-In is not connected to the inverters

I will try the 73.00e on the Superwatt ones. The other one with 72.70 firmware (5Kva 4000W) could be also updated ? 

Edited January 21, 20251 yr by fhocorp

12 hours ago, fhocorp said:

AC-In is not connected to the inverters

I will try the 73.00e on the Superwatt ones. The other one with 72.70 firmware (5Kva 4000W) could be also updated ? 

@Coulomb Tried the firmware update on my SuperWatt 5000W inverter. Not working. During the upgrade procedure the inverter stop working, only the INV/AC led is lit and no responsive.The firmware updater tool display "connect fail" after 3 minutes of waiting.

The inverter remains unresponsive and luckily after cutting the battery wire and reconnect the inverter it is working. 

Seem's that the upgrade is blocked by the inverter.

After some research on EVEA forum, the two SuperWatt 5000W inverters are PF1 (5000VA marked and 5000W maximum watts, based on the sticker information). The third inverter (not the third Superwatt for pieces in the beginning of the topic but the 5000VA 4000W) is a PF0.8. Based on theses informations, the third inverter is different from the other and can't be parralleled 😥

On 2025/01/22 at 8:55 AM, fhocorp said:

After some research on EVEA forum, the two SuperWatt 5000W inverters are PF1 (5000VA marked and 5000W maximum watts, based on the sticker information).

Yes, I was more inclined to believe the firmware version numbers than the ratings on the sticker. But it sounds like there is a different reflash command for the PF1 models. I'll go check in a few minutes. 

2 hours ago, Coulomb said:

I'll go check in a few minutes. 

Ok, quite a few minutes; sigh.

So it seems like these might be the 64 V models with the 7:1 transformer ratio. If you can convince yourself that this is the case (maybe allow more time for the bus voltage to fall after the initial bus soft start process), then you could try patched firmware version 72.20c for the PF1 64 V models. Once again, you should not use factory firmware such as 72.40 (beware, there is a PF0.8 firmware with the same version number) because of the fault code 90 issue.

Edit: The 74.xx firmwares for PF1 58.4 V models use the same reflash command as 73.00, so these will do the same timeout thing. Scary as it may be, timing out in this fashion is safe; the firmware reflash process never progresses to the point of erasing the old firmware. That's why your inverter continued operating when you restarted.

If this update has the same result, then the clone maker has reserved their own reflash command, and it's not practical to discover what that is.

Edited January 23, 20251 yr by Coulomb

47 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

you could try patched firmware version 72.20c

Ok i will try this this evening 😄

47 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Once again, you should not use factory firmware

I want to use only your patched firmware 😄 Factory ones are useless and outdated for theses devices. Also a way to generate a custom serial number for the inverter could be very useful 🤔

49 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

The 74.xx firmwares for PF1 58.4 V models use the same reflash command as 73.00, so these will do the same timeout thing. Scary as it may be, timing out in this fashion is safe; the firmware reflash process never progresses to the point of erasing the old firmware. That's why your inverter continued operating when you restarted.

Ok thanks for the information 👍

 

50 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

If this update has the same result, then the clone maker has reserved their own reflash command, and it's not practical to discover what that is.

I hope that this is not that this problem 😥