Hi @Coulomb

I am am in Sydney for a few weeks and I was hoping you might be able to direct me as to where to buy replacement Capacitors for my 2 X MECER SOL-I-AX-5M invertors. I suspect they might be a better quality here than I can get in South Africa?

As am by no means electrically minded could provide me with the type and number of capacitors needed for a thorough refurbishment of one of these units please?

Unfortunately I won't be coming to Brisbane but I imagine I can source them in Sydney.

Many thanks in advance!

On 2025/02/07 at 8:54 AM, OzzyMozzy said:

I am am in Sydney for a few weeks and I was hoping you might be able to direct me as to where to buy replacement Capacitors for my 2 X MECER SOL-I-AX-5M invertors. I suspect they might be a better quality here than I can get in South Africa?

I get this sort of thing from on-line warehouses like DigiKey, Mouser, element14/Farnell, and RS Online. I believe that as long as they take South African currency and post to South Africa, they should be the same parts at the same quality, and at a very similar price (possibly excluding shipping) once the currency is converted. Th days of walking into a store and picking exactly the parts you need off a shelf are long gone, I'm afraid.

You might be able to source these at a store like Altronics, but frankly I doubt it. They will probably have capacitors with very ordinary life and quality, which is not what you want when refurbishing something.

My post on capacitor replacements: https://powerforum.co.za/topic/14666-repair-of-axpert-inverters-a-journey-started/page/4/#comment-150549

This post has the power supply replacements, bus capacitors if ever needed (these are large and expensive, and don't seem to fail often), and Weber's recommended battery capacitor replacements. The latter are mainly for longer life, rather than getting something going at minimum cost. They may no longer be needed at least as often, since the MOSFETs have typically been upgraded from 75 V to 80 V (a dizzying 6.7% increase!).

There are complete part numbers and inventory codes there, with links to Australian versions of the parts warehouses. The Australian version merely means that the prices are in Australian dollars, and the shipping is expected to be to Australia. Note that it often takes 1-2 weeks for parts to arrive; it's rather variable. Hopefully the recent dock strike won't affect this; they should be shipping by air. If you want to order for arrival in South Africa, you can probably change the URLs by changing ".com.au" to ".co.za" .

 

 

Many thanks for this @Coulomb I was around in the days of Dick Smith Electronic shops and loved to spend time in there as a kid, oh well...

I will look into the above but a big thank you for replying and also for helping me out a while back with my invertors.

On another note, I am thinking of transitioning away from Pylontech batteries but as I have 3 x US3000C which are 2 years old and 2 rather old 2000USB which are on their last legs and need to be replaced I am wondering if Pylontech are worth the money given the influx of different brands seemingly offering more Amps for your dollar.

But I am not sure which brand would work with my Axpert 5kva hybrid invertors AND my 3 x US3000C batteries, would you have any views on this?

Regards

On 2025/03/12 at 1:44 AM, OzzyMozzy said:

I am not sure which brand would work with my Axpert 5kva hybrid invertors AND my 3 x US3000C batteries,

I have no knowledge of these new-fangled batteries with built-in BMSs. But I would imaging that the cables between battery modules run a proprietary protocol, so you'd have to stick with Pylontech. It seems to be hard enough to get new Pylontechs to talk to old Pylontechs, let alone changing brands.

But others may know for sure.