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Fridge suddenly tripping solar system

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Our fridge, which is less than six months old, this afternoon all of a sudden tripped our solar system which is a 3kva inverter. We have a Renesola system and the display shows fault. When we plug the fridge directly in to Eskom it does not trip. Any ideas why this could be happening?

@Emma, There are a multitude of things that may have happened.

I suggest you do this:

Switch your inverter off, and back on again.

Stay on ESKOM for a sunny day, to ensure the batteries are charged.

Switch your inverter off, and back on again.

Try switching on the fridge again, if all is well, maybe your system is not correctly - sized or you got caught by the weather.

If the fault repeats, call an electrician familiar with solar, as there are many other electrical checks that he will do before he condemns your inverter.

 

 

1 hour ago, Emma said:

Our fridge, which is less than six months old, this afternoon all of a sudden tripped our solar system which is a 3kva inverter. We have a Renesola system and the display shows fault. When we plug the fridge directly in to Eskom it does not trip. Any ideas why this could be happening?

Adding onto Phil's suggestions, it could be that at the time, being a 3kva inverter, when the fridge started, it pushed above the 3kva limit.

Could be that at that time, a few other things where also being powered by the inverter.

My prediction is that the batteries slowly degraded over the last few months, and while they have always taken a bit of a voltage dip when starting the fridge, they have finally reached the point where starting the fridge drops the voltage just a bit too low and the inverter raises an alarm.

I don't know that inverter but with a Victron inverter it would have shown a clear low-voltage alarm.

In other words, it might not be the fridge. It might be the batteries.

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We found the answer. It was error code 5 = a short. Residue built up on the positive of the terminal, ate through the metal connector and in to a cable! All cleaned and repaired and system is back up and running with batteries on full. Thanks for all the input

1 hour ago, Emma said:

We found the answer. It was error code 5 = a short. Residue built up on the positive of the terminal, ate through the metal connector and in to a cable! All cleaned and repaired and system is back up and running with batteries on full. Thanks for all the input

Great stuff!

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