Post a image of the inside of your inverter/mppt

[Gerlach]

I always like to see how the inside of electronics work and how they are build and look. There is a lot of different brands on the market and they all look different inside. So lets post images of how your inverter or mppt looks like inside. "please don't break the seal on your unit if it's still under warranty" 

So let I start. So after last week after popping in by MLT head office, and seeing how this units looks like inside, I bought one for my setup. Everything in this units is oversize. This unit weight is 77kg.

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1 hour ago, Gerlach said:

MLT

Big old low-frequency design. Similar to Victron, and I know in Australia Seletronic is also of this kind. Generally rumoured to be of lower efficiency, but I think it has a bit more "magnetic mass" to it for starting those large loads (although again, the literature seems to suggest this is no longer such a big problem for the "transformerless" designs).

This is a smaller 1.6KVA unit. Big toroidal transformer up top, fan below it, below that you can see two of the four banks of mosfets that make up the driving H-bridge. To the right of that is the power supply board and transfer switch. The control board is on the left, removed (but it sits on top).

Ignore the terminal block stuff at the bottom... that's not factory, that was me patching it for a short while until I could obtain replacement sockets for it

And here I was messing around with a broken Microcare controller. Never did manage to fully repair it (it can only charge to around 100W before resetting), bit I learned a LOT about MPPTs from that little rig. Even if it failed and at the time the idea of tossing a 5k investment into the bin seemed horrific, I think I got my school money back on that one! :-)

Edited July 11, 2019 by plonkster

[Gerlach]

37 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Big old low-frequency design. Similar to Victron, and I know in Australia Seletronic is also of this kind. Generally rumoured to be of lower efficiency, but I think it has a bit more "magnetic mass" to it for starting those large loads (although again, the literature seems to suggest this is no longer such a big problem for the "transformerless" designs).

This is a smaller 1.6KVA unit. Big toroidal transformer up top, fan below it, below that you can see two of the four banks of mosfets that make up the driving H-bridge. To the right of that is the power supply board and transfer switch. The control board is on the right, removed (but it sits on top).

Ignore the terminal block stuff at the bottom... that's not factory, that was me patching it for a short while until I could obtain replacement sockets for it

And here I was messing around with a broken Microcare controller. Never did manage to fully repair it (it can only charge to around 100W before resetting), bit I learned a LOT about MPPTs from that little rig. Even if it failed and at the time the idea of tossing a 5k investment into the bin seemed horrific, I think I got my school money back on that one! :-)

Nice about this stuff is, you can replace the parts individually in this units where with the transformerless unit it's a bit of story to find the problem.

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Just now, Gerlach said:

replace the parts individually

Most manufacturers replace entire modules. So the mosfet pack in the middle (called the power pack), that whole thing is swapped as a unit. Control board is swapped as a unit. And so on and so forth. Even the Axperts have separate boards that can be replaced individually.

[Gerlach]

OOOOo yes, I see MLT is using the same old design in there new units to. check the touch screen in this unit. Looks like a massive printer. heheheheh  https://www.designmakeconnect.com/our-design-projects/mlt-inverters/

[Gerlach]

2 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Most manufacturers replace entire modules. So the mosfet pack in the middle (called the power pack), that whole thing is swapped as a unit. Control board is swapped as a unit. And so on and so forth.

Thanks what i like about that.

2 minutes ago, plonkster said:

 Even the Axperts have separate boards that can be replaced individually.

Not really with the new units. The PWM or MPPT is a separate board but the rest of the stuff is all on one board. I got 2 of this units that is faulty at home. One with a code 9 that i can't find the problem and other one where i replace the mosfets and stuff around it and still white smoke popping up. Cut my lost on that and expensive school fees. 

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12 minutes ago, Gerlach said:

same old design

You should look at some Yamaha home entertainment systems. 80s analog amplifier electronics at the bottom, fancy modern surface mount bluetooth/processor board on top Cause why mess with it if it works?

[Gerlach]

2 minutes ago, plonkster said:

You should look at some Yamaha home entertainment systems. 80s analog amplifier electronics at the bottom, fancy modern surface mount bluetooth/processor board on top Cause why mess with it if it works?

Jip Jip!!! Let we don't go there, I'm into high end audio stuff. Got of a collection of stuff. One of them is a Yamaha M80 Class A amp, it's a tank of amp and not on the light side of the weight, and then a musical fidelity f15 with ecc88 valve pre, just over 25KG and then a Marshall Leach power amp. Old design and stuff but still performs really good. Class D stuff is catching on but will still not come close to Class A and A/B and Valve Amps.