Hi all, in Dec 17th after 8 months my proline 5kw inverter blew up, bad time of year no repairs or parts .So i bought new Kodak 5kw inverter which lasted a week and also blew up.I had to wait another week no wifi  4 kids on holiday , that was fun.I am off grid.

I had old one fixed and it would not work as batteries (3 x 200 lithium  ) had alarm lights on later to find  that the mppt was blown so took it out of ciucuit and all went well for 5 miniuts and it blew inverter again With a load of 138W.

When i run battery side with solar disconected the inverter comes up with Error (09) So i can only imagine that there is a fault on solar panelside what would make my inverter blow and the mppt?

Then the next question why are there no safty feaures in system . I am off grid and have electrical certificate for house.

The solar panel wires are laying loose on roof should they not be encased in tubing?

The most important question why is it blowing up?

Please help? 

So far on repair and new inverter i have spent 13000 and still no power .I need to know what is the cause of the inverter expolding diodes otherwise cheap or expensive they will all fail.

It's not too weird to have a Voltronic inverter blow up after mere months. That I have heard before. Sure, the bulk of them last many years, but they do have a higher failure rate than the more upmarket brands. It is also not too weird that it blows up again shortly after repair, that happens with all repaired appliances if the repair doesn't find all the damaged components and/or the real cause. Again, no criticism on the repairer, it is notoriously hard to find everything that might have been damaged. It is often better not to even attempt repair.

Kodak inverters are also rebadged. I believe the rebadge Ginglog  and Voltronic.

So here is the question: With 8 months and 1 week respectively, surely these are both under warranty? So one way to go about it is to have the one repaired and the other replaced, and to sell them (just be nice and note that it was repaired). Recover some costs. Then get a better inverter.

Also, you sure the installation was done well? PV strings not long causing too high voltages on the PV input for example? Oversized PV array? Inverter operating at maximum capacity for long periods? Extreme temperatures?

1 hour ago, Sandor said:

Then the next question why are there no safty feaures in system .

Do you have a DC surge protector on the PV input. If not, not saying that would solve the root cause of the problem, but it might have saved a couple of inverters.

1 hour ago, calypso said:

 

Is it maybe not worth buying a higher quality inverter? Mecer and Kodak are both cheap chinese rebrands.

 

This sounds more like a bad installation than a inverter problem, I would try and find the cause before installing a new inverter. 

7 minutes ago, Gerrie said:

This sounds more like a bad installation than a inverter problem, I would try and find the cause before installing a new inverter. 

That is my concern too. One might say: Replace the cap chinese inverter, and then blow up something even more expensive!

It does sound all over the place though. It seems as if he blew both an MPPT and an inverter. In the Voltronic (the 145V model) these are separate components, even if they are built into the same enclosure. We don't know which side of the inverter blew either. Did it blow FETs in the boost stage? Capacitors?

He says he has Lithium batteries, but we don't know the size. A nice LFP bank usually presents better ripple than lead acid, but it is possible to blow caps with excessive ripple due to an undersized battery. Just too many variables...

4 hours ago, Sandor said:

The solar panel wires are laying loose on roof should they not be encased in tubing?

That would never pass inspection in Australia. Cables need to be tucked under the lip of the panel frame, cable tied, and penetrate the roof with a proper made-for-purpose device.

It's possible that the cables have deteriorated in the weather, and have some leakage to the roof.

You didn't say what model inverter; are they they type that has up to 450 V or 500 V at the PV input? If you don't know, a picture of the sticker on the side of the inverter would tell us.

Its in for repair it is 122 volt from panels i measured voltage Its a 5kw  proline inverter. It takes max voltage 140 Volt input if i remember correctly

When i disconnect solar wires the system works with error so the solar side blew.

When i opened it it blew a dual diode.

7 hours ago, GreenFields said:

Do you have a DC surge protector on the PV input. If not, not saying that would solve the root cause of the problem, but it might have saved a couple of inverters.

 

no so what do i need

Best I can say at this point is you need two things:

1. A new installer (because it sounds like it was poorly done, with wiring loose on the roof and all, no offense intended).

2. A new inverter.