After a few attemps and the help of a power forum member to get a Motherboard for this unit from my supplier and Importer with no result , I decided to look at the clone motherboard . I visited the supplier of these boards . After inspecting the  board I decided to buy one . Some of the differences is . 16  75v MOSFETs was replaced with 100v MOSFET s . The 4 63v capacitors replaced with 80 v capacitors . The SCC connections to the motherboard is move up , now near the SCC .

 

The board is no installed and everything is working fine . Going to run it's few days . If everything is OK I will sell Inverter for a good price .

2 hours ago, Chris Louw said:

Some of the differences is . 16  75v MOSFETs was replaced with 100v MOSFET s . The 4 63v capacitors replaced with 80 v capacitors . The SCC connections to the motherboard is move up , now near the SCC .

This might be because they copied a later version of the motherboard; later models with 64 V support have all of these features. It's probably a 5 kW motherboard, and you are probably still running 4 kW firmware.

One thing to worry about is the turns ratio of the transformer. If it's a PF1.0 mother board, then it will have a 1:7 turns ratio transformer, and you are presumably still running firmware designed for a 1:8 turns ratio. That could well cause problems, off the top of my head at least with bus voltage.

To check this, you could use Watchpower or other monitoring software to check the bus voltage and battery voltage when the inverter is in battery mode (battery and possibly PV supplying loads). If you find it's very close to 7:1 (e.g. battery voltage 52.0, bus voltage 363 V, ratio = 6.98), then you should update to PF1 firmware (e.g. 72.20e patched firmware). Beware of PF1.0 running factory firmware, as you'll likely run into fault code 90 (error 90) in six months time.

It will be good to know whether the clone mother boards will work. It's also possible that these are genuine Voltronic Power mother boards, either officially or unofficially sold through alternative channels. Would you be able to post a photo of the new mother board, preferably a close up near some board numbers and/or stickers? One can never be sure, of course, but I'm pretty familiar with how the genuine boards look.

Thanks I appreciate your interest .The firmware on the inverter is u1 52 30 . I be glad if you can have a look at this and recommend any changes . I don't want to sell a faulty inverter . I currently run a 5kW pf1 offgrid and have a matching spare .

1 hour ago, Chris Louw said:

The firmware on the inverter is u1 52 30 .

Ok, that's quite old. From about 2014. [ Edit: and of course, that lives in flash memory in the DSP itself, on the control daughter-board, not the mother board. ]

Unfortunately, the bus voltage doesn't appear on your screen dump of Watchpower. It might appear in a later column, or maybe Watchpower doesn't show it. If not, you'll have to run a command like QPIGS to get the bus voltage.

Can you resize the columns, or scroll over somehow, to see more columns to the right? If so, does the bus voltage appear to be there? It should be between the low 300's and high 400s of volts.

4 hours ago, Chris Louw said:

The SCC connections to the motherboard is move up , now near the SCC .

I think I misunderstood what you meant by the above earlier. It sounds like it's a different layout.

The number on your first photo is smaller than what I'm used to, there are no slashes through the zeroes, and the number ranges (even number of digits) seem wrong. But I don't know the later motherboards at all well. I just assume that they don't change things like that, but they might.

In short: it doesn't seem likely to be a genuine board as I thought it might be.

Edited June 30, 20205 yr by Coulomb

The invoice states it is 4000 Watt board . I will spend some time with the Watch power and see if it will display the bus voltage . Will also send you a beter photo and try and get more info from their technical department .

Thanks

Supplier confirmd it is a 4000 Watt board . Can't get the bus voltage not able to use QPIGS . Try to learn this skill. Better photo of the SCC cables . Thanks

4 hours ago, Chris Louw said:

Better photo of the SCC cables .

It's just dawned on me that this is the configuration before they put the SCC on a board right on top, components and heatsink facing down so that they catch the air flow from the fans.

I assume that the SCC is still original, only the large main board was replaced, correct?

Yes only the main board was replaced .  Inverter is behaving good . I must just get a way to check the bus voltage . Thanks for your time . This is a spare I want to sell it in good condition . My next job is to replace the  80 v capacitors with  (10000hrs) from United chem-con on my 5000 Watt inverters . 

Hi Chris

Can I ask what you paid for the new board and contact details if possible. A friends board also popped that he wants to replace.

Send me pm

Thanks to @GVC  for assisting me with your magic tool to do QPIGS . @ coulomb the bus voltage with different loads .

 

21 hours ago, Chris Louw said:

@ coulomb the bus voltage with different loads .

Yes, those ratios come out around 7.9, which is expected for 1:8 transformers. So the firmware you have now is suitable, if old, and the motherboard does seem to be a PF0.8 type (4 kW/5 kVA), as advertised.

Hi @Coulomb

am I correct to assume that this one should be flash-able to your firmware 73.00e?

2 hours ago, wolfandy said:

Hi @Coulomb

am I correct to assume that this one should be flash-able to your firmware 73.00e?

Yes.

Good day,

I have a 5Kw unit that also had a 63 volt capacitor explode. I have replaced two of them that are in close proximity to the teflon heatsink under the board with Rubicon high temperature capacitors. The exploded capacitor went short circuit. I found 3 FETS with their sources and drains connected in parallel. One was short and I replaced all of them (HY3215). The unit turns on and runs through its self test. It does not seem to charge on mains. The unit is a 230 volt type but only outputs 220 volts. It seems to run on solar but frequently trips 08. I re-flashed the unit with the latest firmware. The problem remains and I suspect it may be the controller card. Can anybody confirm? Are new replacement controller cards available? Does anybody have a circuit diagram of the unit? Any help will be gratefully accepted. The unit was still under warranty but the local agents tell me the warranty is void as there is physical damage on the board. They suggest lightning caused the problem - but there was none on the day.

Regards Mervyn

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

The unit is a 230 volt type but only outputs 220 volts.

That could be a setting. Output voltage can only be changed with the load ("power") switch off, either by front panel or command / monitoring software.

Is the 220 V reported by the LC Display (or monitoring software), or multimeter, or both? 

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

It seems to run on solar but frequently trips 08.

Is this a high PV voltage model (max PV 450 or 500 V)? If so, this can be caused by leakage to earth from the panels.

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

The problem remains and I suspect it may be the controller card. Can anybody confirm?

Control boards can cause problems, but it seems unlikely, at least until more has been eliminated.

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

Are new replacement controller cards available?

Yes, but it's hard to make sure that you get the exact right variant of control board.  It may now be more difficult to get control boards  for the earliest models.

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

Does anybody have a circuit diagram of the unit?

There is a traced schematic for the oldest 5 kVA model here. The first post of that long topic has an index for various repairs, other schematic, etc. There is no traced schematic for the control board or the high PV voltage solar charge boards, that I know of.

Edited May 16, 20242 yr by Coulomb

Thank you guys, I will see if the circuit corresponds to the model I have.

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

It seems to run on solar but frequently trips 08.

In a PM, Frustrated told me his is a PWM model. So it can't be due to leakage from panels to earth.

See this post, and the index in the first post of that thread under Repair: Fault code known. The fault codes are in numeric order.

On 2024/05/14 at 6:30 PM, Frustrated said:

The unit is a 230 volt type but only outputs 220 volts.

In your model, the output is adjustable via the V command (V220, V230, or V240 commands). There doesn't seem to be an LCD setting. Actually, looking at 14.41 firmware, it doesn't seem to check if the power/load switch is off. But it's a very good idea to have the switch off. Have a power source available (AC-in or solar) to prevent the inverter shutting down after 30 seconds when you turn the switch off.

Quote

It does not seem to charge on mains.

That could be a problem with the buck converter; check the buck transistor and its associated gate drivers. See the repair index for testing hints.

Edited May 16, 20242 yr by Coulomb

8 hours ago, Coulomb said:

In a PM, Frustrated told me his is a PWM model. So it can't be due to leakage from panels to earth.

See this post, and the index in the first post of that thread under Repair: Fault code known. The fault codes are in numeric order.

In your model, the output is adjustable via the V command (V220, V230, or V240 commands). There doesn't seem to be an LCD setting. Actually, looking at 14.41 firmware, it doesn't seem to check if the power/load switch is off. But it's a very good idea to have the switch off. Have a power source available (AC-in or solar) to prevent the inverter shutting down after 30 seconds when you turn the switch off.

That could be a problem with the buck converter; check the buck transistor and its associated gate drivers. See the repair index for testing hints.

Hi, The diagram does not seem to be the correct one - Mine has two 6800uf capacitors connected in parallel before the 150 amp fuse. Effectively these are connected through the fuse across the battery. Does this unit use the same charger with solar as when on utility? It does charge on solar.

4 hours ago, Frustrated said:

The diagram does not seem to be the correct one - Mine has two 6800uf capacitors connected in parallel before the 150 amp fuse.

Two 6800 μF instead of 4 3300 μF is much the same thing. I think you'll find that much of the important circuitry is quite similar.

The only other schematic is on this forum in the Journey Started topic, for the Axpert Max series. See for example this post:

 

Note that the Max series have two centre tapped transformers; most 5 kVA models have a single transformer and a full bridge arrangement.

 

4 hours ago, Frustrated said:

Does this unit use the same charger with solar as when on utility?

No, the power flow is completely different. Ignore the red and green parts:

Instead of a buck converter, your PWM solar charger has essentially a switch. The panels are connected across the battery for bulk charging, but are switched at some 400 Hz when the battery voltage would go too high.

For AC charging, both switches are on, and power flows from AC-in backwards through the DC-AC converter (which then becomes an AC to DC converter) to the DC bus, through the buck converter,  and backwards through the DC-DC converter to the battery.

Since your inverter works in battery mode, the DC-DC converter and DC-AC converter must be working. The only difference is the buck converter, which must be working as a pass-through for battery mode, but may not be working as an actual buck converter when the power flow is in the opposite direction (towards the battery). For that, the  buck transistor has to pulse on. That's why I suggested checking the buck transistor and associated gate driver.

4 hours ago, Frustrated said:

It does charge on solar.

That involves only the solar charge controller in the bottom left part of the block diagram.

Edited May 16, 20242 yr by Coulomb