Damage to appliances after Solar installation

[Kobus Fick]

Hi, I need some advice please: A Goodwe 4.6 Kwh Hybrid inverter was installed at my house late in 2020. Shortly after I had two fridges, an alarm system and the automatic gate motor damaged. Seems like the transformers and fridge compressors specifically sufferred. These are equipment that I had for a long time. but put them on the inverter output as part of the installation. Needless to say, after repairs it now happens again and again, even after I put in spike prevention plugs. Damage happens together with loadshedding occurances, I think. The installer is quite slow to assist and I would like some advice in handling the issue. Will appreciate.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Kobus Fick

[PhillipMarx]

Hi

Im not fimiliar with your inverter brand and how its setup.

I had simular situation and i discovered it was due to the transfer time of inverter from grid to battery (most inverters is round 10-20ms). That quick dip is not good for the comperessor motor of fidges while its running.

Hope it may shine some light on your situation.

 

Regards

Edited January 22, 2021 by PhillipMarx

[FixAMess]

1 hour ago, Kobus Fick said:

Hi, I need some advice please: A Goodwe 4.6 Kwh Hybrid inverter was installed at my house late in 2020. Shortly after I had two fridges, an alarm system and the automatic gate motor damaged. Seems like the transformers and fridge compressors specifically sufferred. These are equipment that I had for a long time. but put them on the inverter output as part of the installation. Needless to say, after repairs it now happens again and again, even after I put in spike prevention plugs. Damage happens together with loadshedding occurances, I think. The installer is quite slow to assist and I would like some advice in handling the issue. Will appreciate.

So your fridges etc are all on the backup side, do you have batteries? 

[Kobus Fick]

Not all, but two small small bar fridges are on the backup side. I have two Pylon batteries 2.4Kwh ea. 4.8 Kwh total capacity backup. Not for a functional reason, rather bacause the electric circuit where the two fridges are also have the TV to be powered during backup times.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Kobus Fick

[Richard Mackay]

It would be useful to know what the fault was caused by. If one of your suppliers (of the alarm system or the garage door operator) can check the failed device and indicate the cause..

[Kobus Fick]

The fridge guy said that there was a short between live and Neutral.. 

[PaulinNorthcliff]

1 hour ago, Kobus Fick said:

The fridge guy said that there was a short between live and Neutral.. 

Was it a pre-existing condition or is it something the installer of the Goodwe worked on?

[JustinSchoeman]

Fridge motors are usually quite robust. Hard to cook them with start up/change over spikes.

I would suspect a waveform issue on the inverter.  Easy to test if you have the right equipment, impossible if you don't...

[Kobus Fick]

6 hours ago, PhillipMarx said:

Hi

Im not fimiliar with your inverter brand and how its setup.

I had simular situation and i discovered it was due to the transfer time of inverter from grid to battery (most inverters is round 10-20ms). That quick dip is not good for the comperessor motor of fidges while its running.

Hope it may shine some light on your situation.

 

Regards

This might be it.. I will take up with the installer.

[Kobus Fick]

On 2021/01/21 at 4:00 PM, JustinSchoeman said:

Fridge motors are usually quite robust. Hard to cook them with start up/change over spikes.

I would suspect a waveform issue on the inverter.  Easy to test if you have the right equipment, impossible if you don't...

 

On 2021/01/21 at 4:00 PM, JustinSchoeman said:

Fridge motors are usually quite robust. Hard to cook them with start up/change over spikes.

I would suspect a waveform issue on the inverter.  Easy to test if you have the right equipment, impossible if you don't...

I read up on the wave form issue and according to the information I obained about the Goodwe Inverter is that it has a true Sine Wave. So it seems not to be the problem

[Kobus Fick]

On 2021/01/21 at 3:11 PM, PaulinNorthcliff said:

Was it a pre-existing condition or is it something the installer of the Goodwe worked on?

The problem started after the installer worked on the wiring. The equipment that is damaged runs from the inverter at all times. The issue did not exist before.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Kobus Fick

[JustinSchoeman]

11 minutes ago, Kobus Fick said:

I read up on the wave form issue and according to the information I obained about the Goodwe Inverter is that it has a true Sine Wave. So it seems not to be the problem

It should be pure sine wave... Damaged output drivers or output filter could provide a really nasty waveform.

[Richard Mackay]

Do you have insurance cover?

[Kobus Fick]

On 2021/01/22 at 5:36 PM, Richard Mackay said:

Do you have insurance cover?

Yes I do, but need to fix the problem though. They might pay for damages but its recurring. 

[Richard Mackay]

Sure! But this kind of insurance works well. They will most often pay for the damage incurred and this is a comfort.

You do need to establish what is causing the damage however. I have seen rented industrial electrical monitoring and recording equipment that is installed on site a for some time that allows analysis of that supply. A bit pricey I'm sure but it does exist!

What I recommend you do is to connect a multimeter that has min/max readings to your supply. (The newer Fluke meters can do this) It will then measure and display the maximum and minimum voltage whilst it's connected..

[FixAMess]

If you go into the goodwe reports you can draw a report showing the Ac V as well as the battery V as well as the PV String voltages...

You will also see an error logged as well....

[Sarie]

Hi we are experiencing the exact same problem. We had 3 fridges and two automatic gate motors damaged. The appliances damaged are on the inverter output as part of our original installation. We repaired the automatic gate motors but 3 days later the exact same thing happened, even after we put in spike prevention plugs.  To our frustration the installer or Goodwe support does not seem to know what the problem is.   Did you find a solution for your problem? Would appreciate if you could tell us if you found a solution for the problem and what the solution was.  

[Kobus Fick]

No I did not find out what the problem was. I did a complete re-installation because of the refurbishing of our house and the problem seems solved. Makes me think the installer did something wrong. It now have surge arrestors and a switch between the batteries and the inverter. 

[FixAMess]

I'm not an electrician, but is it possible to have the load being supplied by the inverter live and the neutral coming from escom..I.e neutral and live mismatch?? What would happen if this was the case? Would mains trip, is it even possible to have the above scenario?

[Steve87]

The most important aspect is that the Inverter output neutral is never mixed up with the Eskom Neutral otherwise this can happen. This is the massive danger of not splitting the Main DB into Essentials and Non essentials staying the Eskom supply DB. 

Essentially what you getting is the AC input Neutral meeting the Inverter Output Neutral & it is here where the damage happens. I did the exact same thing on a site where it was a compete mess & there was no split done. Needless to say, a fridge, kettle & PC later. It's really harrowing but a Full DB split & very close attention to the neutrals prevents all of this mess. The Lives are easy to track due to the nature that it's colour coded & goes through the other end of the Changeover switch. The Neutrals hide a hidden trap & if the input Neutral meets the out neutral you have the start of all the issues. 

God luck with this but I can having cleaned up a few messes tell you the Neutrals is where the issue lies...

[Scorp007]

30 minutes ago, Steve87 said:

The most important aspect is that the Inverter output neutral is never mixed up with the Eskom Neutral otherwise this can happen. This is the massive danger of not splitting the Main DB into Essentials and Non essentials staying the Eskom supply DB. 

Essentially what you getting is the AC input Neutral meeting the Inverter Output Neutral & it is here where the damage happens. I did the exact same thing on a site where it was a compete mess & there was no split done. Needless to say, a fridge, kettle & PC later. It's really harrowing but a Full DB split & very close attention to the neutrals prevents all of this mess. The Lives are easy to track due to the nature that it's colour coded & goes through the other end of the Changeover switch. The Neutrals hide a hidden trap & if the input Neutral meets the out neutral you have the start of all the issues. 

God luck with this but I can having cleaned up a few messes tell you the Neutrals is where the issue lies...

I would take notice of this great advice. I can just mention even without an inverter the area that I battled the most on a DB is neutrals and that in office buildings where there were quite a bit of loads not on E/L and then the E/L protected circuits. It always a hell of a relief when after many hours that single black wire in the wrong place is found.