(possible) appliance surge/starting watt problem with 6kW inverter

Driers don't surge in any significant way. It will pull 5000+ watts for several minutes at a time - especially as it warms to target temp. Try putting it in an Eco mode, it might pull a lower amount like 3000W until the end of the cycle where it will go back up above 5000 as it finishes.

With inverters, usually the surge capacity is at very short periods - like 1/2 second to 3 seconds. A drier doesn't surge like that - a motor does.
If you're running an electric drier, you'll have to relegate yourself to accepting that you can't run anything else while the drier is running.

By the way, be sure to tell us the exact error the inverter is reporting, as it could be a few different things - including voltage drop on the DC side.

My unit is not unlocked and i've pushed it to +5% overload for significant periods of time. I also have a samsung model drier, it works just fine.

You're right! I tried to run the dryer without turning the heating element on, and it ran just fine. But even on the "Extra Low" heat setting, I saw the inverter blow past 8000W, the power button turned red and the warning klaxxon sounded. The error message said "Overloaded", I think. But I shut it down quickly. And when I powered it back up, I didn't see the high wattage reflected on the "Stat" page. Is there a different page for more persistent system logs?

Also, does anyone know if it's easy to swap out the dryer heating element for a lower-powered one? I'm not worried about voiding the dryer's warranty (not even sure it's still UNDER warranty).

Yeah, the "heat setting" usually only changes the target temp. It still works just as hard to get to that temp.
Some Samsungs have an actual "eco" button you might be able to use. That's what i use because it keeps the power draw around 3KW. But maybe your model doesn't have it.

Not sure about the heating element. On one of their "smart" models, probably not - but on simpler older models, i would imagine it could be done.. There's a few appliance hackers here that might know.

I don't think they sell different wattage ones.  There are some hacks you could do, but the reality is lowering it a bunch to make it work may end up with it not getting hot enough to dry the clothes.  So if we are talking theory to think about about how to hack it.  So on older dryers if you pop the heater duct off there is a heater module in there that is a string of elements in series, if you added more elements to the string it would lower the wattage.  Please don't do it though if something went wrong it would be very dangerous. 

Unless his drier is huge, he should be able to run half of that wattage and get it hot enough. It will just take longer to get to temp.
Once driers get to temp, they spend most of their time with the heating element off, cycling on occasionally depending on the rate of evaporation.

Unfortunately, i tend to agree... Driers are historically one of the major cause of house fires. There are tons of safety systems put in place to reduce the chance of them overheating to that degree - but if you mess with it, it could be dangerous. Just beware if you decide to go that route...

FWIW, Genetry Solar has a 12KW unit coming out... Might be worth buying that instead of a "new" drier.
Having a 6K backup inverter would be wise anyway. 😕

FWIW when the inverter errors out (power button red), it's fully shut down all power paths--so there's no point in turning it off at this point.  You just lose any diagnostic info that was available.

There is an internal "peak wattage ever" stored, but there is no forward-facing readout for it at the moment.

Care to post the make/model of the dryer?

You might run a resistance check of the heating element--or see if it somehow sucked a sheet of aluminum foil into the heater coils??  A casual search online doesn't turn up any dryer units rated to pull more than 6kw. 

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it is internally miswired--or if you bought it used, potentially has the wrong heating element in it.  I mean, appliance repairpeople can do the weirdest stuff...I got a convection microwave pretty cheap because neither the microwave nor convection parts worked.  Turned out to be a bad door switch for convection--and a completely miswired magnetron circuit for the microwave part.  Go figure!

Also curious what the control board version (STAT page, 2nd line) & firmware (Diagnostic Info, top 2 lines) in your inverter is?

quick search for a Samsung dryer heating element turns up the following picture:

<img data-ratio="75.08" style="margin-top:10px;margin-left:59.4108px;height:488px;width:708.178px;" width="999" alt="81cU4gWsTnL._AC_SL1500_.jpg" data-src=" " src="/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

I think a visual check of the heating element would be the first thing I'd suggest.  Based on the design (or lack thereof!) I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if one of the power wires are touching the heating element--effectively shorting out a large section of it (and making it run considerably hotter than designed).

Or perhaps the elements may have fallen off the ceramic supports (which don't look that comprehensive)--and then short themselves out on the metal frame.

It shouldn't be pulling 8kw, that's for sure.

Quote

Care to post the make/model of the dryer?

Samsung DV40J3000EW/A2

Quote

Also curious what the control board version (STAT page, 2nd line) & firmware (Diagnostic Info, top 2 lines) in your inverter is?

Control Board: Rev A.1

Firmware: LCD 1.1r6, CPU 1.1r0

14 minutes ago, Sid Genetry Solar said:

It shouldn't be pulling 8kw, that's for sure.

I like your theory about a short in the heating element; it sounds easy to find and fix. I'll take a look.

50 minutes ago, Sid Genetry Solar said:

It shouldn't be pulling 8kw, that's for sure.

I didn't think about it... but the typical drier cable is 30A... which would be just over 7000W @ 240v.

Assuming this is a normal residential drier... 8000W shouldn't happen. Realistically... it should be tripping the circuit breaker, forget the inverter...

14 minutes ago, NotMario said:

I didn't think about it... but the typical drier cable is 30A... which would be just over 7000W @ 240v.

Assuming this is a normal residential drier... 8000W shouldn't happen. Realistically... it should be tripping the circuit breaker, forget the inverter...

Your guess is on the right track: the breaker for the dryer circuit is only 30A, which by my calculation should only allow 7200W, at most. But it never tripped; just the inverter. Maybe the inverter's internal breaker is more sensitive than the household one.

I'm gonna investigate Sid's theory about a short in the dryer's heating element when I get the chance. I'll get back to you.

Home breakers typically handle more than rated amount current for period of time, so less sensitive than some of the new breakers and most likely the GS. 

My dryer has a 5400 Watt element adding that to the blower motor its drawing a heavy load for the first 5 seconds it draws about 32 amps then lowers down to about 20 amps for a period of time until the thermal sensor starts kicking in, but mine runs the element almost constantly. I think the first 5 seconds increased load is because of a the wet clothes are getting moving.  If I run it without clothes that initial load is lower but still does go down more after the first 5 seconds or so.

Messed around with mine a bit, trying to get it to work with my generator and I wasn't able to get it working either it trips the generator breaker on my 6500 watt generator. 

I have found apartment size dryers run at much lower wattage, just another idea for folks like me that want a dryer in a cabin.  They are less than 1000 watts and the small size doesn't bother me much.  

The inverter trips out in a few seconds due to software readings--but a huge dual-pole thermal breaker will easily take ten minutes to trip when just above the rated load (i.e. 8000 / 240 = 33A).  They trip quicker when the amperage is in multiples of the rating (i.e. 2x, 3x, 4x, 10x).

A magnetic breaker generally will trip much quicker than a thermal one.  But most AC-rated breaker panel breakers are thermal; magnetic breakers are most commonly seen in DC applications.

Quick check of the dryer model number...it uses the same element I found a picture of.

Ugh........

That could also be part of the problem, a firmware mismatch.  If you've connected the inverter to WiFi, you should be able to run an update (set it to "Rev.") due to the firmware mismatch.  There was a bug with the regulation in the older firmwares (corrected around 1.1r3 I believe) that would cause wild regulation oscillations.  In some cases (particularly with air conditioners), this would result in nearly doubling the power draw of certain appliances.

Might suggest trying to update the inverter to 1.1r6 (it'll update both LCD and CPU to the same version), which might even solve the issue...